Mediaportal Freezes during FastForward (1 Viewer)

[deamon_knight]

I've built my Mediaportal system and I'm trying out some of the features. I used this guide to setup my Video & Audio render. Before I followed that guide, I could fast forward without an problems, but afterwards I would get intermittent freezes when using FF greater than X4. I think the culprit is the Mediaportal audio render. When I change back to 'Default Direct Sound Device" I can use FF all the way up to 32X without problems. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks

 

[CyberSimian]

I used this guide to setup my Video & Audio render. Before I followed that guide, I could fast forward without an problems, but afterwards I would get intermittent freezes when using FF greater than X4.

I don't know the answer to your fast-forward problem, but I would ask whether you really want to use fast forward? I never use fast forward or fast rewind. Instead I use:

(1) Skip forward and skip backward. You can skip by a fixed amount (I have mine set to one minute, allocated to the UP and DOWN buttons on the remote), or select from a sequence of skip amounts by repeated pressing of the LEFT or RIGHT buttons (I have mine set to: 15 seconds, 1 minute, 4 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours). You define these skip amounts in "MediaPortal Config": expand the "GUI" tree, and select "Skip steps".

(2) Direct access. When a recording or video is playing, press the digit keys on the remote control and enter four digits -- they are interpreted as "hhmm", and MP will skip to "hh" hours and "mm" minutes from the start of the recording.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[deamon_knight]

Too each his own, cybersimian. Its hard to say, I'm still experimenting with my setup. A bigger concern would be either that the mediaportal audio rendered is misconfigured for my system, or that I'll FF accidentally, freeze, and have to kill the MP frontend. Kind of a pain in the neck.

 

[Owlsroost]

The problem with FFWD is that most systems can't decode the video fast enough to keep up at greater than 4x speed - this tends to result in MP loosing control of the DirectShow filter graph because it becomes unresponsive to commands....

The reason FFWD appears to work OK with Default DS Audio Renderer is because that will only support up to 4x speed - above that it responds with 'can't do that' and MP falls back to a 'fast skip step' psuedo FFWD mode.

Note that Mediaportal Audio Renderer is not recommended for live TV anyway (for other reasons).

 

[deamon_knight]

Hmmm.. I'll have to re-read that guide. I may have missed that part. You suggest the MediaPortal audio filter for other uses? Or is Radio the same as live TV?

 

[mm1352000]

@Owlsroost
Do we support trick mode?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_mode

I'm pretty sure that's what WMC et. al. use.

 

[Owlsroost]

@Owlsroost
Do we support trick mode?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_mode

I'm pretty sure that's what WMC et. al. use.

No, we don't.

I think (a long time ago) Tourettes had a go at implementing it (or something like it) but it proved too difficult/not possible. Remember that WMC is all-Microsoft (and I presume Media Foundation based under the hood) so they have total control over how every part works and interacts.

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks for your answer.

Yeah, that domain is complex with a capital C. Waaaay beyond my knowledge/skill.
To make it work one would have to implement codec-specific stuff for compatibility... which would take hours upon hours of extremely careful coding and testing. Throw into the mix the fact that codecs can behave differently from version to version... and perhaps the renderer and video/audio format also makes a difference...
<shivers>
Nasty complex stuff. A bottomless pit for time!

For my own part I was just curious. The fact that we don't support it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
Thanks again for your answer.

 

[Owlsroost]

Hmmm.. I'll have to re-read that guide. I may have missed that part. You suggest the MediaPortal audio filter for other uses? Or is Radio the same as live TV?

Live TV is a special case, because the data is arriving in real time. By all means try using MPAR for live TV - I'm just warning you that it may cause problems like audio stuttering and dropouts if you are unlucky (it's system dependant).