[mythtv-users] MythTV on MacMini: Playback Prerecorded frequently stalls

Ivan K. chepati at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 15 04:37:34 UTC 2006


John Elm wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> It would be great if someone could shed some light on this problem...
> 
> I have a myth backend running on a 2.66GHz P4 with 2Gb of memory.  It's 
> serving over a 10/100 DLink router.
> 
> I can use frontend locally of course, plus using my Gentoo thinkpad, 
> with no problems at all.  Works great.
> 
> But I also have a frontend running on a MacMini G4 with 512Mb.  On this 
> frontend, WatchingLiveTV is fine, but when playing back prerecorded I am 
> frequently getting this error:
> 
> - typically plays three or four seconds of video, then stops (goes blank 
> and then returns to list of recordings)
> - seems to happen only with a subset of the recordings, and I haven't 
> been able to narrow down what the common factor is. 
> - on any recording from this subset, there is a 4 in 5 chance that it 
> will fail

Ok, I was waiting for someone with a solution to reply, but since nobody 
has, let me throw in my experience.

My master backend/frontend is a 2.4Ghz p4 512m running LFS 6.1 and 
mythtv 0.19.  Everything on this machine was compiled from source.  All 
my recordings are MPEG2 recorded on a pair of pvr-250/pvr-350. Just as 
in your case, watching livetv or recordings is flawless.

My experimental frontend is a mac mini 1.25Ghz 512M running LFS 6.1, and 
  mythtv 0.19.  Again, everything compiled from source.  I can watch 
both livetv and recorded shows without a problem.  It feels like 
rewinding/fastforwarding is just a shade slower on that machine than on 
the master machine, but it could be due to a number of reasons:

1) this is on a 100Mbits network
2) the support for the particular videochip in the mac mini may not be 
so good
3) i may just be imagining things
4) etc etc

What you didn't make clear is if you're running linux or mac os x on 
your mini, what version of myth, compiled from source or using 
precompiled binaries...  You'll need to provide a little more info I 
guess before people can help.

IvanK.

> 
> Here is how it appears in the logs:
> 
> 2006-03-14 09:53:56.178 Changing from None to WatchingPreRecorded
> 2006-03-14 09:53:56.178 Video timing method: USleep with busy wait
> 2006-03-14 09:54:00.324 prebuffering pause
> 2006-03-14 09:54:02.400 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:03.401 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:04.401 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:05.402 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:06.402 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:07.402 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:08.403 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:54:08.550 RemoteFile::Read() failed in 
> RingBuffer::safe_read().
> 
> This is also appearing in the logs (slightly different):
> 
> 2006-03-14 09:52:21.024 Changing from None to WatchingPreRecorded
> 2006-03-14 09:52:21.028 Video timing method: USleep with busy wait
> 2006-03-14 09:52:25.399 prebuffering pause
> 2006-03-14 09:52:28.440 Waited 4 seconds for data to become available, 
> waiting again...
> 2006-03-14 09:52:32.546 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:52:33.547 Waited too long for ringbuffer pause..
> 2006-03-14 09:52:33.713 RemoteFile::Read() failed in 
> RingBuffer::safe_read().
> 
> Here is a sample of the log from the startup of the frontend:
> 
> 2006-03-14 09:51:34.151 New DB connection, total: 1
> Total desktop width=1024, height=768, numscreens=1
> 2006-03-14 09:51:34.217 Using screen 0, 1024x768 at 0,0
> 2006-03-14 09:51: 34.268 mythfrontend version: 0.18.1.20050510-1 
> www.mythtv.org <http://www.mythtv.org/>
> 2006-03-14 09:51:34.269 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
> 2006-03-14 09:51:34.888 Switching to square mode (G.A.N.T .)
> 2006-03-14 09:51:35.775 Registering Internal as a media playback plugin.
> 2006-03-14 09:51:53.769 New DB connection, total: 2
> 2006-03-14 09:51:53.853 Connecting to backend server: 192.168.0.112:6543 
> <http://192.168.0.112:6543/> (try 1 of 5)
> 2006-03-14 09:51:53.859 Using protocol version 15
> 2006-03-14 09:51:53.948 Using protocol version 15
> 2006-03-14 09:51:56.558 Opening audio device ''.
> 
> Thanks everyone!
> 
> 
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> 
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