[mythtv-users] LiveTV: stutter at program start/change resolved by short pause..?

[Eloy Paris]

On Sat, Oct 02, 2010 at 12:21:49PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:

>  On 10/01/2010 12:14 PM, Eloy Paris wrote:
> >On Fri, Oct 01, 2010 at 11:20:38AM +0800, Mark Kendall wrote:
> >
> >[...]
> >>2. As per the OP, live tv will stutter on and off continuously until
> >>given some sort of a poke (usually a pause). I used to see this on my
> >>remote frontend, spent a large amount of time trying to debug it
> >>(without success) and finally fixed it by ensuring that the setting
> >>'Always stream from the backend'(?) was enabled. That setting has been
> >>removed in trunk (and hence 0.24) and it is now the default. That
> >>said, I think whatever causes this problem is a pretty subtle issue
> >>and what worked for me probably won't work for everyone. I may just
> >>have changed some timing enough somewhere to avoid the problem. Given
> >>the amount of code that has changed since 0.23, it may also be fixed
> >>in trunk.
> >Wow, this setting has been removed? If I use the Myth protocol to play
> >my recordings I experience the problems that I described here:
> >
> >http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/452639
> >
> >Accessing the recordings via NFS gives me very smooth playing and
> >instant rewind and fast forward.
> >
> >It'll be a bummer for me if I can't play my recordings by accessing them
> >directly via NFS and if the performance problems I experience when using
> >the Myth protocol to access the recordings are still there in .24.
> >
> >Do you know why the setting was removed?
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Sorry, I decided to look more into this after I originally wrote my
> >email. Here's what I found:
> >
> >http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/changeset/26011 contains the change that
> >removes the setting. What the changeset does is to actually remove a
> >way for users to set, via the GUI, the variable "alwaysStream". But
> >alwaysStream is set to 0 by default. This means that a local file will
> >be tried first, and if that fails, we will fall back to using the Myth
> >protocol. That works for me ;-)
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Right.  What the change does is make it so that users who want to
> use MythTV protocol for everything should simply not mount their
> recordings on their frontend systems (or mount them at some "other"
> location, to which MythTV does not have access).
> 
> The /far/ more common desire of users is to use "local" playback
> (using a local file or NFS/SMB).  To do that, simply mount the file
> system in the proper location (same as the backend system(s)), and
> it will do so.
> 
> In other words, we couldn't figure out a reason for the setting to
> exist--simply mounting or not mounting your backend file system
> determines whether you use the "local" file or stream from the
> backend.

(Sorry for the late reply; just catching up with some mythtv-users mail
now.)

That's great, Mike; thanks for the insight. Seems like a great design
decision to me.

Cheers,

Eloy Paris.-