Lightpack help! (7 Viewers)

[zekaja]

I have tried lowering the FPS and play around with the delay time, but it only shows if i use the mediaportal capture mode... I can run it at max with no delay in ambibox, and dont see any flicker when playing video file from mediaplayer .... If i play files from mediaportal i do not see any fps hits over 30, in ambibox.

Run MediaPortal in windowed mode, but maximize the window size to entire screen. Then have task manager and/or your favorite app such as HWMonitor run in the background to monitor CPU/task usage.

I know MediaPortal for me on Titan Extended home screen uses an enourmous amount of CPU cycles (60-80%), but the moment I open a plugin it drops (5-10%). Granted I am still on MePo v1.08, but I'm tired of upgrading to upgrade, and it doesn't exactly bother me. Still such CPU usage would clearly interfere if AmbiBox was doing any active LED control.

I do not use the MediaPortal method to drive my Lightpack though; just AmbiBox itself. It works fine for me, and haven't found the time to mess with it yet.

Hi @RoChess .. You´re right about the home screen getting a higher CPU spike than in plugins. But my CPU never went above 30, and running a trailer from MP with leds on, just hit about hit the 15 cpu mark, so i don´t think this stress my system.

MP is 1.10 and i got an i5 CPU with 8gb of ram. @Lightning303 thinks it could be how atmolight connects to ambibox, or rather how it´s not connecting proberly to ambibox. I use the mediaportal capturemode, what do you use?? Do you let atmolight control ambibox??

 

[RoChess]

Got Windows 8 on HTPC, so I use AmbiBox capture method for Windows 8.

This way LightPack also works outside of MediaPortal for me. When I want to turn it off I use a custom programmed button on my remote to send the configured special key that AmbiBox is waiting for to turn on/off the backlight. The benefit of MediaPortal driven control is that you have finer control over things, and can also show alerts, such as make backlight blink red when new episode of Game of Thrones is imported

 

[zekaja]

Yeah I like the mediaportal capture mode, also atmolight has a really nice menu

 

[zekaja]

The error can be ignored, and has no influence on these flickers.
It happens when AtmoLight tries to connect to AmbiBox and for some reason AmbiBox does not allow connecting. Then this error appears.

I will have to do some testing with AmbiBox then on my system, maybe i can reproduce it.
Some other stuff that might be interesting to know.
At what framerate is AmbiBox running with MP and video running?
Do you have blackbar detection on?
Do you have enabled the delay feature?

Hello lightning303... Tell me if I can do anything to help Inn testing connection issue with ambibox

 

[Lightning303]

Hey,
sorry i didnt reply anymore .
I did tests on my own and can confirm the issue. I also tried lots of different things, like settings bits at different times, buffering the image, copying it in different fashions, change permissions and so on, but did not have any luck fixing the flickering .
There is a xbmc/kodi plugin for ambibox, which i used as an example, though it is in python, and even though everybody keeps saying how easy python is, i have troubles understanding all of that code.
Next step for testing would be to install kodi and try with their plugin if we get the same issue, if not, then the answer may be hidding in thir plugin code, otherwise it would probably be a ambibox bug.
So, you could install kodi and their plugin and try that out to see if problems are still there. Otherwise i will do it at some point, but not sure when yet.

 

[zekaja]

Hey,
sorry i didnt reply anymore .
I did tests on my own and can confirm the issue. I also tried lots of different things, like settings bits at different times, buffering the image, copying it in different fashions, change permissions and so on, but did not have any luck fixing the flickering .
There is a xbmc/kodi plugin for ambibox, which i used as an example, though it is in python, and even though everybody keeps saying how easy python is, i have troubles understanding all of that code.
Next step for testing would be to install kodi and try with their plugin if we get the same issue, if not, then the answer may be hidding in thir plugin code, otherwise it would probably be a ambibox bug.
So, you could install kodi and their plugin and try that out to see if problems are still there. Otherwise i will do it at some point, but not sure when yet.

Don't be sorry, you're helping all of us making a great mediaportal for free... Just thnx...

I will try out Kodi tonight or maybe tomorrow, then we see how it reacts to ambibox.. I'll get back real soon..

 

[Rick164]

Hey,
sorry i didnt reply anymore .
I did tests on my own and can confirm the issue. I also tried lots of different things, like settings bits at different times, buffering the image, copying it in different fashions, change permissions and so on, but did not have any luck fixing the flickering .
There is a xbmc/kodi plugin for ambibox, which i used as an example, though it is in python, and even though everybody keeps saying how easy python is, i have troubles understanding all of that code.
Next step for testing would be to install kodi and try with their plugin if we get the same issue, if not, then the answer may be hidding in thir plugin code, otherwise it would probably be a ambibox bug.
So, you could install kodi and their plugin and try that out to see if problems are still there. Otherwise i will do it at some point, but not sure when yet.

If we don't have the issues in the Kodi plugin I have a friend who is a Python dev so he can dig in and compare if needed , originally did the AtmoWin mod with him back in the day and basically does everything Linux uses (Python / C / C++ )

 

[zekaja]

Well I tested the kodi add on and it ran smooth as a wind... No hickups what so ever... I tested it for a long time with different settings in ambibox... No flicker.

Ps: they have a nice setting in their philips hue plugin, called theater mode, where the light is turned off when a movie starts and back on when it stops...

 

[Rick164]

Is Lightpack support for Kodi is handled by the Boblight plugin or is there another one?

For Hue that should be easy to implement, we already have some basic domotica features (zones / manual toggles) but might need to name it differently as we also do live-capture which could confuse people if we called it "Theater mode".

 

[zekaja]

Is Lightpack support for Kodi is handled by the Boblight plugin or is there another one?

For Hue that should be easy to implement, we already have some basic domotica features (zones / manual toggles) but might need to name it differently as we also do live-capture which could confuse people if we called it "Theater mode".

Lightpack is handled by ambibox..

Sounds nice with "theater mode" for hue...