How to completely disable/de-install timeshift? (1 Viewer)

[einstein72]

noone forces you to use the TV-Server.
if you dont like it, dont install it and just continue to use the inbuild engine of 1.0 RC1.

If 1.0 RC1 wouldn't be slower than 0.2.3, that would be an option. Besides that, for some reason 1.0 RC1 behaves different to ffdshow deinterlacing.

fine with me, good luck.

Thanks. No hard feelings, but I'm getting to old for all this twitching and turning with settings and stuff. For me it just has to work (at least after some time).

Regards.

 

[infinite.loop]

noone forces you to use the TV-Server.
if you dont like it, dont install it and just continue to use the inbuild engine of 1.0 RC1.

If 1.0 RC1 wouldn't be slower than 0.2.3, that would be an option. Besides that, for some reason 1.0 RC1 behaves different to ffdshow deinterlacing.

1.0 RC1 is not slower in any way then 0.2.3.0 (at least not for me, and i have not heard other reports)

ffdshow i would never use for mpeg2. every test of this resulted in realy poor image quality.
the only codec which gets me a decent image quality without major glitches, is MPV.
yes i know about the AR (AspectRatio) issue, but this does not bug me at all, it just works.

as you can read in our knowledge base, other codecs then MPA can cause some serious issues when watching TV or videos.
but there is also one case with special TV-channels, where MPA doesnt work (well, no other commercial codec works also....)

so the challange these days is to find THE CODEC (which causes the less issues) .
i can say that i tested "all" the major codecs which are available these days, and after this i decided to ignore the AR bug in MPV and stick with MPV/MPA/coreavc simply because they just work for me.


regarding TV-Server:
you can not break it down to "client/server" architecture, because this is just "one feature".
there are many improovements compared to the inbuild TV-engine (which uses MS SBE), which makes the TV-Server far superior.
for the usability there is absolutely no difference.
once your are inside MyTV, you do not even notice that you use an "stand alone tv-service". except for such cool features like "multitune", or that recordings are done even when you leave MyTV and close MP. etc.
TV-Engines comparison​

 

[einstein72]

Even without the codec woes, I still encounter the dreadfull 'Unable to start timeshifting. No video/audio detected' when trying to swap channels on my FloppyDTV and 1.0 RC1, a real showstopper. For some reason this problem is not there in version 0.2.3. (same pc, same codecs)

 

[infinite.loop]

I still encounter the dreadfull 'Unable to start timeshifting. No video/audio detected' when trying to swap channels on my FloppyDTV and 1.0 RC1

my live system uses MP 1.0 RC1 + svn build from 2008.05.10 with the following tv-cards

• Hauppauge Nova-T (USB Stick)
• floppyDTV-S
• floppyDTV-S2
• skystar2 (with latest RC bda drivers)

i can say that my system is heaviely used the whole day by my wife and the kids (because they are ill since 2 weeks, the usage has increased even more ).

i have not encountered a single "Unable to start timeshifting. No video/audio detected" since..... i would say 6 months.
if you have a decent bugreport somewhere with logs from that issue, then i can take a look.

 

[einstein72]

i have not encountered a single "Unable to start timeshifting. No video/audio detected" since..... i would say 6 months.
if you have a decent bugreport somewhere with logs from that issue, then i can take a look.

I will post one when I'm back from work.

Regards.

 

[Phin]

With regards to time shifting, some times it would be advantageous to be able to either decrease the amount of time or better turn it off. For me this is mainly when recording from my camcorder to disk.
The best case scenario would be able to turn it off for specific channels For example turn it off for the S video and composite inputs on my wintv 900h but leave it going for the tv.
Also can you force the time shifting to use ram instead of disk. this would improve the performance no end.
I have got mediaportal working quite well now and quite like it, I have found that the "no timeshift" problem is usually fixed by stopping and starting the TV Service in services control panel.
I have found also that trying to get different Media programs to "Share" the hardware can cause more problems than it fixes, S In my situation you are really best to use one programme that best fits you needs and ask the awesome developers if they can add features.(yes that was a big grease)

 

[DragonXG]

TimeShift or not to TimeShift

Not knowing what is involved with the Media Portal TimeShift [TS] process, I will apologize now for any argument that contradicts the [unknown] facts.
That said, and TS being a touchy subject, I would like to point out the obvious that TS is recording what you are watching. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the TV Server TSing every configured tuner all the time? Or just when a Client connects?
The problem with mandatory TSing , apart from giving the User no choice, is that it WILL impact system performance when recording AND watching TV on a dual [or more] tuner system regardless of priority.
Lets say we had a PC with just two dual tuner cards as the TV Server. If that allows 4 lots of live TV to be served to 4 different computers, then TS would be used on all 4. The drive would be going crazy and I wouldn't like to guess how short the drive life would be.
A nice feature would be to have a Client option to activate TS when Pause is used and Auto Disable when playback catches up to real time.
The TS file should also be stored on the Client machine so the Server doesn't work so hard. After all, the stream is already being sent to the Client to view, so just direct it to disk while the Client is paused... Play from the file when unpaused, and stop using the file when playback has caught up again.
How does channel changing affect TSing? Does the unwatched TV data go bye bye?
Is there an option/function to auto save the unwatched TS data as Recorded TV before the channel change?
All this comes down to allowing the User more control over their system. It gives them the choice to use the function or not.

 

[infinite.loop]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the TV Server TSing every configured tuner all the time?

you are wrong. What should it timeshift when noone is watching tv?

The TV-Server only creates the timeshiftbuffer if a card is actually tuned to a channel. Means someone has to watch MyTv in MediaPortal.
For recordings it does not create a timeshiftbuffer either.

