[mythtv-users] Prebuffering pauses (*sigh*)

[Matt Vollmar]

Dennis Oelkers wrote:

> Hello list,
>
> I guess this is a topic which pops up on the list every now and then, 
> but it is the last thing
> that disturbs my tv experience using mythtv. :)
>
> On my newly built MythTV-box everything seems to run fine, besides the 
> fact that I get
> prebuffering pauses when watching live tv _or_ recordings every minute 
> (min/max interval
> is 30s/2mins), which is quite annoying.
>
> - The hdd has DMA enabled, so that's not the cause.
>
> - The hardware seems to be rather oversized than undersized (P4 2.4ghz 
> (prescott), 512mb
> ram, samsung 160gb sata drive, a bt878 (*yuck*), all in a pundit r (-> 
> radeon 9100 igp
> running with the stock xorg 6.7.0 drivers, not the ati ones)).
>
> Anyone got any ideas on how to get rid of this?
>
> Kind regards,
>             Dennis Oelkers
>
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I have almost exactly the same hardware as you (Celery 2.4, 512 MB, 
BT878), and I had the prebuffering problem too.  I actually had it about 
every 3-5 seconds, which was much more annoying.  In the end, I found 
that the only way I could avoid it was to drop the bit rate for live 
tv.  Here are my settings:

320x480
RTjpeg
Quality 170
Luma 0  -->  I didn't mess with this...there may be a better setting
Chroma 0  --> didn't mess with this either
MP3 Quality 7

This works well for me with no skipping.  The best way to tune this is 
to watch TV while running top on another machine.  You will then see how 
much load you are putting on your machine.

Matt