Bert 49 Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Can you smart people tell me if this makes a difference? I can get live tv working some of the time, however, it is not consistent. I did notice that ServerWMC is creating temporary files in the location where my recorded TV goes for Windows Media Center (a WD Red Drive). This is great, but my question is that for almost everything else temporary I use my SSD to speed things up. Would it be beneficial to tell ServerWMC that my recorded TV folder is on my SSD so it would use that for temporary since it's faster? Is there any drawback to doing so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent 91 Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Hi Bert, is it really your drive that is the bottleneck? Maybe you can try live TV via the web client and then post up the transcode logs for the experts on the forum here to help diagnose your bottleneck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyreturns 191 Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 I am wondering the same thing as Kent, why do you suspect the problem is file i/o related? What is actually happening when its 'not consistent'? You can use wmc to move your rec tv folder to a local ssd, and serverwmc will see the new drive. The only downside I can see is that this is where wmc stores recordings too, so your ssd will fill up fast if you record shows, or don't move the finished recordings to a different drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Hi, sorry for the delay, thanks for your help. I'm not sure that it is a HD bottleneck question, I was just curious if you smart folks would think that was a possibility. The only reason I thought that might be it was because I had read that it's very intensive to "transcode live tv in real time". I use MB everywhere, but some of the issues I have are: 1. On wi-fi live tv will randomly stop (oddly it seems at or near the end of a particular program but not always) 2. On my phone over cellular I may or may not be able to get it to even start and then it will randomly stop (this may be due to signal quality though I am on Verizon with LTE in Chicago which is generally very good) 3. Over wi-fi sometimes it seems it just won't go or keep going when I am trying to stream to chromecast. I noticed this a few weeks ago and when I came up to my main computer, there were like five instances of ffmpeg that crippled my computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saitoh183 137 Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I can attest that using a SSD for my LiveTV needs does make things faster. I used to store all temps on a sata 250GB HDD and it was often sluggish. I then bought a 128GB SSD moved my LiveTV buffer folder to it and Also my recordings and its been heaven ever since. The biggest notable change was watching a recording over wifi on my secondary TV via XBMC. It used to buffer often and once i changed drive, i would get buffering a bit at the beginning and then smoothest for the rest of the viewing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 I can attest that using a SSD for my LiveTV needs does make things faster. I used to store all temps on a sata 250GB HDD and it was often sluggish. I then bought a 128GB SSD moved my LiveTV buffer folder to it and Also my recordings and its been heaven ever since. The biggest notable change was watching a recording over wifi on my secondary TV via XBMC. It used to buffer often and once i changed drive, i would get buffering a bit at the beginning and then smoothest for the rest of the viewing. So then quick follow up questions if you please. Were you able to keep the actual recordings on one drive and use the SSD for the temps? I primarily use WMC for recording (it's the backbone of my home entertainment system) and can't imagine using the MB application to schedule them. So I am wondering I guess if I change the Server WMC setting to use the C drive and don't schedule using the MB application, I would not fill up my SSD with recordings, correct? I currently use WMC to record then run DVRMSToolbox to commercial skip for WMC use and then run MCeBuddy to remove commercials and move to another folder for a second copy of each show for use with MB. I really don't like this setup but haven't been able to come up with a better way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saitoh183 137 Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 So then quick follow up questions if you please. Were you able to keep the actual recordings on one drive and use the SSD for the temps? I primarily use WMC for recording (it's the backbone of my home entertainment system) and can't imagine using the MB application to schedule them. So I am wondering I guess if I change the Server WMC setting to use the C drive and don't schedule using the MB application, I would not fill up my SSD with recordings, correct? Well my setup uses ServerWMC (so i too use WMC for recording) on my main HTPC with a secondary SSD that is used for LiveTV buffering and also to store what i record (i dont keep recordings after watching, so space isnt a issue). I also to strip commercials cuz just FF them...too much hassle for something i wont keep. I use MB to schedule everything since i can do it from any pc in the house. What does scheduling from MB have to do with filling up your SSD with recordings. I currently use WMC to record then run DVRMSToolbox to commercial skip for WMC use and then run MCeBuddy to remove commercials and move to another folder for a second copy of each show for use with MB. I really don't like this setup but haven't been able to come up with a better way. You would need to test how long it takes to do this task on a Sata drive vs a SSD. If there is a very small time difference, I would get a Sata drive to store the initial recording and do all the MCbuddy work on it, then store the final version on the SSD and also use the SSD for LiveTV buffer file. If there is a real big time difference, then get another SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Well my setup uses ServerWMC (so i too use WMC for recording) on my main HTPC with a secondary SSD that is used for LiveTV buffering and also to store what i record (i dont keep recordings after watching, so space isnt a issue). I also to strip commercials cuz just FF them...too much hassle for something i wont keep. I use MB to schedule everything since i can do it from any pc in the house. What does scheduling from MB have to do with filling up your SSD with recordings. Maybe I wasn't clear with my question. I am talking about the settings within ServerWMC. Specifically under folders where it says path to local "Recorded TV' folder (from WMC):. So, if I changed this to my 128 gig SSD and it started recording HD there it would fill fast. In an ideal world, I would want ServerWMC (and anything else for that matter) to do all the "work on my SSD" and store the data on my regular Hard Drives but I don't think this is possible. Am I unclear? