Gemstone "speed"

[Phydeaux]

Without appearing to whine.... Can someone set my expectations as to how the Gemstone UI affects performance of SageTV from an HDxx extender? If I should expect it to be significantly impacted, fine, then I'll need to decide if the eye candy is worth it. But if not, where should I start looking to regain some performance?

My brief experience so far is less than stellar. When going from the Main menu to Videos (which is a single import path on my NAS, containing four folders which then each contain multiple folders/files for TV Series, Documentaries etc.), then browsing the subfolders:

SageTV v6 with SageMC:
<1s to Videos
<1s to first subfolder
<1s to scroll down a page (5 items) at a time
=1s to enter any folder
<1s to scroll down pages of items

SageTV v7
>5s to Videos
>5s to first subfolder
>3s to scroll down a page (5 items) at a time
=2s to enter any folder
=1s to scroll down pages of items

SageTV v7 with Gemstone
>10s to Videos
>10s to first subfolder
>3s to scroll down a page (5 items) at a time
=3s to enter any folder
=2s to scroll down pages of items


The server that SageTV v7 is on is more powerful (CPU, more memory etc) that the SageTV v6 and runs Windows 7 64-bit vs. Windows XP 32-bit. I should also mention that in v6 with SageMC I did not have Fanart enabled, but had a folder.jpg in every folder and each media file had a title.my file with the metadata for the media. These folder images were well-cached and did not affect scrolling speed. In SageTV v7 with Gemstone, I only have folder Fanart showing - no backgrounds or banners, yet it seems like nothing is cached. A "run" through TV Series folders is painfully slow. A second "run" through is absolutely no faster - the fanart folders are not a single bit faster the second time 'round. And why, oh why!, is there no pop-up alphabet from where I can select to start browsing titles starting with, for instance, P instead of having to lean on the down arrow for a couple minutes?

Ok, that started to sound a little whiney.. Sorry.

RLW

[jorton]

Did you precache the images in the Gemstone Image Settings?

[jorton]

Use your remote to enter "p" and it should take you there.

[Phydeaux]

Thanks

Did you precache the images in the Gemstone Image Settings?

Nope, I didn't know the feature existed. I'll look for that tonight. Thanks - that should make a significant difference.

Use your remote to enter "p" and it should take you there.

With respect, and I have plenty for contributors such as yourself, that's a lame duck option. I did try it, and it really didn't seem to work well. Even if it worked perfectly, it's annoying when a better operation was working perfectly in MC and, from what I just read, in Diamond. A "fly out" alphabet chooser is much, much better. You can active this with your thumb on the "up" arrow, for example, without repositioning the remote in your hand.

Thanks for the tip on precache!

RLW

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

Thanks for taking the time to respond and especially for all the hard work you've all put into Gemstone. Hitting the letter does work, but I really liked the "fly out" alphabet chooser from Diamond and MC. Is there any chance of you guys implementing something like that?

Thanks for the tip on precache!

RLW

Fixed that for you.

[Phydeaux]

Hey Skirge01, where did you find that quote from me? And what do you mean when you say "Fixed that for you."?

Thanks,
RLW

[jusjoken]

I will try not to take offence to the "lame duck" comment as the thousands of hours this team have put into Gemstone to provide what we feel is a better UI for SageTV is really for our own benefit and if others can enjoy our choices or suggest others that we can agree to add in then all the better.

Now as to jump/search options... Gemstone has 2 modes which are set from the Options/customize panel inside each Flow. Jump To/Filtered. Jump To as JOrton described will allow jumping to a specific letter from a keyboard or will use a remote to switch between the various letters associated with each number on the remote keypad....IF the Flow is sorted alpha... if not then it will jump a percentage based on the number used.

Filtered has a auto and manual mode that will filter the list as keys are typed and if on a remote will use a Regex type filter mode using all the various combinations that the entered keys could create.

And we have been considering a jump bar solution but there are many other items we are working on right now.

k

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

Hey Skirge01, where did you find that quote from me? And what do you mean when you say "Fixed that for you."?

Thanks,
RLW

Okay, apparently we need a forum etiquette lesson. It means I fixed your reply so that it was written the way a grateful person would nicely explain their issue with something being given away for free and politely suggest a new feature.

