My Better-Half's Complaint(s)

[Opus4]

Originally posted by DFA
FF'ing throgh commercials when viewing recorded shows seems also like a "must have". We currently just keep hitting the FF button which takes little jumps

Use time scroll or ff2/rew2 to jump farther. Are you using the Hauppauge remote? press the Stop key to enter time scroll mode, then use the ff/rew buttons to skip 2:30 min forward or back each time, then press Stop again to exit time scroll mode & start playing at the new position.

You may or may not like that functionality, but it gets you through commercials faster than plain 10 sec ff.

- Andy

[falchulk]

personally, I rather use the 23:0 SECOND jumps mapped to ff2 and rw2. The majority of my shows that record during the day seem to have exactly 2:30 seconds between break. The ones with more you just tap ff1 a few times after ff2.

[Opus4]

Yeah, I might start to use ff2/rew2 too... if I can talk myself into buying a real remote.

- Andy

[DFA]

I have time scroll function written to my MX-700 but is a little awkward to use. I need to set up FF2 and RW2 which I haven't done yet. Probably would be adequate; more important fish to fry me thinks.

DFA

[DFA]

What are the default keyboard commands for FF2 and RW2?

mlbdude:

Where and how were you able to get the up / down scrolling for the OSD "info" window? I would like to see this incorporated into the "gold" release but would like to have it now. Do you have Studio at your disposal or something?

DFA

[mlbdude]

I am beta testing Studio. In doing so I often produce items that Jeff includes in his releases of Sage. I think (hope) this is one that will be included at some point in the beta releases. If not, as soon as Studio is released I will make it available.

Jeff has given me permission to discretely post some screen-shots and discuss design features that users want in the UI. This is especially critical since he is so busy.

[gplasky]

There are no default keys for FF2 or RW2. Add it to your command list.

Gerry

[DFA]

Thought so. Thanks.

DFA

[Chilli]

Originally posted by m0ng00se30
yeah the delay can be annoying.. its been the hardest thing to "teach" my wife... if she wants to watch something and the turn isn't instant she start hammering on the remote to make it turn, and it messes up the UIRT sending signals to my dish.. I wish the delay wasn't there but I see the need for it... unless you have serial control which has to be a near perfect solution. I would think!!

--Mike

I'm still training my wife to stop surfing, and let Sage do the recording . In the interim, you can work around the problem of slow channel change by splitting the output from your STB - one goes into the TV, the other into your HTPC. When surfing, switch to TV mode and use your STB remote. You can still pause live TV anytime using the Sage remote.

[DFA]

Chilli:

I have a very nice ($$) wide bandwidth, 4 - channel active s-video splitter. The splitter takes input from the STB. One of the outputs does go direct to the DLP. But bypassing the HTPC is antithema (sp) to the cause. I like being able to "slide" back and relook or relisten to what you didn't see or hear the first time.

My wife and I will not be joining the collective and hence are focused on enhancing Live TV usability. We record things that we are unavailable to watch live or is in conflict with something else and watch later at our convenience. We are quite satified at that.

Our real focus is making DVD play back look as stunning as possible.

I see no technical issue with removing the delay and have formally requested this. Jon of USB-UIRT says the delay is not in the UIRT DLL plugin so the hold up must be in Sage.

For us "Livers", hopefully it can and will be done.

Dane

[glbrown]

It's the concept of Sage watching tv while you are not around to watch tv that turns me on.

Intelligent Recording has been a real improvement. I am starting to get very interesting shows from odd 9000 range channels that I would have probably never seen surfing. Instead of surfing live, I now surf the recordings.

Don't like, watch, watch, fav, don't like... Training the IR mechanism is now part of the experience. Cheers is getting old so I added Night Court to the comedy selections. There is already too much news to watch so I'll kick a couple out. But that Freidman piece from the NY Times was really great, I'll make that a fav.

No live tv for me, this is way too neat and a lot more efficient. My Sage installation is becoming more like me every day, and that's scary

[kny3twalker]

FF through commercials would be awesome
I know this is off topic but when in the liveTV Guide and you view the info on a show
the watch now button does not do anything, at least for me
I have to select the channel from the guide itself

[sixdoubleo]

Originally posted by DFA
Chilli:

I see no technical issue with removing the delay and have formally requested this. Jon of USB-UIRT says the delay is not in the UIRT DLL plugin so the hold up must be in Sage.

So have we determined just what the delay is? Is it actually in Sage's proecessing of the IR??? Or is it something to do with stoping one MPG stream and starting another with each channel change.

Because I don't surf much, I never bothered to check...but if I watch 5 channels for 3 seconds each, will I then have 5 3-second MPG files sitting somewhere? If so maybe that is the delay.

