Various questions about streaming.

Hi all,

I've recently had a go at streaming recorded shows to my PC. I had a go at this when I was in the UK (running the UK image, obviously) and it worked quite reliably. In the current set-up (with the oztivo image) I get freeze-ups every few minutes during the playback. Sometimes it un-freezes again after a couple of minutes, sometimes it takes longer.

This *might* be a network issue. The tivo is connected to the via a wireless client. In the UK setup, I had a wired cat5 connection to the router. However, in the past when I had bandwidth issues, it usually manifested itself as a stuttered playback, all the way though, rather than freezes of several minutes.

On the tivo side, I'm using vserver, as I did before. Is this still the way to go, or are there better options now? I am planning the add an xbmc to my network at some point. Should this influence my choice of server approach?

Another question... is streaming likely to have any effect on the event bug? Is it likely to happen more ofter when the tivo is "busier", running the server?

One final issue - I am recording everything in 16:9 (from Foxtel), but the PC (running Media Player) displays everything at 4:3, squashing everything horizontally. I noticed that palmod_config can be used to changed the horizontal resolution and have set it to 720, but this doesn't help.

On a more general note - do many of you stream from oztivo (to PC, xbmc or both)? Does it work well (and reliably)? If so, I'd be interested to hear about how you do it.

Any advice appreciated. Apologies if I've missed something obvious in the wiki or other sources.

Thanks,

PPJ

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Originally Posted by PPJ

Hi all,
On the tivo side, I'm using vserver, as I did before. Is this still the way to go, or are there better options now? I am planning the add an xbmc to my network at some point. Should this influence my choice of server approach?

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I haven't used vserver, but use ccxstream with xbmc 1.x, works well enough with the right version of ccxstream.
I also couldn't use xbmc 2.x, so I have both on my xbox and use xbmc 1 for tivo playback.
xbmc 2.x might be fixed now, I haven't checked lately.

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Originally Posted by PPJ

Another question... is streaming likely to have any effect on the event bug? Is it likely to happen more ofter when the tivo is "busier", running the server?

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Doesn't appear to be an issue with ccxstream, don't know about vserver.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PPJ

One final issue - I am recording everything in 16:9 (from Foxtel), but the PC (running Media Player) displays everything at 4:3, squashing everything horizontally.

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Try ZoomPlayer, it's a great player an you can change the AR on the fly (Among other things)
The standard version is free.
http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml

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Originally Posted by PPJ

On a more general note - do many of you stream from oztivo (to PC, xbmc or both)? Does it work well (and reliably)?

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I only stream to xbmc 1.x using ccxstream and it works ok (but not great), some file won't play, I'm not sure why. Can't really play while the tivo's recording, and the sounds is slightly out of sync.

Success in streaming via wireless is very difficult and it fails for most people. please descirbe how your TiVo is connected.

What happens if you start a stream then pause the picture for about 10 minutes, then start to play again. Is it still freezing during the next 10 minutes of play?

I believe any streaming does increase the instance of the event bug occuring.

I used to use mplayer to stream to a PC, but haven't for many years.

I do however regularily stream from one TiVo to another using mfs_ftp and fxpmerge.

Peter.

I occasionally stream to xbmc using ccxstream. As Wibble has said, it works ok, but is not great - e.g. skipping the ads on the xbox tends to make playback on the tivo stutter (annoying if someone is watching a show on the tivo at the same time), and can also upset the recordings if you do it too much. This can of course be avoided by starting streaming and watching the show without skipping the ads! It also loses sync with the sound sometimes, and other times will stutter on the xbox for no apparent reason.

On saying this, for the most part it works ok. :)

I'm using a UK tivo with 2.5.5 image, cachecard and Nov 2007 build of xbmc.

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Originally Posted by petestrash

Success in streaming via wireless is very difficult and it fails for most people.

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Oh, that's not good news.

My TiVo has a cachecard which connects to a wireless client (Linksys WET54G). This connects wirelessly to my router (Netgear WGR614). The PC connects to the same router with a CAT5 cable.

This evening, streaming playback is not working at-all. When I click on the link in tivoweb, MediaPlayer opens and immediately closes. Does vserver record events in a log file anywhere?

