[mythtv-users] channel changing speed, is 3 seconds normal?

[Boyd II, Willy]

Thanks, Albert.  Also curious:  what motherboard/cpu did you have before,
and then upgrade to?  How slow was your channel-change before the upgrade?

I've recently switched motherboards (because VIA crap was causing problems),
but still use the same Athlon 1GHz T-bird cpu.  With a hardware encoder, I'd
be surprised that I don't have enough cpu, and if I don't, then improvements
can definitely be made.

- Willy

-----Original Message-----
From: Albert Santoni [mailto:GameGod at sympatico.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:25 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] channel changing speed, is 3 seconds normal?


It takes me 2 seconds to change channels (I used a stopwatch...) I've
upgraded this rig (once mobo/cpu, once HD), and the only thing that made a
difference was the mobo/cpu. I've run Redhat 8 and now Mandrake 9.1, and
used EXT3 on both (on Redhat I had the partitions mounted with noatime, but
it didn't make a difference with channel changing, as far as I could
tell.)
Previously, I had the ring buffer on one harddrive and the recording on
another, and now I have them both on one drive - but that didn't (and
shouldn't) make a difference.

Albert Santoni

P.S. - I use a remote...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Curtis Stanford" <curtis at stanfordcomputing.com>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 1:27 PM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] channel changing speed, is 3 seconds normal?


> Yes, I have done the change channel test directly to a tv and it is 
> just
as
> fast as using a remote or something. Must be something with my backend 
> although it is a pretty fast machine (Athlon 2200) with what I hear is 
> a pretty fast filesystem (reiserfs).
>
> On September 30, 2003 10:53 am, Boyd II, Willy wrote:
> > Do you have the capability of watching "really live" tv on your 
> > backend with xawtv or something similar?  I know this can be tricky 
> > if you're
using
> > a pvr-250, but can be done.  Or for that matter, just temporarily 
> > hook
up
> > your directv box to a tv.  Then run something like
"changechannel_command
> > 100" and you should see the box change to channel 100 pretty fast.
That's
> > how I tested anyway...
> >
> > - Willy
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Curtis Stanford [mailto:curtis at stanfordcomputing.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 11:43 AM
> > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] channel changing speed, is 3 seconds 
> > normal?
> >
> >
> > I'm using serial. I'm not really sure which part is slow but 
> > something
sure
> > is. I'm using a backend with 2x80G drives in raid 0 with reiserfs.
> >
> > On September 30, 2003 10:14 am, Boyd II, Willy wrote:
> > > Are you using some form of IR Blaster, or a serial connection to 
> > > the directv box?  At least for a serial control, I really don't 
> > > think the external changer is the bottleneck.  (But then if those 
> > > using a builtin tuner have fast channels, then I guess I'm 
> > > completely wrong). If I change channels on the command-line using 
> > > my serial control the change is very fast.  So this operation 
> > > shouldn't be slow when handled by Myth either.
> > >
> > > - Willy
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Curtis Stanford [mailto:curtis at stanfordcomputing.com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 11:01 AM
> > > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] channel changing speed, is 3 seconds 
> > > normal?
> > >
> > >
> > > Mine is at least 6 seconds on an external DirecTV box. My 
> > > suggestion was to start the external channel change operation and, 
> > > while it's happening, do the ringbuffer stuff. No reason they 
> > > can't happen in parallel.
> > >
> > > On September 30, 2003 06:52 am, Michael J. Sherman wrote:
> > > > My channel changing process is also very long; equal or greater 
> > > > than 3 seconds.  Also, sometimes it'll just miss a number, so 
> > > > it'll attempt to change to say 106, but only '1' and '6' gets 
> > > > sent, or sometime '1' and '0'.  It's random, and quite odd.
> > > >
> > > > jose rubio wrote:
> > > > > On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 22:24, Sergio M. Ammirata wrote:
> > > > >>I followed a thread regarding slow channel changing speed. 
> > > > >>That thread suggested using either reiserfs or xfs for the 
> > > > >>cache partition. I tried both and it takes about 3 seconds to 
> > > > >>change to another channel in either. Is this normal?
> > > > >>
> > > > >>Is there any way to speed it up?
> > > > >>
> > > > >>I am using a pundit with a custom OS build. My CPU while 
> > > > >>watching live TV is under 2%. I have a WD 160HD with DMA 
> > > > >>enabled.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>Thanks in advance,
> > > > >>
> > > > >>Sergio Ammirata
> > > > >
> > > > > Yep, 3 secs is about right.  I'm not particularly happy with 
> > > > > it and I'm sure there are things that can be done about it but 
> > > > > the people that know what to do are too busy working on the 
> > > > > nuts-n-bolts of the program.
> > > > >
> > > > > I do know a little c myself...lol...but about all I could do 
> > > > > is to put one of those "microsoft hour glass" cursors in the 
> > > > > screen while the channel changes...
> > > > >
> > > > > BST, I've timed Tivo, it takes less than 2 secs, closer to 1 
> > > > > second actually.  There's no reason why that speed (even 
> > > > > better) cannot be achieved by myth...  We just need to keep 
> > > > > working at it...
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > -jose-
> > >
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