Things I have learnt from using MP that might help others (1 Viewer)

[Neild7744]

Hello guys,

A while ago I took the jump from windows media centre to mediaportal. Windows media centre worked well, however there is a lack of customisation which I wanted.

Anyway I installed mediaportal using Titan skin, with mp tv series and moving pictures. I have 8 x dvbs feeds and 4 x dvbt feeds. I setup originally as a standalone system. These are the problems I initially faced and how I corrected them...

1) mediaportal 'direct3d' would not initialise when MP was setup to auto load. Fix - untick auto load in MP settings and setup a scheduled task to load on log in.

2) directors commentary over HD channels and no throughput of Dolby digital. Fix - go into tv settings on MP configuration and tick 'prefer ac3 audio'. Un tick other boxes.

3) Video stutter and glitchy scanning when trying to fast forward live tv. Fix - enable cuvid acceleration in lav filters. Go onto nvidia 3d settings and select 'yes' on triple buffering and vertical sync.

This took me a while to get things running smoothly but initially for my stand alone PC this worked. Now for setting up the client...

1) setup as per the above on the client PC using mediaportal configuration.

2) video stuttering and freezing....not a quick fix for me but think I be finally sorted it. I tried the following...


Changing codec settings - didn't work

Removing my network switch and connecting computers with crossover on gb LAN - didn't work

Changed file sizes and setup shares on time shift folders - didn't work

Moved time shift drive onto ramdisk - didn't work

Turns out MP tv series on my server was causing the dropped framrate...this was particularly bad on HD.

If I disable the auto scan settings in MP tv series and change the scan time from 5 minutes to every 12 hours the issue is gone.

I had both my client and server watching live tv on separate HD channels and had a drop rate of 7 over a couple of hours with no stuttering. Setting the codecs also helped massively. I ran other software on the server and tested to see what affects live tv...seems to only be the software plugins for MP itself.

I hope this may help. I spent hours of getting annoyed because of live tv stutter. I tried what felt like hundreds of things and was about to give up.

MP is awesome now it's working well for me!

 

[kiwijunglist]

Hi

mediaportal 'direct3d' would not initialise when MP was setup to auto load. Fix - untick auto load in MP settings and setup a scheduled task to load on log in.

Known problem, developers are working on a fix.

Video stutter and glitchy scanning when trying to fast forward live tv. Fix - enable cuvid acceleration in lav filters. Go onto nvidia 3d settings and select 'yes' on triple buffering and vertical sync.

Might be symptom of cpu being busy, which is fixed by offloading video decoding to the GPU.

Turns out MP tv series on my server was causing the dropped framrate...this was particularly bad on HD.
If I disable the auto scan settings in MP tv series and change the scan time from 5 minutes to every 12 hours the issue is gone.

@ltfearme - there have been a couple of users complaing about this recently...

(I think mostly with slower CPUs, eg someone had an e350 based htpc, however this user has quite a high spec client)

Not sure if anything can be done to improve the code here. From recollection there is a setting 'don't scan during fullscreen video' but I think either tvseries is not respecting this setting or tvsereries will start a scan prior to watching fullscreen video, the scan will take a long time, and will continue scanning during fullscreen video.

 

[Neild7744]

My tv server is a 2.60 quad core with gtx 650 graphics card.

I think the tv series quick fix is if anyone has video stutter...start MP from scratch with plugins disabled etc. seething I failed to do and hence took a long time to sort

 

[Mats Isaksson]

12 TV-cards? You are very serious about this And the quad core can handle that, impressive. The hard rive(s) must be busy. Thanks for all the info.
I have only two cards, this mediaportal seems fantastic. But when changing to Another recorded TV program, MP film gets "windowed", that is just a part of the screen.

 

[Neild7744]

Sorry I don't have 12 TV cards, I have 3 Quad PCI-E cards, which 2 of those are DVB-S2 and 1 is DVB-T2.

Mediaportal is fantastic. Its just like anything...taking the time to get to know it and understand how it functions. I was set on using Windows Media Center for a HTPC, but having switched to MP, id never go back. The options are unbelievable with MP and the support is also good.

I have a few things I need to address...but they are only small issues and 'tweaking'.

1) I want to centralize my movie and TV database as I am currently running TV series and Moving Pictures Plugins on my server and client. When I watch a TV episode in my bedroom it isnt shown as watched in my lounge. Ive looked into this but heard people getting corrupt databases etc.

2) I want to create a folder of local trailers and somehow link Moving Pictures to only search local database...im working on this atm but having a few issues with the 'trailers' plugin only searching youtube'. The reason I want to play only local trailers is my connection speed to the interent isnt great and I only want HD trailers so downloading and linking them is better for me.

3) My TV remote volume buttons will not work whenever I watch anything which is dolby decoded, such as HD TV and Blu ray. Other files volume works fine. I used to have the same issue with MCE and think its to do with 'pass-through', but would be nice to have control of all media files'

 

[JJDoherty]

Turns out MP tv series on my server was causing the dropped framrate...

Setting the codecs also helped massively.

I was just wondering what you meant by "Setting the codecs"? I'm having similar problems, mainly with HD content, on live TV too. Thanks in advance...

 

[mm1352000]

I was just wondering what you meant by "Setting the codecs"? I'm having similar problems, mainly with HD content, on live TV too. Thanks in advance...

Have you configured these settings?
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...nfiguration/9_Codecs_and_Renderer/1_TV_Codecs

...and these?
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...guration/9_Codecs_and_Renderer/0_Video_Codecs

...and if using LAV, have you configured the hardware acceleration and deinterlacing settings?
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...rer/LAV_Configuration/LAV_Video_Configuration

 

[Neild7744]

I meant the LAV codec for video and audio. Also setting Nvidia acceleration to 'cuvid', 3d settings to on...etc. this worked for me. The advice above sounds good!

 

[JJDoherty]

Thanks @Neild7744 and @mm1352000 for clarifying the point and suggesting what I could look at in order to resolve this. I am using the LAV codec for both the TV and video already, since it is what is recommended but I'll have a specific look at the LAV video configuration when I can and let you know how I get on. Thanks again...

 

[JJDoherty]

Hi guys, so I spent some time pouring over the configuration setting of the LAV codec and while I have seen an improvement, using the DXVA2 hardware acceleration, there is still some breakup on the HD channels. Weirdly, it appears the UK Freesat HD channels are fine, while the Irish Saorview channels, which only broadcast some of its content in true 1080i HD is struggling!

I am yet to try the DXVA2 (copy-back), which I give a go this evening as well as a few other minor things, such as ensuring that here is no other applications or processes taking up CPU time. I will also set "Process priority" to "High" under MP configuration > General.

Thanks again for the assistance...