[Phydeaux]

My apologies. I sincerely appreciate the hard work gone into all of the SageTV customizations, especially the ongoing efforts, post-Google. The "lame duck" comment was not meant to be offensive, and I'm sorry if I appeared to be unduly critical. The current selection option, in my opinion, is not as refined as what had previously been available, nor as intuitive, even once learned. Granted, using a keyboard this would likely be fine. But I find it awkward from the standard SageTV extender remote, which is otherwise ideal.

At worst, this is a personal nit-pick in an otherwise excellent product.

RLW

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

My apologies. I sincerely appreciate the hard work gone into all of the SageTV customizations, especially the ongoing efforts, post-Google. The "lame duck" comment was not meant to be offensive, and I'm sorry if I appeared to be unduly critical. The current selection option, in my opinion, is not as refined as what had previously been available, nor as intuitive, even once learned. Granted, using a keyboard this would likely be fine. But I find it awkward from the standard SageTV extender remote, which is otherwise ideal.

At worst, this is a personal nit-pick in an otherwise excellent product.

RLW

[Carlton Bale]

I did not install Gemstone after reformatting my server this weekend due to the slow extender performance. Let us know if image pre-caching considerably improves performance. If so, perpahs that option should be enabled by default as it greatly affected my perception of Gemstone.

[Phydeaux]

I did not install Gemstone after reformatting my server this weekend due to the slow extender performance. Let us know if image pre-caching considerably improves performance. If so, perpahs that option should be enabled by default as it greatly affected my perception of Gemstone.

Carlton - wish I could help you out, but I ended up removing Gemstone. In fact, after removal and finding out that it really does not completely remove all it's parts, I decided on a clean install of SageTV v7.

There is no question that Gemstone is an incredible upgrade to the basic SageTV interface - very powerful and configurable. But from my perspective it's currently better for those who live to tinker away a lot of evenings getting things just so. But lacking deep technical understanding and with roughly zero documentation available, it's frustrating to make progress. There are TONS of little config items hidden away and mostly no context on what they do or why you would choose one setting over another. The forums are an incredible wealth of information and the gents developing and supporting Gemstone are very quick indeed with responses to questions. However.... see above comment about many evenings required. There is just no substitute for sitting down in front of the computer with printed documentation at hand to guide you.

RLW

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

from my perspective it's currently better for those who live to tinker away a lot of evenings getting things just so.

This is perhaps one of the strangest things I've read on the SageTV forums. The myriad of customization options in Sage is the pièce de résistance. I'm utterly baffled someone using Sage would actually state that's a bad thing. That's what drew many of us to Sage in the first place. I actually looked to see when you joined because I figured maybe you were new to Sage or something and didn't realize it had been bought by Google and was no longer being developed.

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

But lacking deep technical understanding and with roughly zero documentation available, it's frustrating to make progress. There are TONS of little config items hidden away and mostly no context on what they do or why you would choose one setting over another. The forums are an incredible wealth of information and the gents developing and supporting Gemstone are very quick indeed with responses to questions. However.... see above comment about many evenings required. There is just no substitute for sitting down in front of the computer with printed documentation at hand to guide you.

Umm... wow. Just. Wow. Are you confusing Gemstone with SageTV? Gemstone is made by fans (aka users) of Sage, not the company who originally created Sage.

You also mentioned many evenings being required, yet you only upgraded to Sage V7 hardly a month ago, probably barely got used to that, and then jumped into a full UI replacement? Gemstone was only publicly released as a beta back in September, so it's obviously still quite fresh. If you don't like to "tinker", you should probably stick with stock software.

As far as "roughly zero" documentation. Yeah, you're right. Nothing at all.

BTW, when is the last time you received printed documentation with ANY software, let alone FREE software? Your statement is akin to asking the game modding community for printed docs.

[Phydeaux]

Nice work Skirge01, at Assumptions 101.

I absolutely love configurable interfaces, but I don't particularly enjoy toggling things on and off with no clue what they are meant to affect or how the various components interact. Hence the desire for some form of documentation as a guide. If you think the install guide, short FAQ and release notes are a substitute for a short tutorial or detailed configuration guide, you're clearly brilliant.

I've been using SageTV v6 for several years and played around with many of the user-contributed addons. I do know a thing or two about how it works. Which made my transition to v7 generally fairly simple. Of course, when I did get stuck all it took was a look at the documentation...

