Fast forward / rewind completely broken in MP 1.1.0 on my system (2 Viewers)

[igalan]

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.0
MediaPortal Skin: Blue 3 Wide
Windows Version: Windows Vista SP2
CPU Type: AMD Phenom II X3 710
HDD: Western Digital 1 TB SATA2 WD10EVCS
Memory: 4 GB DDR2 800 Mhz
Motherboard: Asrock A780FullHD
Video Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4670 512 MB DDR4
Video Card Driver: Catalyst 10.7
Sound Card: built-in
1. TV Card: Pinnacle PCTV Dual DVB-T Pro PCI
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: 4.2.0.0
MPEG2 Video Codec: ATI Mpeg Video Decoder
MPEG2 Audio Codec: Microsoft Mpeg
h.264 Video Codec: ATI Mpeg Video Decoder
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Antec NSK-1380 ATX
Power Supply: Antec 350W custom
Remote: Logitech DiNovo Mini, Conceptronic CLLRCMCE
TV: Samsung 37" TFT Full HD (1080p)
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI

Two days ago I found some time to backup Media Portal 1.0.2, do a full uninstall with cleanup and install of MP 1.1.0 final. MP 1.0.2 was working fine, but since 1.1.0 seemed to bring a wealth of improvements, I couldn't let them pass.

To the point: now fast forward and rewind are completely broken on my HTPC. They don't work at all. Once you press F5 or F6 takes like three or four seconds to do anything, then at 2x the picture speeds up, then slows down and when you press play again you have no idea were you're going to be. At 4x or up the picture freezes completely until you press play and resumes on some point forward (or backward if you rewind).

Since this is a make or brake feature for me, and I've only seen two reports of other users with those problems, I want to know if something is very wrong with my system, and everyone else is enjoying their TV records without having to watch all the commercials, or just that most are fine with jumping forward or backward instead.

Please any feedback will be welcome, if it works for you say it, so I can look at your system specs and get a hint of what can I do to fix mine. Else I will have to go back to MP 1.0.2 where this was working.


As additional information, I've tried all combination of codecs, and none seem to make a difference. ATI Mpeg codecs are the ones I use, the deinterlacing filter is quite good, they use the correct aspect ratios, and offload some work to the video card. But I'm open to trying others (I've tried the ones built in on Vista, MPV/MPA, plus the ones that Nero 8 has). My system is pretty new and does nothing else besides running Media Portal (single seat). I don't know if it's important but I installed Haali Media Splitter, or else on movies with dual audio Media Portal played both languages at the same time.

As renderer I use EVR. I can't use VMR9 because I get major corruptions on the MP interface with it (but I think with this renderer FF / FR works).

 

[Andrew H]

Search around, the MP team is not going to fix this FF/RW issue but will address it in MediaPortal-2. It's been an issue of choppiness, jumping and all as you described on various systems, codecs... I found it also has very different character whether it's a .ts file, a DVD, or a file like .mkv or .avi you're trying to view. As you described, I use the SKIP feature now and there is a BIG SKIP you can program as well - on my remote it's the UP/DN button that triggers it and it is programmable in the MP-config! The default is 10%, relative but I reassigned it to 150 seconds, absolute. Now I can skip 2-1/2 minutes either direction and fine tune w/Left/Right buttons assigned as typical steps.

I gotta agree, 1.0.2 was more robust and the entire 1.1 venture has been filled with challenges requiring more GPU to deinterlace, mysterious dropped frames, even playing liveTV has been a nightmare for some, as was ATSC tuning the same channel repeatedly (now it's expanded to DVB tuners too), timeline (progress bar) graphics... I used 1.0.2 as an in-built tuner application and it did what it did just grande. MP 1.1 dropped the in-built in favor of the Server/Client archetecture which runs ok and (apparently) allows other clients to access the server. I just need the one-seat for my HTPC to run flawlessly. Oh well... As for now I'm using MP 1.1 Final, StreamedMP (for the 12-channel TV-Guide format) and struggling around with TV-Series.

Have you looked into ComSkip to do your commercial removal? I've not tried it but it could be an even nicer solution and would allow you to remain current on MP 1.1

 

[igalan]

I know very well the internal TV engine, I rebuilt much of the scheduler and related parts for the latest releases of Media Portal (1.0.X) .

