Will we ever have smooth ff/rew on the extenders?

[Chriscic]

Wondering if this is ever going to happen. Not that the current skip back/forward scheme is terrible, but smooth ff/rew would be nice.

Along with that, I would really like it to be able to pause and then move forward or back frame-by-frame. My HD-Tivo four or five years ago could do this; it was great for watching plays develop or instant replays with sports.

[Brent]

I have smooth fast forward and rewind on my extenders now. The MediaMVP, HD100 and HD200 all can do smooth ff/rew.

This is possible with SageMC ootb and is possible with the default STV with a plugin. EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think all extenders do smooth ff/rew without even needing any plugin.



And I think you can hit pause once to pause. And then hit pause over and over again to move forward one frame at a time. Not positive on that one though.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

Wondering if this is ever going to happen. Not that the current skip back/forward scheme is terrible, but smooth ff/rew would be nice.

What extender are you using? Have you tried the smooth FF/REW commands? The FF/REW buttons on the HD100 & HD200 are used for smooth FF/REW on those extenders. And, the MVP has smooth FF/REW for formats it can play natively w/o needing to be transcoded by the server.

Along with that, I would really like it to be able to pause and then move forward or back frame-by-frame. My HD-Tivo four or five years ago could do this; it was great for watching plays develop or instant replays with sports.

Using Pause repeatedly while paused should go forward a frame or so, but I don't think there's a way to do that in reverse.

Originally Posted by Brent

I have smooth fast forward and rewind on my extenders now. The MediaMVP, HD100 and HD200 all can do smooth ff/rew.

This is possible with SageMC ootb and is possible with the default STV with a plugin.

Smooth FF/REW on an extender does not require a plugin.

- Andy

[Chriscic]

Ok, not sure what I was thinking here.

I need to check tonight... maybe I was thinking the ff/rew is still choppy... it chops ahead vs. being smooth and moving fast.

I'll also try hitting the pause button a few times; I didn't think that would keep the frames moving one by one. I suppose backwards is too much to ask (that may not be technically feasible even), but frame-by-frame would be great.

[voicu_n]

Chriscic,
I have noticed the FF/REW problem as welll.
The thing is , It worked before with previous sage Tv version 6.5.9 and with previous beta firmware for my HD200, But ever since i have upgraded to SageTV v6.5.12 beta and firmware "20090316 0". FF and REW buttons do not work anymore... They do a regular skip instead of smooth FF and REW.
I did noticed in the release of SageTv v 6.5.11 this :
"Windows Updates
1. New MPEG demux w/ accurate seeking is included again"
Could this be the reason ??? Is this a bug of the new released beta???

[Chriscic]

Opus,
You had me questioning myself, but the ff/rew buttons on the SageTV remote are anything but smooth. 4x FF skips the video frames forward in roughly 4 second chunks (and skips the vid updates entirely for some of the 4 second chunks along the way). Is this what you're calling smooth, or am I missing something? Smooth to me would be all (or most) of the video frames playing, just much faster. I guess the faster the ff the less smooth it might be (maybe you can't play perfectly smooth at 16x, nor would you want to), but again my old Tivo was way smoother at slower ff speeds as was my Comcast HD-DVR.

Holding the pause button does indeed forward frame-by-frame which is cool; I had no idea so thanks for that. You do pretty much have to hold it though; it would be slightly better if every time you hit it you went forward one frame, but that's being picky I admit. This feature will be appreciated when the football season begins again.

By the way, the above is all on my HD-PVR recordings, and behavior appears to be the same on MPEG2 files. On MPEG4 vids though the 4x just skips forward 10 seconds at a time (as noted by voicu n)... almost just like the skip button and nothing like ff (the pause ff works fine though).

I'm running the HD200 with the latest beta (just updated to it tonight).

Thanks,
-Chris

[Opus4]

If smooth FF used to work more smoothly, then send the info to SageTV via a bug report. I don't like smooth FF, so I don't ever use it & thus can't compare current results to how smooth it was in the past.

- Andy

[Chriscic]

No, it's always been this way as far as I remember (at least for MPEG2 and HD-PVR files, I never noticed how MPEG4 files used to work). I was just throwing out a suggestion for improvement for discussion.

It sounds like there might be a plugin that makes the ff/rew smoother. I'll try that out when I get some time; I've been meaning to try SageMC eventually anyway.

Thanks,
-Chris

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

It sounds like there might be a plugin that makes the ff/rew smoother. I'll try that out when I get some time; I've been meaning to try SageMC eventually anyway.

I would not use the smooth ff/rw plugin on an extender. It is even more choppy than the built-in function. But don't let that stop you from trying out SageMC.

Aloha,
Mike

[aflat]

I'm not using the beta on anything, and smooth FF isn't smooth at all on the HD200's, especially on HDPVR recordings. It plays a few frames, then the screen freezes, but you see the timer skip in 4 second chunks, then shows a few screen updates, then skips more 4 second chunks. It's all very random as to how much it skips before showing a frame, but it happens every time. The recordings from my PVR500 are a bit better, but still not too smooth.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I would not use the smooth ff/rw plugin on an extender. It is even more choppy than the built-in function. But don't let that stop you from trying out SageMC.

Aloha,
Mike

Mike,

I am lost what is the differene in smooth ff/rw and built in function

[rmac321]

Between the default STV and SageMC, there are so many different places to tinker with ff and rw in the various menus, that I haven't found the time to resume tinkering with it. I keep telling the family to not use those buttons until I have time to sort it out. The couple times I have tried, I either saw no change or the results were far different than expected.

Anybody want to put together an all-encompassing faq regarding ff/rw that includes all the places you can adjust these settings? It would need to address server settings (if any affect extenders), extender settings, default STV settings and SageMC settings.