[mythtv-users] Mythpreviewgen

[Michael T. Dean]

On 09/19/2011 04:56 PM, Josu Lazkano wrote:
> Hello to all, I write lots of post this last few days, I am trying to
> get a stable system, I am getting lots of playback pauses from time. I
> have two Nvidia ION boards with same problems, I started all these
> post trying to fix my problem:
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/engine?list=mythtv;do=search_results;search_forum=forum_1;search_string=josu%20lazkano;search_type=AND&sb=post_time
>
> I am watching LiveTV with a "htop" terminal and I just hunt a process
> with high CPU on the playback stops, is the /usr/bin/mythpreviewgen.
> It is correlated with the stops, it happens 3 more time.
>
> I got a screenshot: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1541853/mythpreviewgen.png
>
> There are 2 mythpreviewgen process with 27% and 17% CPU usage. Could
> it be this the cause of my playback stops? I read the wiki page about
> the Mythpreviewgen (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythpreviewgen), but
> there is no much info about it.
>
> Could I limit the CPU usage for this process? I would appreciate any
> help, I hope this will fix all my problems.
>
> Thanks for all help, best regards.
>
>

mythpreviewgen (and possibly some other "start/end of recordings" 
activities) are definitely the cause of the "short playback pauses at 
program transition".  It's possible mythpreviewgen could cause similar 
pauses at other times if something kicks it off (like someone 
setting/clearing a bookmark on a recording on another frontend while 
you're watching a recording on yours).

Doesn't look like there's any code in mythpreviewgen to set a nice 
value.  You could stick a myth_nice(17); somewhere in there and see if 
it helps.

Mike