The problem with mandatory TSing , apart from giving the User no choice, is that it WILL impact system performance when recording AND watching TV on a dual [or more] tuner system regardless of priority.

Todays HDD's can read and write with more than 60MByte/sec (=480 Mbit).
Now SD Channels have a average bandwidth of ~ 4-6 Mbit
and HD Channels have a average bandwidth of ~ 8- 12 Mbit

Now use your calc and find out how many shows you can record/watch at the same time.
From real life i can tell you that 10 are no problem at all.

Lets say we had a PC with just two dual tuner cards as the TV Server. If that allows 4 lots of live TV to be served to 4 different computers, then TS would be used on all 4. The drive would be going crazy and I wouldn't like to guess how short the drive life would be.

Feel free to use a RAM-Disc.

A nice feature would be to have a Client option to activate TS when Pause is used and Auto Disable when playback catches up to real time.

That is technically impossible since this goes against the way TvServer was designed to work.
Ofc. you could rewrite it completelly to get that done.

The TS file should also be stored on the Client machine so the Server doesn't work so hard.

You just move the workload then from one HDD to the other. There is no benefit. This would make the whole setup a _lot_ more unstable, and generate more networktraffic as well.

How does channel changing affect TSing? Does the unwatched TV data go bye bye?

So you did not even try that.

In the oposit to other receivers, the timeshiftbuffer is not cleared by Tv-Server on a channel change.
It is only cleared if you stop TV.

Is there an option/function to auto save the unwatched TS data as Recorded TV before the channel change?

a fearture is beeing worked on which will cause that if you allready watched a movie for 20 minutes and hit "record this program" -> the timeshiftbufferpart of that movie gets saved as well.
not included in svn yet, and not date when it will be ready.

 

[DragonXG]

Re-Education in Progress

Thank you for the information. But to clarify a few points I would like to reuse the 4 tuner Server example.
I figured the Server would not be actively doing anything if nobody was using MP. I should have mentioned the scenario was that four separate PCs would be watching TV on each tuner simultaneously, thus the Server would have to TS each tuner AND stream the media to each PC.
The idea of having Client side TS is to take this burden off the Server, especially for single drive systems, literally sharing the workload between computers and leaving the Server to record and stream.
I realize it would mean a different version of Server and Client, but it would be hugely beneficial for that topology... not so much for single seat installs.
Mind you, my preferred hardware is a HDD for the OS, and a dedicated HDD per tuner. Can the TS files be set per tuner to different locations? This would be a handy feature.
A RAM Disk would be nice, or an SSD, but either of these costs a lot to implement [64bit hardware and OS, replacement RAM, or large enough SSD to be viable].
Most HTPC are put together from spare parts, old technology, so it would help if the software [fantastic as it is, and better in v2] could be flexible in its system config as well as its function config.
I apologise if I appear rude, that is not my intent. I cannot praise the Team enough for all the work you do.
I just thought to point out an idea that could have been irrationally conceived.
Thanks for putting things straight.

 

[infinite.loop]

I figured the Server would not be actively doing anything if nobody was using MP. I should have mentioned the scenario was that four separate PCs would be watching TV on each tuner simultaneously, thus the Server would have to TS each tuner AND stream the media to each PC.

Not really.

Tv-Server is smart and does the following:

• Client1 watches ChanA -> Client2 wants to watch ChanA as well = TvServer will not tune the same channel on an other card, it will just use the card which is allready tuned to the same channel. so you can even go back and watch the entire TsBuffer created by Client1
• Client1 watches ChanA -> Client2 wants to watch ChanB which is on the same Transponder as ChanA = TvServer will not tune ChanB on an other card, since the data is allready received inside the currently tuned transponder

So only if 2 Clients want to watch Channels which are not on the same Transponder, Tv-Server will actually tune the channels with separate cards (only if you have 2 cards ofc. )

The idea of having Client side TS is to take this burden off the Server

I am sorry, but this is just nonesense.
The Tv-Server would have to write the TsBufferfiles across the network to the client.
In case of WLan is is suicide.

The Tv-Server automatically creates an RTSP stream for each tuned channel, to which multiseat clients connect to.
Since that is created Serverside, the server has to access the TsBufferfiles which are now located on your client.
In case your client stops tv or powers down, all other connected clients will loose the RTSP stream and therefore LiveTV.

If you want to record what you allready have in your buffer, then you have to write the whole TsBuffer back to the Server.
I guess you can imagine the additional Networktraffic your idea causes, and how erorprone it is even with a 100MBit LAN.

Besides the networktraffic, this will also cause that the HDD on the Clientside makes more noise, which is definitly not what you want in your living room.

Bottomline is that the only place where TsBufferfiles belong to is the ServerPc. Not the client.

Mind you, my preferred hardware is a HDD for the OS, and a dedicated HDD per tuner.

That is overkill.
One Disc to store recordings and tsbuffer on is more than enought.

Can the TS files be set per tuner to different locations? This would be a handy feature.

You can define the location where TSBufferfiles and Recordings should be stored per tuner. If you want than you can even define a mapped networkdrive for TsBufferfiles and test that. Be aware that we do not support this at all, because writing that data across the lan _will_ cause problems.

I would suggest that you simply install MP and start testing it.

Most HTPC are put together from spare parts, old technology,

For my previous server i used old hardware (Athlon 3000+) with 5 Tuners, and 4 Clients connected to it.
That did run for more than 2 years and no issues (now using an "old" core2duo which actually needs less power -> less electricity costs).
I still use the same HDD since 4 years where all recording and timeshifting is done.

From my personal experience, there is no need for SSD's, Ram Disks, seperate HDD's for TsBufferfiles, etc. in a dedicated ServerPC.

SSD's and RAM discs are great if you have a singleseat setup and the HDD noise is annoying you. Thats all.