[Android MiniClient] Now in BETA

[tvmaster2]

Someone may have asked this already, but search turned up nothing under 'cast'
is there a plan to one day add the ability to cast to a larger tv? I do that now with Plex, but it would be killer if your version of Placeshifter could do that....
thanks

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

someone may have asked this but search turned up nothing under 'cast'
is there a plan to one day add the ability to cast to a larger tv, via casting?
I do that now with Plex, but it would be killer if your version of Placeshifter could do that....
thanks

I would seriously doubt if it goes that way. It seems the primary target of this app is to have it actually running on the smart device you'r be 'casting' to (Android TV device).

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I would seriously doubt if it goes that way. It seems the primary target of this app is to have it actually running on the smart device you'r be 'casting' to (Android TV device).

so it may show up as an ios app, or a Roku version?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

so it may show up as an ios app, or a Roku version?

I don't know if anyone is even working towards that.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I don't know if anyone is even working towards that.

It would be a great promo for SageTV.

[scoful]

I factory reset my Fire TV 4k
Now if I use the EXO player I can watch 'live' tv it seems so far, but recorded shows have no audio on most of the ones I've tried so far. I'll update some more when I get more info.
If I use the default instead of EXO i get audio with no video still.

[cncb]

Any progress on AC3 passthrough support for IJKPlayer?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by cncb

Any progress on AC3 passthrough support for IJKPlayer?

Unfortunately, because of work, and a few other things... I have not been able to look at the miniclient in a few weeks now

[bialio]

The one thing I've noticed on the android client is that animations are very janky and at times leave artifacts behind - with all STVs (default UI, Gemstone, Phoeni).

Currently turning animations completely off gives me the best experience. Has anyone else noticed this? I've tried wired and wireless on the Nvidia Shield and see the same issues on both...

[samgreco]

Originally Posted by bialio

The one thing I've noticed on the android client is that animations are very janky and at times leave artifacts behind - with all STVs (default UI, Gemstone, Phoeni).

Currently turning animations completely off gives me the best experience. Has anyone else noticed this? I've tried wired and wireless on the Nvidia Shield and see the same issues on both...

I've noticed this as well on my Amazone FireTV (Gen 1). Not artifacts as much as the jerky/janky movements on the UI. I'm still using an HD200 because of it.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by bialio

The one thing I've noticed on the android client is that animations are very janky and at times leave artifacts behind - with all STVs (default UI, Gemstone, Phoeni).

Currently turning animations completely off gives me the best experience. Has anyone else noticed this? I've tried wired and wireless on the Nvidia Shield and see the same issues on both...

There was a bug that I fixed (a long time ago) related to this. I run Gemstone on my main TVs... and I run default STV for testing. While some of the animations are jerky, especially when it doesn't have the image in the UI cache... I haven't experienced the leaving artifacts behind.

If you can distill it down to set of operations that can be repeated, I can certainly take a look at it.

Are you running the version from the Play Store?

On my Shields the UI appears to be the same, or faster, then the HD300, which is why I stopped using the HD300s a few months back.

My TVs are 1920x1080 and the MiniClient will match the UI of the TV. The HD300 basically renders 1280x720 and then upscales it for the TV. I've played around with doing this as well, but, the end result wasn't anything noticeable on my TV, so, there is still code in there, but, it's not enabled.

[stuckless]

@bailio - If you look in the MiniClienRenderer
https://github.com/OpenSageTV/sagetv...tRenderer.java

You'll see how the rendering operations are handled. I suspect the Animation issues stem from how I am building up the UI.

Basically a background thread is receiving rendering instructions and I'm queuing them up, until I get a request for the "flip buffer". At that time, I then copy the instructions to the UI queue and process them there.

Ideally the background rendering commands would be rendering directly to back buffer and then copy the buffer to the main UI when it's done. The problem I ran into with Android is that I could not create a surface for doing background rendering... ie, it was always forcing me to render on the UI thread, even if I was using a back buffer.

Admittedly my openGL experience is basically limited to this project, so, not very skilled in that area. But, if we could figure this out... it's dramatically increase the rendering performance.

The MiniClient is designed to accept a "pluggable" Renderer, so it would be easy to create a new Renderer for testing/playing.

[reggie14]

@stuckless- Do you use the Shield TV remote, or an IR remote? The reason I ask is that you keep saying the miniclient UI on the Shield TV performs as well (or better) than the HD300. For me, the UI seems pretty fluid, but the latency is high. It's better if I use the Shield TV remote, (compared to my Harmony remote), but even that seems to have a bit higher latency than my Harmony with my HD300.

Is this just me? Is the Shield just particularly slow responding to IR commands?

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by reggie14

@stuckless- Do you use the Shield TV remote, or an IR remote? The reason I ask is that you keep saying the miniclient UI on the Shield TV performs as well (or better) than the HD300. For me, the UI seems pretty fluid, but the latency is high. It's better if I use the Shield TV remote, (compared to my Harmony remote), but even that seems to have a bit higher latency than my Harmony with my HD300.

Is this just me? Is the Shield just particularly slow responding to IR commands?

I notice a small lag (maybe 1/2 second) when using my Harmony vs. the game controller. The game controller (I don't have a SHIELD remote) seems just as fast as the HD300 for navigation.

[KarylFStein]

When watching a video that is shorter than the screen I have to open the options menu and click on the screen icon on the bottom right to get it to not stretch to fit the screen. Is there some way to make that the default (no stretch)?

[bialio]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

I notice a small lag (maybe 1/2 second) when using my Harmony vs. the game controller. The game controller (I don't have a SHIELD remote) seems just as fast as the HD300 for navigation.

I see the same thing - with shield remote it's no lag, my harmony IR remote has enough lag that it is noticeable.

btl.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by reggie14

@stuckless- Do you use the Shield TV remote, or an IR remote? The reason I ask is that you keep saying the miniclient UI on the Shield TV performs as well (or better) than the HD300. For me, the UI seems pretty fluid, but the latency is high. It's better if I use the Shield TV remote, (compared to my Harmony remote), but even that seems to have a bit higher latency than my Harmony with my HD300.

Is this just me? Is the Shield just particularly slow responding to IR commands?

I use the Shield remote. I tried a FLIRC unit but, didn't get it to work at all, so then I just learned to use the Sheild's remote. Today, I actually prefer the shield remote.

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

When watching a video that is shorter than the screen I have to open the options menu and click on the screen icon on the bottom right to get it to not stretch to fit the screen. Is there some way to make that the default (no stretch)?

I recall someone asking the opposite as the default as well I have a hard time envisioning what you are seeing... if you post a video, I can look at it, and then try to understand this better. There is likely some work around aspect ratios that needs to be handled better.

[KarylFStein]

I see it with home movies and some movie rips. I'll PM you an extreme example, (video from phone in portrait mode).

[Gustovier]

I still use the original Phoenix 1 STV. There are definitely issues with showing different things. For example the OSD overlay never fully disappears after you fast forward (or any other action that brings up the OSD)

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Gustovier

I still use the original Phoenix 1 STV. There are definitely issues with showing different things. For example the OSD overlay never fully disappears after you fast forward (or any other action that brings up the OSD)

Actually I get that ocassionally in gemstone as well. ie, ff and then the osd animation doesn't completely disappear. To fix it, I hit pause and then play, and then it works... but yeah, definately something in the MiniClient that is not completing.