Scrolling (patch included in MediaPortal RC2) (1 Viewer)

[leftfield]

This is a fantastic plugin but the one thing I wish was better is the scrolling in Filmstrip.

For some reason it is very jerky and just loses the whole effect of the interface. Filmstrip MP TV Series has the same looking view and is perfectly smooth.

Is this what other people experience or is there a tweak that I'm missing?

 

[mat123]

Re: Scrolling

+1

I have this problem since the begining of MovingPictures beta and there was some talk about MediaPortal being the cause
and SVN should resolve this, but latest MP SVN and MovingPictures beta 3 don't resolve this issue.

Tried different skins, even reinstalled MP, didn't help.

The same issue happens in List view, but noticeable only with fast scrolling. The plugin tries to load every fanart image,
it doesn't skip images when fast scrolling.

Even with Maya skin, which doesn't use fanart in filmstrip, the scrolling was better, but still a little jerky.
The old version of MovingPictures works perfectly.

I really love this plugin and appreciate all the work. Hopefully someone has an idea about this?

 

[RoChess]

Re: Scrolling

Check the filesize and dimensions on your covers, they might be extremly large, like I've had some 9000x15000 covers of 4MB from themoviedb.org. That takes a lot of computer time to make them smaller and cache them in memory. MovingPictures Beta3 fixes this by resizing them, but it doesn't reprocess your existing ones, until you delete them.

But you can use the 'thumbs' folder reduction script which can be found in the FAQ to reduce your existing images and see if that is a solution that would work for you. You can also use the Windows performance monitor to debug where the delay is at.

 

[mat123]

Re: Scrolling

I saw your thread for reducing images earlier, but covers are all .jpg and under 700x... so that isn't the issue.

I'll try with the Windows performance monitor next.
The system is powerfull enough, C2D at 3.2 GHz and radeon 4890.

Will probably upload youtube video of this problem later today ...

 

[RoChess]

Re: Scrolling

I saw your thread for reducing images earlier, but covers are all .jpg and under 700x... so that isn't the issue.

Pictures can be small in resolution and still enormous in filesize. It's the latter that is important, due to the delays in loading, added memory required for caching, etc.

The performance monitor will allow you to find out where the bottleneck delay lies, and optimize accordingly. But even with gigantic images, MovingPictures has always been responsive to me, it was just that I was running out of storage space on my small OS partition which made me create the 'thumbs' reduction script.

I did notice an increase in speed, and other ppl since then have commented on that as well, hence my suggestion to try it.

Are you perhaps running latest SVN of MediaPortal? I do see a lot of chatter regarding speed problems with the latest SVN on that, and if you go back 2 or 3 versions you should be good to go. They are working on fixing it, and you can simply switch back to an older version when things break. Infact to be totally sure where the delay is coming from, you could just make a backup of what you have now and then do a fresh test-install of MediaPortal v1.0.2 (stable) and restore your MovingPictures setup into that one, to see if problem goes away.

That's the config I run myself, MediaPortal v1.0.2 with MovingPictures v1.1.0.1049 (custom build from trunk) and it runs like magic for me, on hardware much slower then yours.

 

[leftfield]

Re: Scrolling

I've ran the script for reducing my images and I think it helped to a degree but it's still not a smooth scroll. I guess that does reinforce RoChess' point that it's related to the file sizes. However, why would the MP TV series be able to manage it much smoother when the view looks and feels very similar?

I'm running Beta 3 Moving Pictures and MP1.2. I've got a reasonably high spec PC as well.

mat123, how does TV Series run on yours?

 

[RoChess]

Re: Scrolling

I've ran the script for reducing my images and I think it helped to a degree but it's still not a smooth scroll. I guess that does reinforce RoChess' point that it's related to the file sizes. However, why would the MP TV series be able to manage it much smoother when the view looks and feels very similar?

I'm running Beta 3 Moving Pictures and MP1.2. I've got a reasonably high spec PC as well.

mat123, how does TV Series run on yours?

Can you provide some more details on your MediaPortal configuration? If you attach the mediaportal.log and movingpictures.log files with MediaPortal in debug mode, after yoiu scrolled the filmstrip list a while it will reveal a lot of information that can provide a much better insight in why it is slow for you.

Reproduction of the problem is extremly important to diagnose a solution. And if I'm unable to get the delay you guys are talking about, then it is very likely that the developers won't be able either. It totally comes down to you providing debug logs then, otherwise it is like trying to teach somebody how to drive over the phone. It is possible, but not easy

 

[leftfield]

Re: Scrolling

Apologies, should have attached the logs. Now attached.

I started navigating through the filmstrip very slowly until Black Hawk own, quite quick until Hancock then the fastest scroll (where images don't keep up) from then on.

Jerkiness still observed.

Before I did the file shrinking I would have said that scrolling 'stuttered' and was irregular. It is more regular now however I would still say jerky. It's as if it moves 5 pixels at a time but to be smooth it should be more like 2. Think of the Marquee screensaver in Windows of years gone by!!

Just reiterate it's not just me going mad because TV Series seems much smoother. Perhaps its scrolling is faster and therefore trick the eye better although moving the same number of pixels on eah frame.

 

[RoChess]

Re: Scrolling

Apologies, should have attached the logs. Now attached.

Ok, logs immediatly show "MediaPortal v1.0.4.23491", so did you even try it with the stable v1.0.2? Trying to fix a problem in MovingPictures that is caused by MediaPortal doesn't work well.

You are also using XFactor skin, did you try it with Blue3Wide (after clearing skin cache)?

Also what are your advanced delay settings configured on in MovingPictures?

 

[mat123]

Re: Scrolling

mat123, how does TV Series run on yours?

TV Series runs normal for me too.

I've checked with the resource monitor in windows. In MovingPictures the CPU usage goes to 100% when browsing in filmstrip,
while it loads cover/fanart. In TV Series it goes just to 20-30%. So that must be the issue.
HDD usage is just 1-2 MB/s.

Biger delay in MovPic for loading artwork didn't help either.
I'll wait for MediaPortal RC1 to be released (hopefully this weekend) and then do more testing.

@RoChess: I can't go back to MP 1.02, because I need subtitles working with DXVA,
and it's just more usable and stable for me than 1.02, except for MovPic plugin