[DFA]

There is a 2.5 - 2.7 sec. delay from the point Sage has received the "Enter" command until the UIRT starts to issue the string.

When using direct cable connection to PVR-250 tuner (no relaying), channel change is fairly quick. Quick considering the encode/decode and HDD R/W process. But the added +/- 3.0 sec when relaying becomes bothersome (2.7 delay + 0.3 string issue time = +/- 3.0 sec).

This does not seem related to any file issues since direct channel change of the PVR-250 by Sage seems to have only the encode/decode HDD R/W delay (base PVR delay for any input change to be seen at the output which is about 1.2 sec. for my HTPC which puts the total channel change time > 4 sec; mine comes in at around 5 sec. total).

I have channel change delay set at 10ms (as I recall it quit working with zero value in 1.4.1; I just now set to it to zero in 2.0.13 and still works but with fixed delay as being discussed). I see no reason that the repeat can not be near immediate if so desired.

For many who do little or no Live viewing, this is of little concern. Only for those of us that prefer to do a fair amount of Live viewing and still want the ability to jump back and forth rather than bypassing the PVR altogether have an issue. It's a matter of improving usability for Live viewing.

A hard wired data link would be best, but unfortunately most STB's do not have that feature.

DFA

[mlbdude]

Since Sage has a MPEG2 buffer of 2-3 seconds are you saying there is an additional 2-3 seconds to wait after that for the UIRT to send out its signal?

[DFA]

Hi:

I'll summarize the numbers in a better way. I used a stop watch to get an idea about what these timings actually are. I did this a number of times to get an average and eliminate "finger" error. These are specific to my HTPC and YMMV. What you refer to as the "MPEG buffer" delay I have referred to as "base PVR delay". This value is inherent and unavoidable. My system has a 1.2 sec. base PVR delay (MPEG buffer). Here are my measurements and presented in event order:

Channel change delay ........................... 2.7 sec. *(pass-through delay)
Channel digit string issue time ................ 0.3 sec.
STB response time ............................... 0.? sec.
Base PVR delay .................................... 1.2 sec.
..................................................... ----------
...................................................... > 4.2 sec.

When I make a channel change direct to the PVR-250 tuner, the time from the last key press (ENTER) to seeing the change on-screen is 1.2 sec. (the inherent PVR delay). When I make a channel change to the STB via UIRT relaying, the time from the last key press to seeing the change on-screen is about 5 sec.; a factor of about 4 times longer.

Nothing can be done about the "base PVR delay", the "string issue time" and "STB response time". The focus is on the 2.7 sec. holdup before blasting the digit string.

I have my inter-number delay set at 10 ms. But there is a time value associated for each IR number code to be issued as well. When the string is issued it comes pretty fast but still takes about 0.3 sec. for the entire string. This should be and is reasonably short but is an unavoidable overhead.

It is my desire to reduce the 2.7 sec pass-through delay to near-zero; say not more than 0.5 sec. This would cut the total relaying time down by about 1/2. When waiting for a channel change, each additional second seems like a geometrically increasing eternity. A 2.0 sec. plus reduction has an enormous human feel to it when anticipating a response.

Dane

[salsbst]

Just to be clear, are you starting the clock when you hit the enter key or the first digit of the channel number? If the enter key, then I'd call this a bug.

EDIT: just read upwards a little bit... you are starting the clock at the entery key --> bug.

It doesn't happen to me with the Sage->EXETunerPlugin->Girder->USB-UIRT combination, so it might be a bug in the USB-UIRT plugin for Sage.

[DFA]

You got it right. It could be in the UU_IRSAGE.DLL but I gather Jon Rhees seems to think not. Somethings holding up the harvest and it could be in the Sage code or the UIRT DLL or a combined contribution.

I have the channel change delay set at 0.0 msec. It is the zero-requested versus 2.7-actual that is the focus and hope that it can be improved. Something like this that involves seperate parties and devices is always more trouble to sort out.

P.S.: I have written LUA scripts in Girder to automatically process the "ENTER" key when the third digit is received. Hence, the stop watch actually starts with the press of the third digit. The automatic ENTER applies for both the PVR-250 tuner channel change and STB relaying.

Dane

[DFA]

More..........

I have an IRMan and a USB-UIRT. Girder receives and processes all IR events from the IRMan; NOT the UIRT. In fact, the Girder UIRT plugin is DISabled. Sage has the UIRT all to itself and is used for blasting only.

The point being made is that there is no competition for usage of the UIRT device. It belongs to Sage. I was going to use the UIRT for Girder as well, but with things as they are, I saw no reason to complicate things further.

Dane

[mlbdude]

Have you tried using the UIRT instead of the IRMAN in Sage?