08.10: Mythtv startup speed

[daballiemo]

Hi all,

Since about 2 weeks I have IPTV up and running. I am using Mythtv more then ever before but have also seen the dark side of things. Mythtv takes its time to start live TV. It takes about 10-20 seconds to get it up and running. Is there anything I can do to speed up the whole process?

tia

Han

[purps]

Consider having a look at VDR.

Cheers,
Matt.

[seth]

 
Hello.

I too have seen this painfully long MythTV startup. I am in the US, using PVR500 (2xpvr150) card, and was wondering if VDR even works with my set up using schedules direct. I have yet to look at the log. I have a mini PC in the bedroom running mythbuntu 10.04, which talks nicely with the core's myth backend. And when I use it, "Watch TV" starts instantly. Whereas on all of my MD's it takes 20 to 30 seconds, and sometimes causes a router reload.

I have downloaded the Final of 8.10. I will see if a fresh install resolves these issues, if I can not figure it out by looking at the myth backend and frontend logs.

I will post my findings. It looks like VDR is much lighter weight and better integrated into LMCE. So I would still inquire as to if it works for me here in the US.

Best Regards,

Seth

[Marie.O]

MythTV is better integrated into LinuxMCE than VDR is. Much better, especially from the installation point of view.

VDR can be made to support PVR cards via the vdr-plugin-pvrinput. I have no hands-on experience with.

VDRs EPG is derived either from the broadcasted stream (when using DVB), or via external schedule providers. Atm there are addons to utilize XMLTV based schedules.

[huh]

It takes about 10-20 seconds to get it up and running. Is there anything I can do to speed up the whole process?

I watch TV through my cable box and do so by going through the Sarah setup wizard after the 1st install and then going to the web admin pages to configure my cable box (slaps own hands for not creating template).  I then go back and rerun the setup wizard and tell Sarah how my PVR150 is connected to my cable box.  The net result is on the media line of my UI (consider UI1 because it's easier to explain) there is a button now labeled "LiveTV DCT-700" ("LiveTV" + the name of my cable box and presumably what I called it in the web admin.

Long story short, when I click that, on MD or core, mythtv starts in 2-3 seconds.  It does not go through count down (mine doesn't actually count down, but one would assume it would go from 3-2-1-start if I clicked the actual "TV" option).  Now, there are a couple things that are different.  I don't see that I can pause, rewind or use the stop button when watching tv through this.  The EPG pulls up just fine and tunes to channels as desired, but no "expanded" pvr features.  I can stop the TV by pressing the power button on my remote (Gyration GYR3101US, BTW). I tend to turn on tv for background noise and so quick startup is well worth trade off of non-working other features.  BTW- the record button works on the remote...  Eventually, to reduce confusion, I go to the web admin pages and remove the TV button from the list of options so the only TV option is the "LiveTV DCT-700".

FWIW

edit:  Oh yeah, something goofy.  If you don't turn off the stream from whatever room first start it in and go to a 2nd room goofy things can happen.  Usually my screen is just black on the 2nd screen, but (iirc) sometimes the channel is duplicated on both screens- but this is very rare.  Easy to fix by navigating to the 1st room and turning off the stream.

[seth]

Hey all.

I just wanted to say, that I had a OS disk failure over the weekend, so I did a fresh install of 8.10rc1. Did the apt-get update/upgrade rebuilt 2 of my previous 5 MD's. After the MD's were built, I hit the button for TV and it went to the Grey/Brown Terra theme screen, no images yet, and the the router reloaded. Ok. So after everything came back, I tried again, this time it completed but took 38 seconds to get to the ''Please wait" screen, then another 2 seconds to view TV. So I selected "Off" from the LMCE menu, and tried again, same wait, this time it came up, played for about a minute, then the router reloaded again.

Not sure what is going on. I viewed the backend logs, nothing abnormal there, did not yet get to view the frontend logs on the MD. This particular MD is a Zotac ION running Vdpau Slim. On my LG50" plasma. Audio/Video over HDMI.

Now the 2nd MD is using an older nvidia card on a 27" SD TV. Video over S-Video audio from sound card to red/white on back of tv with 1/8" (3.5,mm) stereo jack to red/white, and it does not take as long to load, about 20 seconds. This machine is running normal xv in settings, and uses CPU+ for MythTV. I noticed this one does not cause the router to reload when I use it, and the wait is somewhat less for Live TV to actually start playing, shaves off about 10 to 12 seconds.

The wife needed to watch Hell's Kitchen, so I have not tested it since last evening. I however do not watch Hell's Kitchen, so I went back into the bedroom where I have a 32" LCD TV hooked up to a Foxconn mini PC not yet supported hardware wise in 8.10 running Mythbuntu 10.04, connected to the core's backend. All I had to do was allow the core backend to update the DB schema on the mythbuntu box, and bam. Right into watching live tv. So I power the little machine completely off, then power it on, and it boots directly into mythtv. It takes about 30 seconds for it to talk to the backend, and present me with a screen, I select "Watch TV" and again it goes right in no issues. Other than not instantly presenting me with the Terra Front Page of the theme.

Here is where it gets a little strange.

So after I watch the mythbuntu box for a little, wife comes back for bed. So I power it back down, and go out into the living room. Click on "TV" button from menu, and bang, the router reloads again. Ok, so I wait, and the next time I hit the button, it goes into the Live TV in like 5 seconds which is almost 35 seconds faster.

So whatever it is, it is random with the common ground of a router reload.

I need to dig into the logs. The only thing running out of the ordinary that I see, is mythtv_setup.pl seems to be running and getting hung up. Not sure why this runs at all after initial install, but its just an observation.

Hope to remedy this by digging into logs, but figured I would post my latest experiences.

Best Regards,

Seth