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saitoh183 137 Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Maybe I wasn't clear with my question. I am talking about the settings within ServerWMC. Specifically under folders where it says path to local "Recorded TV' folder (from WMC):. So, if I changed this to my 128 gig SSD and it started recording HD there it would fill fast. In an ideal world, I would want ServerWMC (and anything else for that matter) to do all the "work on my SSD" and store the data on my regular Hard Drives but I don't think this is possible. Am I unclear? Ah..Well In WMC you can set only 1 record folder. So my suggestion is the following: Set the record path to your SSD and have all the work done there. Make it store your final file on your regular HDD and create a library group in MBS that contains the path to your destination folder (with the final files) Have some sort of script or manually delete the original recording from your Recording folder (maybe set WMC to only keep recordings for certain amount of time) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyreturns 191 Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 miscellaneous comments follow: Having serverwmc/MBS doing the recording is the same as WMC doing the recording - since neither do the recording - they both issue recording requests to wmc's recording service. There is no difference where you originate the recording request. Because swmc uses the same service, it captures tuner output (wtv) to the same folder as wmc, which is wmc's recTV folder. However when you watch live tv, serverwmc has to do an extra step and repackage the live wtv file to ts format and the ts file is streamed to MBS, by default the ts file is also in the rec tv folder, but you can set it to a different folder/drive in the config.xml file of serverwmc, for example: <RemuxCustomFolderUNC>\\mediaserver\Shared\Remux Folder</RemuxCustomFolderUNC> note that the folder must be specified as a network share (UNC). For the problems you listed, you might have more consistent results by increasing the amount of time swmc waits for the live-tv stream to start. Try changing this value, also in the config.xml file: <Timeout_WaitForTS_MS>10000</Timeout_WaitForTS_MS> maybe try doubling it to 20000. When it does fail to start a live stream, consider posting the serverwmc log. I don't know how dvrmstool box does the conversion, but it can also be putting a strain on disk IO if it is running in some kind of auto batch mode, say as soon as a recording stops or starts. Mcebuddy has some kind of 'play nice' mode where it is more passive (so I am told, I have never used either - I also just skip through commercials ). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 miscellaneous comments follow: Having serverwmc/MBS doing the recording is the same as WMC doing the recording - since neither do the recording - they both issue recording requests to wmc's recording service. There is no difference where you originate the recording request. Because swmc uses the same service, it captures tuner output (wtv) to the same folder as wmc, which is wmc's recTV folder. However when you watch live tv, serverwmc has to do an extra step and repackage the live wtv file to ts format and the ts file is streamed to MBS, by default the ts file is also in the rec tv folder, but you can set it to a different folder/drive in the config.xml file of serverwmc, for example: <RemuxCustomFolderUNC>\\mediaserver\Shared\Remux Folder</RemuxCustomFolderUNC> note that the folder must be specified as a network share (UNC). For the problems you listed, you might have more consistent results by increasing the amount of time swmc waits for the live-tv stream to start. Try changing this value, also in the config.xml file: <Timeout_WaitForTS_MS>10000</Timeout_WaitForTS_MS> maybe try doubling it to 20000. When it does fail to start a live stream, consider posting the serverwmc log. I don't know how dvrmstool box does the conversion, but it can also be putting a strain on disk IO if it is running in some kind of auto batch mode, say as soon as a recording stops or starts. Mcebuddy has some kind of 'play nice' mode where it is more passive (so I am told, I have never used either - I also just skip through commercials ). Sorry, got into a networking project and this took a backburner. Where is the config.xml file located? I assumed it would be in C:\Program Files (x86)\ServerWMC by default, but not there. I'd like to try this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyreturns 191 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Its actually stored in programdata, but the easiest way to get to it is go to the 'debug' tab in serverwmc and click 'edit settings file' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 Cool, thanks, I did not test it too much but it worked, stopped working (went back to the channel with watch now button) and then worked again right away. Here is log if it is of interest to you: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z35i9dexgqoxr9s/ServerWMC.log?dl=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyreturns 191 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I can't recall what it is you are testing, but looking at the log you posted the settings don't appear to be changed significantly. For a lot of the settings changes, after saving the config file you have to restart serverwmc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 I was just trying to see if moving the work to my SSD from my JOBD tower would improve performance.....doesn't seem to make much difference but it still works. I will report any issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 (edited) Hmmm, started and then just stopped again.....here is log. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jaypig4q088vx7l/AADnmBWvYCNVQXXQLZKZKZgba?dl=0 Also noticed that I didn't save the config utility correctly so that's why it seemed the same Guess my momma was right, you can't fix stupid. Edited December 3, 2014 by Bert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyreturns 191 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 What specifically is the parameter that you are trying to change in the config (settings) file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert 49 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 This paramater from your previous instruction.....seems to be pretty solid now though although I can't say I see an improvement. Because swmc uses the same service, it captures tuner output (wtv) to the same folder as wmc, which is wmc's recTV folder. However when you watch live tv, serverwmc has to do an extra step and repackage the live wtv file to ts format and the ts file is streamed to MBS, by default the ts file is also in the rec tv folder, but you can set it to a different folder/drive in the config.xml file of serverwmc, for example: <RemuxCustomFolderUNC>\\mediaserver\Shared\Remux Folder</RemuxCustomFolderUNC> note that the folder must be specified as a network share (UNC). ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyreturns 191 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Ah, I see. The reason I am not seeing the change the folder in the logs is probably because there is something wrong with how you are specifying the folder, if there is an error the folder is reset to the default (which is just to not use it and use recorded tv folder instead). The folder you path you specify in the RemuxCustomFolderUNC parameter needs to: 1) be a network share path of the form. \\<machineName>\<folder path> , for example mine is : \\mediaserver\shared\remuxFolder 2) this folder must exist and be reachable using the above path from the machine and account serverwmc is run under 3) must be writeable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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