[mythtv-users] leanfront-mythtv experimental Android TV application

[James Abernathy]

On 11/2/19 7:57 AM, John Pilkington wrote:
> On 01/11/2019 16:55, Peter Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 11/1/19 10:20 AM, John Pilkington wrote:
>
>>> v0-31 is now on my FireTVstick 4k and first impressions are good. 
>>> Its backend (Fedora 30, render2019 branch) has 452 recordings and 
>>> selection worked out-of-the-box; but skipping seems broken for me 
>>> too.  The >> is highlighted but does nothing, while << goes back to 
>>> the beginning. h264 playback is excellent.
>>>
>>> More experiments later.
>>>
>
>> I messed up the directory naming convention, i will fix that - it 
>> should be mythtv_leanfront/android/
>>
>> I added settings for skip forward and back amounts, defaulting to 60 
>> secs forward and 20 secs back. The settings part of the application 
>> is currently rather rudimentary and does not check for numeric input. 
>> Perhaps that may be causing the problem? Check that they have 
>> nonblank numeric values.
>>
>> I have watched complete recordings for several evenings, doing 
>> forward and back skips without any issue.
>>
>> Is it possibly getting the >> and << confused with the -> and <- 
>> which are supposed skip to the previous or next episode? I don't know 
>> if the -> and <- are useful or how well they work, but they came with 
>> the sample application and I did not remove them.
>>
>> I plan to make the forward and back arrows automatically skip forward 
>> and back without needing to go through the menu.
>>
>> Since there is interest, I will post new versions from time to time. 
>> If the problem persists maybe I will need a copy of a video it is 
>> failing on.
>>
>> Peter
>
> I have now tried v0-31/FireTVstick 4k  on more recordings.  Almost all 
> of them have been cut, which will have changed some of their 
> characteristics, but I don't think that is affecting the results.
>
> It's happiest with h264 material.  French IPTV played well but 
> skipping is as above;  none forward, back goes to the beginning. I 
> think these are not interlaced (and the most attractive channel seems 
> to have gone away).  UK DVB-T2 re-run channels (PBS America, 
> Smithsonian, Forces TV) are similar, but the log shows a rapidly 
> repeating sequence including
>
> 'E Mtk0mxVdecEx: [0xa8169000] GetIsBottomFirstFlag isBottomFirst 0'
>
> DVB-T2 HD has problems.  This year's Proms, with multi-channel sound, 
> just show the rotating 'Wait' motif.  Earlier recordings, stereo, play 
> video jerkily without sound.  But I have a Channel 4 HD news recording 
> that plays fine for a few minutes before the video freezes and the 
> sound continues.  May be interlace-related. Logging output flies past...
>
> DVB-T SD mpeg2 also plays jerkily with no sound.
>
> So at present, while it can give excellent playback of some content, 
> it doesn't look viable for general MythTV playback of DVB-T* stuff in 
> the UK.  Pity about that - but the Firestick itself does give access 
> to a wide range of online material.
>
> Thank you Peter.
>
> John P
>
>
I probably should have given more detail about the content I've tested. 
It's all on a Nvidia Shield TV. The backend is a Core i7 PC with Ubuntu 
18.04 and mythtv v30. Tuner is a Hauppauge WinTV Quad. I'm 10 miles from 
the TV tower farm, so all signal strengths are 90% or better.

All of my recordings that I've view with leanfront are USA OTA ATSC 
recordings.  I have not flagged these for commercials and they are the 
original MPEG2 format (*.ts files).

I left the skip times in settings at default (60, -20). The times 
displayed agree after each skip with the 60, -20.

The quality of playback is as good as anything else on the Shield TV. 
It's smother than any other mythtv FE I've tested except for a 
performance PC with Nvidia video card, but it's on par with that.

I would have to do test side by side to see any difference to Kodi on 
the Shield TV to leanfront.

So for a large remote mythtv backend. The Shield TV is an excellent FE 
with leanfront, assuming the forward skip improvements happen. But since 
I'm addicted to the mythfrontend, I use the Shield Mythtv app most of 
the time. It's rarely not good enough to just watch.

But if I was starting over without any hardware, I'd get a Raspberry Pi 
4 4GB for a combo FE/BE and SD HDHR Quatro. The Mythtv FE on the RPi 4 
is very good also. I'm currently watching 99% of my recordings on the 
RPi4 until I notice some issue, then I go test on another FE to see if 
it's the recording or the playback. I'm trying to see if I can find any 
problems with the RPi4 as a combo FE/BE.

Jim A