[confirm] 'Wait for timeshift file' value ignored (1 Viewer)

[loxton]

MediaPortal Version: V1.1 RC2
MediaPortal Skin: Blue3wide
Windows Version: Vista SP2
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 5000+
HDD:
Memory: DDR2 2GB
Motherboard: Abit A-S78H
Video Card: Nvidia 9400
Video Card Driver: 195
Sound Card: Onboard
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Nova T 500
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: Cyberlink (PDVD9)
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: MPV
Satelite/CableTV Provider:N/A
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote: Vista MCE
TV: Monitor
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI

When tuning to a channel that is not currently broadcasting such as BBC3 in the UK mediaportal stops responding for 15seconds until it detects that there is "no audio/video", as expected. Changing the setting 'wait for unscrambled signal' and 'wait for timeshift file' in 'timeshifting' has no affect on the time you have to wait before mediaportal reports no audio/video, it always remains 15ish seconds. Changing codecs has no effect on the time. The problem is that if you channel up or down it will not respond until it has finished detecting audio/video which means when people impatiently keep pressing buttons it can be a while until mediaportal responds because it is processing a que of commands.

Although I don’t remember when, and hence this will probably be little help, mediaportal used to state that a channel wasn't broadcasting instead of 'no audio/video'. This however also took about 15secs before it was displayed.

Another small issue is that it takes a while to load tv on first start. I'm guessing that it is due to my tv card but from the logs nothing seems to happen for a while after audio has been detected. Selecting pre-load card seems to have little effect to the start up time.

Edit: Just spelling mistakes!

 

[romuz]

Hi.
According to your logs WaitForTimeshiftFile setting is obeyed. Mp waits for audio for 2 secs

2010-05-09 17:48:38.057000 [(20)]: card: WaitForTimeShiftFile - waiting _eventAudio & _eventVideo
2010-05-09 17:48:39.990000 [TS_File_Cleanup(15)]: card: delete timeshift files T:\Timeshift\live2-0.ts
2010-05-09 17:48:39.993000 [TS_File_Cleanup(15)]: card:   trying to delete T:\Timeshift\live2-0.ts.tsbuffer
2010-05-09 17:48:40.058000 [(20)]: card: WaitForTimeShiftFile - no audio was found after 2.002 seconds

but you have two cards and mp tries to tune same channel on second card, thats why so long time needed to get no audio message.

 

[nfox]

I've been meaning to bring this up for some time - I have 3 TV cards and it takes about 40 seconds to report no audio/video if I change to a channel that is not broadcasting, even with the two "Wait for..." options set to 2 secs. In fact, changing these settings from default to 2 secs made no difference at all. This is a particular issue if I have "When entering the TV screen"/"Turn on TV" checked in TV configuration (so I don't, but I would like to). With the old TV engine it took no more than 10 seconds, even with 4 TV cards. I have no logs or anything, just adding my comment as I would like to know if there is a way to speed this up. As you can imagine there is a distinct drop in WAF when this happens.

As an aside, how about an option to always tune a specific channel when entering TV? It won't fix the main problem, but I could have TV automatically start without having to worry about the channel I left it tuned to when I was last watching. (Now I think about it, wasn't there a plugin that did this? I can't seem to find it now, tho')


Neil

EDIT: Just done a quick test - with the two "Wait for..." options set to 20, 10, or 2 seconds it take 50 seconds from trying to tune a channel that is not broadcasting until the "No Audio/Video" message appears, so those two settings really don't seem to make any difference.

 

[romuz]

Have you restarted tvserver after changing settings?
On my setup with 2 cards and 5 sec setting it takes about 13 secs to get "No Audio/Video"

 

[nfox]

Hah! You're right, that's fixed it

 

[loxton]

Thanks romuz, that does seem to be the case. When I only enable one card the time I have to wait is reduced.

Although its not ideal that you have to wait for two cards to tune, one after the other I suspect that to change this would be a lot of work and you already do so much.

Loxton