Sure, Gemstone is pretty new and I have no issue with beta software, particularly when it's as polished as Gemstone clearly is. I had no issue with anything I tried not working, but I'm flailing in the dark without something to sit down, read and refer to when it comes to detailed configuration. I have a day job and limited hours to fiddle in the evening - so when I do get a chance to tinker, I like results, not more mysteries.

Printed documentation? Please. Are you flailing, just trying to land a punch? Of course printed documentation is not expected - the thought is ludicrous. But I happen to have a device that can take whats on the monitor and magically transform it into a format I can refer to anywhere, any time. Look at Stuckless and BMT, for an example of helpful documentation. In any case, I don't blame the Gemstone team for not having detailed documentation yet - they're busy as heck creating this software. I'm sure wiki's, detailed FAQs etc will come.

Contrary to what you seem to suggest, I'm not being critical. I'll dive into Gemstone when it's a little further along in it's development cycle, and I don't particularly need you to suggest my reasons for doing so are anything less than valid.

I took your suggestion with grace the other day. Now it's time for you to pipe down unless you have something constructive to contribute.

RLW

[Carlton Bale]

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

There is no question that Gemstone is an incredible upgrade to the basic SageTV interface - very powerful and configurable. But from my perspective it's currently better for those who live to tinker away a lot of evenings getting things just so.

I like the Gemstone interface, but it was just too slow on my extenders. I read several posts on flows, but never had time to figure them out because Sage MyMovies and the default TV view did everything I needed.

I have zero criticism for the developers. I asked one question about getting MyMovies to show up on my main menu and it was answered very quickly and thoroughly. I just wish I had more time to devote to figuring out Gemstone to take advantage of all it has to offer.

[camTexas]

OK. Not sure why all the negativism (perceived or otherwise). Gemstone is a user generated mod. Use it or don't. Provide constructive feedback if you think something isn't working. Always remember however that the developers are sharing something they did in their own time, not for pay, but for sharing with the rest of the community. Why? Because they want to. Drive them away because of a few bad comments and unappreciative attitude and we all will see the decrease of mod development hastening even faster.

I for one GREATLY appreciate Gemstone. Is it perfect, no. Is it great, yes. I did have to fuddle through some of the settings and learn more about flows than I anticipated (there is documentation you just have to search) but it didn't take days but only a few hours to set everything up. I do still see some memory leaks with the use of my extenders but that's manageable and I look forward to continued evolution of Gemstone. My family and WAF is better than it has been in years so THANK YOU!
</end soapbox>

[Phydeaux]

Agreed CamTexas. Other than a poorly chosen word in an earlier post I don't see a single thing I've said as a negative of Gemstone. There are certain parts of it that I'm not entirely comfortable with just yet, and I'll hold off until I'm ready. But it's an awesome interface and very customizable. The devs have done, and continue to do, a great job.

For some reason, NetNanny seems to want a BoogieMan to defend against. I've had good responses from the Gemstone team members on this and other threads, so I'm pretty certain they are not quite so thin skinned as some seem to believe. Sometimes there's a fine line between appropriate praise and pure noise.

RLW

[Skirge01]

First off, I assumed nothing; everything I stated was based on what you wrote in the forums and I quoted you on it. I also did a little reading to see when you upgraded to V7 and when you started posting about Gemstone. The only things I took issue with (without name-calling, I might add) were what appeared to be demands and a clear lack of patience. If you don't have the time to dedicate to figure something out, don't use it.

Also, while you may think that the apparent politeness or lack or responses from the devs is agreement with your current tone and tactics, you're simply making an assumption yourself.

@camTexas: Glad to see that you get it.

[Phydeaux]

Umm... wow. Just. Wow.

RLW

[RedR]

+1 camTexas

Well said, and frankly I for one feel its not pointed out clear enough. The crew working Gemstone, as well all the folks who've made SageTV into a full featured product we've all come to adore never get thanks enough!

Thank you Gemstone crew!! This has given SageTV polish and features long since needed to be on par with any out of the box solution on the market today or tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Phydeaux

There are certain parts of it that I'm not entirely comfortable with just yet

Akin to getting a brand new Formula 1 race car.

I for one am a very happy end user so thank you all,
RedR