But the problem isn't because of the TV Server or the internal TV engine, I had MP 1.0.2 with the TV Server and FF / FR worked fine from 2x to 32x. Unfortunately my knowledge about coding media interfaces is very limited, so right know I just want to know if it's working for someone else. Maybe it works with Nvidia cards, and not ATI, or maybe there's some combination of codecs that I haven't tried. Thats what I'm looking for right now.

 

[Owlsroost]

The FF problem is still on the radar (but I don't have much free time to look at it at the moment) - you might want to keep an eye on https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/general-development-no-feature-request-here-48/mp1-evr-presenter-dshowhelper-community-development-81148/

Tony

 

[tourettes]

Please note that there is multiple different reasons why FF / REW functionality is working "randomly"

• Audio renderer(s) aren't supporting more than 2.0x speed (Windows 7 seems to have up to 4.0x)
• TsReader doesn't support FF/REW propertly (it should modify the timestamps & send only I-frames when speed is more than 4.0x to make sure CPU can decode the video content in time)
• Source filters might not drop non-I-Frames on faster playback (MD DVD navigator is only one than I know behaves correctly)
• CPU might limit the video decoding on higher speeds (hence source filters should drop non I-Frames)
• MP's EVR presenter might not work optimally

As you can see there are already few issues in the list that are out of control for the MP developers.

 

[igalan]

Thanks for the tips.

• Audio renderers are the same now with MP 1.1.0 as they were with MP 1.0.2, so the problem doesn't seem to be here.
• If the TsReader is the problem, I guess that nobody should be able to FF/FR. Unless it's only part of the problem and there must be something else at play before a problem crops up.
• Source filters should be the same now as when I had 1.0.2, so... Nope.
• I have a triple core CPU, more than capable of decoding video at any speed. Well, if my really old AMD XP2500 HTPC could do FF/FR with MP 1.0.X, I should be more than covered now.
• Since VMR9 doesn't work on my system, if that's the problem I'm stuck it seems.

Owlsroost, I'll try with your patched dshowhelper dll, and see if it makes a difference. I still don't understand what it has to do with FF/FR, because I don't have problems with stuttering at 1x speed. But at this point anything I can try is welcome.

When I worked my way on the code of Media Portal, it was evident that DirectX programing and in general working with media files was a huge puzzle with may pieces to put together in ways not always clear. And with some severely broken out of the box. I'm wondering if something that works reliable can be made with Windows underneath (not saying that Linux is any better, I don't really know).

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

This has been so bad for so long, that the whole household just uses skip steps, necessary if comskip does not work

 

[Owlsroost]

This has been so bad for so long, that the whole household just uses skip steps, necessary if comskip does not work

Me too - I don't even have the FF/RW buttons mapped on the remote.....

As Tourettes said there's any number of variables involved with different splitters, codecs, renderers etc e.g. on my system I have some 24fps H.264 HD trailers as .mov files - these FF almost perfectly at x2 and x4 (using the Sonic/Roxio mp4 splitter filter + PDVD10 codec) whereas 50Hz interlaced MPEG2 in an MKV container (Haali splitter) is pretty hopeless.

Tony

 

[igalan]

Ok, it's crystal clear now. Thanks for the information, at least now I know that it's pointless spending more time to try and find a workaround. Unfortunately that means that I have no other option besides going back to Media Portal 1.0.2 (as I said this version had perfectly functional FF / FR for me). Comskip would not work for my needs, very often I watch time-shifted TV and need to move forward of backward.

Time to backup, uninstall, cleanup, install and restore. Too bad I can't move forward at this time.

 

[tourettes]

Ok, it's crystal clear now. Thanks for the information, at least now I know that it's pointless spending more time to try and find a workaround. Unfortunately that means that I have no other option besides going back to Media Portal 1.0.2 (as I said this version had perfectly functional FF / FR for me). Comskip would not work for my needs, very often I watch time-shifted TV and need to move forward of backward.

Time to backup, uninstall, cleanup, install and restore. Too bad I can't move forward at this time.

Is using skip steps that bad solution that it weights more than the benefits and numerous fixes in 1.1.0? Please remmeber than skip steps is in many cases much faster way to get to the correct playback position than the FF/REW.