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

[John Pilkington]

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