Timeshift Bufferfiles - General Questions (1 Viewer)

[dekkers]

Great news from me: it's working, and it's super fast!

Although I had one hang over a half our of zapping changing channels it's working like my samsung STB! even faster!

Some questions:
When MP crashed, i saw 3 timeshift files but when it's just working i see only one. It it normal there are multiple buffer files on a single seat config and why are they created (just info for me)

If I change the amout of file by example max 2 files, and i limit the size of it to 64MB what effects does it have on the stability? I'd like to know becouse im planning to store the buffer files on a ramdisk for speed enhancements (hopfully i get zapping more faster then it already is).

Greetz to you all

 

[Muldini]

Great news from me: it's working, and it's super fast!

Although I had one hang over a half our of zapping changing channels it's working like my samsung STB! even faster!

Some questions:
When MP crashed, i saw 3 timeshift files but when it's just working i see only one. It it normal there are multiple buffer files on a single seat config and why are they created (just info for me)

If I change the amout of file by example max 2 files, and i limit the size of it to 64MB what effects does it have on the stability? I'd like to know becouse im planning to store the buffer files on a ramdisk for speed enhancements.

Greetz to you all

Multiple files are normal, for singleseat aswell as for multiseat. Even several different rows of files are normal.

You can reduce the max files and the size as you like, it won't (shouldnt ) have any negative effects other than a shorter timeshift ability.
Read my post above for known problems.

Regards,
Muldini

/edit
Please pm me or open another thread for further "general questions".

 

[dekkers]

This is as known bug, sorry for letting you know this late. The video freezes as soon as maxbufferfiles are reached. So if you got 6 max files, video will freeze when "writing the 7th" which is actually the 1st again.

Frodo knows about this, so it's most likely fixed soon

Regards,
Muldini

Maybe a stupid question, but is there some documentation why/how/when bufferfiles are created so i can get an idea of the working of it for my little ramdisk project.

thnx

 

[Muldini]

You can define the min. and max amount of bufferfiles aswell as their size.

If you start watching TV it will write the timeshiftbuffer into those files until min. is reached and then start rewrapping them (overwriting them again).

It won't overwrite them if they are still in use, e.g. you start TV and pause it right after. If the file that should be overwritten next is in use, then it will creat minbufferfiles+1 instead, until max is reached or the file that is due to be overwritten is not in use anymore.


Hope I was able to explain it well enough.

Regards,
Muldini

 

[dekkers]

Hehe,
I didnt noticed the posts move so i thought forum software was somehow broken

On my singleseat config:
Turn on tv: buffer 1 created
Switch channel: buffer 1 deleted (not in use) and again buffer 1 created.
On pause one channel: buffer one still in use, buffer 2 created.
On channel switch: buffer one still active: buffer 2 deleted and created again.

So it still holds buffer one active becouse that channel is paused or is buffer 1 deleted on channel change?

Greetz,

Dekkers

 

[Muldini]

Hehe,
I didnt noticed the posts move so i thought forum software was somehow broken

These questions just didnt belong to TsReader.

On my singleseat config:
Turn on tv: buffer 1 created
Switch channel: buffer 1 deleted (not in use) and again buffer 1 created.

It's not recreated, it's still the same file after channel change. You can check that easily, start watching TV for a minute or so, then switch channel and skip back to the beginning (left arrow key). You will see the first channel again.

On pause one channel: buffer one still in use, buffer 2 created.
On channel switch: buffer one still active: buffer 2 deleted and created again.

It depends where you pause the channel, if you are in buffer file one and pause the channel, no files will be overwritten until "max" is reached. If you are in buffer file 3 for example, it will create files until min is reached and then start overwriting 1 & 2.

So it still holds buffer one active becouse that channel is paused or is buffer 1 deleted on channel change?

Greetz,

Dekkers

See above.

What are your settings btw? Im explaining how it is with defaul settings, if you set min to 1 and max to 2 and a kind of small size, then its still the same behavior but could sometimes give wrong impressions.


Regards,
Muldini

 

[Diggen]

Wouldn't it be nice to have a option to delete the buffer on channel change?
Because i think it isn't usefull, if you change channel you lost what is casted on channel 1 while watching channel 2 and when you turn to channel 3 channel 1 and 2 are obsolete because you miss the part when on an other Channel.

I hope everybody does understand what i try to say.

 

[Muldini]

I see what you mean, but what other positive effects than jumping to the point where you switched the channel instead of jumping to the end of the whole buffer would your suggested option give?

It might also increase channel changing times since the buffer has to be recreated.

So overall the effort is not worth the result imo.

Regards,
Muldini

 

[Muldini]

| additional information |

Hey Diggen, first I'd like to thank you for sharing your HowTo in the Wiki.
I've seen that you were still unsure about one thing.

(Are the buffer settings for all cards or get every card the min number of Files???)

In fact, they are for each stream, so say im timeshifting 4 different channels with the same card, then I'd have those settings applied 4 times. Or 2 streams with 2 cards ... etc. etc.

Stream 1:
live1-0.ts.tsbuffer
live1-0.ts.tsbuffer1.ts
live1-0.ts.tsbuffer2.ts
live1-0.ts.tsbuffer3.ts


Stream 2:
live1-1.ts.tsbuffer
live1-1.ts.tsbuffer1.ts
live1-1.ts.tsbuffer2.ts
live1-1.ts.tsbuffer3.ts

and so on ... each of those 'stream sets' would be based on the timeshift settings.

Hope I was able to light this area up a bit.

Regards,
Muldini

 

[Diggen]

So overall the effort is not worth the result imo.

The only real advantage would be a "clean" start.

n fact, they are for each stream, so say im timeshifting 4 different channels with the same card, then I'd have those settings applied 4 times. Or 2 streams with 2 cards ... etc. etc.

...

and so on ... each of those 'stream sets' would be based on the timeshift settings.

Ok I imagin this isn't good because of the limited size of a Ramdisk, at least at a multiseat setup.
But i assume that on a singleseat, only one card is active all the time. When recording 2 (or more cards are active) but those cards didn't create bufferfiles. Only the one you are watching acctualy ?

When this is clarified I will add these important informations to the wiki.