Tomorrow, as an experiment, I'm going to try moving the tivo into the same room as the router and connecting it with a cable, to eliminate the wireless effects completely and narrow down the problem a bit.

Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone.

Update...

Made up a long cat5 cable and trailed it through the house to connect the TiVo to the router. This works fine. I can stream one show, play another directly on the TiVo and record another, without any obvious ill-effects.

Went back to the wireless set-up and things got worse immediately, with the freeze-ups as bad as ever.

Tried recording a show with a lower quality setting (and hence bit-rate). Still freezes.

Might try an experiment with the wireless set-up to improve performance, but if that doesn't work it looks like I'll have to get some cat5 installed around the house.

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Originally Posted by catdog

I occasionally stream to xbmc using ccxstream. As Wibble has said, it works ok, but is not great - e.g. skipping the ads on the xbox tends to make playback on the tivo stutter (annoying if someone is watching a show on the tivo at the same time), and can also upset the recordings if you do it too much. This can of course be avoided by starting streaming and watching the show without skipping the ads! It also loses sync with the sound sometimes, and other times will stutter on the xbox for no apparent reason.

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I find a pause on XBMC fixes the stutter problem.

Although if my wife can wait I extract the file to my PC and run ComSkip on it and she plays it via SAMBA with the ads gone.

Cheers Nick
Philips S1 with TiVoNet card

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PPJ

One final issue - I am recording everything in 16:9 (from Foxtel), but the PC (running Media Player) displays everything at 4:3, squashing everything horizontally. I noticed that palmod_config can be used to changed the horizontal resolution and have set it to 720, but this doesn't help.

On a more general note - do many of you stream from oztivo (to PC, xbmc or both)? Does it work well (and reliably)? If so, I'd be interested to hear about how you do it.

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The TiVo does not understand widescreen it just understands resolution (ie 720 x 576). Your playback needs to set the image to widescreen.

Try VLC or MediaPLayer Classic (non Micro$oft) - both have the ability to set the aspect ratio.

XBMC does a good job with TiVo but (as mentioned before) can have sync issues after a skip - a pause usually fixes it.

My TiVo network card is only 10Mbps.

Cheers Nick
Philips S1 with TiVoNet card

Sorry, been away for a little while.

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Originally Posted by catdog

I occasionally stream to xbmc using ccxstream. As Wibble has said, it works ok, but is not great - e.g. skipping the ads on the xbox tends to make playback on the tivo stutter (annoying if someone is watching a show on the tivo at the same time), and can also upset the recordings if you do it too much. This can of course be avoided by starting streaming and watching the show without skipping the ads!

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I have a suggestion that should fix the stuttering issue on the TiVo itself.

If you add "setpri fifo 1 $$" to the end of rc.sysinit (but before the calls to rc.sysinit.author & rc.sysinit.local), then it will make all new processes spawned on the tivo run at low priority (this mean all hacks).

The only downside is that stuff that you're running on the tivo takes a bit longer. Try it and if you don't like it then it's easy to remove.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PPJ

Update...

Made up a long cat5 cable and trailed it through the house to connect the TiVo to the router. This works fine. I can stream one show, play another directly on the TiVo and record another, without any obvious ill-effects.

Went back to the wireless set-up and things got worse immediately, with the freeze-ups as bad as ever.

Tried recording a show with a lower quality setting (and hence bit-rate). Still freezes.

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Unfortunately this gels with most peoples experience with wireless. The best results are usually obtained by removing all WEP, WPA etc if you have them enabled. Wireless is fine for remote access and ok for transfers, but not really great for streaming.

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Originally Posted by ozNick

My TiVo network card is only 10Mbps.

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The card is not much of a bottleneck, the TiVo is the limiting factor. Even Cachecard which makes full use of the interface is not much faster.

Peter.

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Originally Posted by petestrash

I have a suggestion that should fix the stuttering issue on the TiVo itself.

If you add "setpri fifo 1 $$" to the end of rc.sysinit (but before the calls to rc.sysinit.author & rc.sysinit.local), then it will make all new processes spawned on the tivo run at low priority (this mean all hacks).

The only downside is that stuff that you're running on the tivo takes a bit longer. Try it and if you don't like it then it's easy to remove.

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I'll give that a try and see how it goes. I tried using nice to reduce the priority, but from memory it didn't really help the overall situation.