Speeding up channel change (1 Viewer)

[RonD]

for my USA ATSC Samsung TV, flipping between 2 channels using "prev-chan" remote button takes about 2-3 seconds. The old days with analog NTSC flipped channels faster than digital ATSC. Time from eyeballing watch with second hand.

With MePo, USA ATSC HDHR tuners, flipping between 2 channels using keyboard "0" takes about 4-5 seconds. About 2X slower than my ATSC TV. If I press TV remote and MePo keyboard at the same time, the ATSC TV is always faster. This is using single seat MePo server/client.

With Beyond TV, different software with similar functions to MePo, using HDHR tuners it also takes about 4-5 seconds to flip between 2 channels. If I flip channels with Beyond TV and MePo at the same time, both start showing the new channel at about the same time.

 

[mm1352000]

What happens if you select the channel using the mini-guide rather than pressing numbers? There is always a zap delay if you use buttons... which means it isn't really a fair measure of how fast MP can actually change channels.

 

[RonD]

Tried MePo mini-guide vs ATSC TV flip channel test. With MePo open mini-guide highlight/select new channel, then press MePo keyboard "enter" at same time as TV remote "prev-chan". ATSC TV always is always faster, MePo shows new channel about 2 seconds after TV. Maybe MePo mini-guide is little faster than the keyboard "0" flip channel, hard to really tell any difference.

 

[mm1352000]

On your ATSC TV, you're switching to a channel on a different frequency right? Same as with MP?

 

[RonD]

For my flip tests I used the same pair of channels for ATSC TV and MePo, KPIX 5.1 physical=29 and KNTV 11.1 physical=12.

On the ATSC TV flipping between 2 ATSC sub-channels on the same physical channel, 11.1/11.2 or 7.1/7.2 seems to take about the same time as flipping between different ATSC 7.1 and 11.1 channels. On MePo the same sub-channel flip is faster. The ATSC TV is still a bit faster but not a full 2 seconds. Its hard to get a real apples/apples comparison. The main ATSC channel 5.1, 7.1, 11.1 is a higher bandwidth HDTV video, the sub-channels are always lower bandwidth but not sure if that makes a difference.

Another comment, if I watch MePo on a LCD Monitor and live ATSC TV that are next to each other, the MePo video/audio is about 0.5-1.0 sec delayed compared to the ATSC TV. I guess MePo has some amount of buffering between the receiving the channel and displaying the video.

 

[mm1352000]

Another comment, if I watch MePo on a LCD Monitor and live ATSC TV that are next to each other, the MePo video/audio is about 0.5-1.0 sec delayed compared to the ATSC TV. I guess MePo has some amount of buffering between the receiving the channel and displaying the video.

Yes, this is expected. It is a function of the timeshifting and all the processing that happens between the signal coming into the tuner card and it being displayed on your monitor.

 

[RonD]

From my ATSC TV user point of view, I think MePo channel change is ok, it would be nice if it was faster but not the end of the world. When I 1st started using ATSC digital instead of analog TV I was more annoyed by the slow ATSC channel change. For 90% of my MePo usage I watch recorded TV, even if I'm watching "live" I watch the recording file while its written to the hard drive. I almost never watch live real-time using timeshift buffer.

 

[mawhite]

Also remove the 'select.wav' (or whatever .wav file is listed) from the MP Config setup (under Keys and Sounds) and specifically assigned to "Select" action. I have just proven this to increase speed.