INTERACT FORUM
Windows => Television => Topic started by: tzr916 on December 04, 2015, 01:13:12 pm
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WMC uses one main WMC machine then other tv's in the house use an "extender" to watch live tv or recorded tv. Not talking about zones. Talking- one room can watch live tv channel ABC, another room can watch live tv CBS, another room can watch recorded show XYZ.
Does JRiver MC have this ability?
What type of machines/hardware?
What type of OS? android/windows/other
Does each "extender" need a license?
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Welcome to the forum. MC has extensive abilities to play to other machines. Please read the Media Network (https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Network) topic on our wiki for details.
You can use another copy of MC running on any OS.
You can use an Android or iOS tablet.
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Welcome to the forum. MC has extensive abilities to play to other machines. Please read the Media Network topic on our wiki for details.
You can use another copy of MC running on any OS.
You can use an Android or iOS tablet.
I have read the wiki. It mostly talks about DLNA sharing of stored content. It does not seem to explain if or how clients can access TV TUNERS.
Can clients access networked tuners (Ceton tuners are NOT DLNA)?
Can clients watch Live Tv and use PAUSE, REW, FF?
Can clients view the GUIDE and schedule recordings via it's remote?
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Yes. MC can access network tuners. You could try the software.
You can watch live TV.
A Windows client can access the EPG.
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The typical setup (from my experience) is to run JRiver on a computer that is left running 24/7 (the "Server". This is where the MC "Library" is located. The actual media can be on this Server or a NAS or wherever) and that Server computer has the TV Tuner cards. Then you put a small PC at each TV (the Client).
The Client computers will use/share the TV Tuners on the Server.
You can watch multiple channels at the same time on different Clients (if you have multiple TV Tuners on the Server), set recordings and subscriptions from any Client, watch movies (multiple Clients can watch different movies at the same time as long as you have the network bandwidth), you can listen to audio, etc.
Clients can pause Live TV, have RR FFW features. You can also start watching a TV show and then later, at the end of the show, decide you want to record/save it and MC will save the show from the beginning.
I don't use Android or iOS devices, but they work too - as others have posted.
Just be aware that JRiver can't do "Copy-Once" programs, so if you have a cable-card and your cable provider flags the TV channels as Copy-Once, JRiver is not going to work. But JRiver has Kickstarter campaign open now to see if they can raise enough interest/funds to add this feature (licensing fees are high) but this feature won't be added unless there is enough interest.
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I donated to the Kickstarter as soon as I saw it on Green Button forum. Comcast only sets copy flag on movie channels like HBO, SHO, MGM, etc. If the Kickstarter succeeds, with CLIENTS be able to view these channels? Will CLIENTS be able to play back shows recorded on these channels?
The problems with trying it out:
- afraid of conflict with my current WMC machine. Do I need to build a separate JRiver MC Server? Will it run on the same machine that is doing full time WMC right now?
- cost of replacing 4 existing WMC extenders. If each room needs a $300+ windows pc, it's not likely to happen. Maybe $99 Fire Tv or similar?
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It is my understanding that if/when JRiver solves the Copy-Once issue, all machines running MC will be able to view the content.
I know that other have had problems trying to run WMC and MC on the same computer. The problem seems to be that WMC takes control of the TV Tuner(s) and then JRiver program can't get access to them.
I know there are other ways to set up multiple TVs to use JRiver, but I have only done it with PCs - so I don't want to comment or provide bad info on this. Perhaps someone else will chime in.
I also have FireTV on two of my TVs, its nice for alternative programming/choices but not a replacement for MC.
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- cost of replacing 4 existing WMC extenders. If each room needs a $300+ windows pc, it's not likely to happen. Maybe $99 Fire Tv or similar?
That's pretty neat... I never knew about MCE devices before.
Is the JRiver equivalent the Id? http://jriver.com/Id/ Seems like the Id Stick would be a decent equivalent to most of the MCE devices I saw quickly. Then you just control the Id with Gizmo or JRemote.
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It is my understanding that if/when JRiver solves the Copy-Once issue, all machines running MC will be able to view the content.
Hmm...
Good question. We have to study OpenCable rules on that.
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Hmm...
Good question. We have to study OpenCable rules on that.
For the people who's cable company copy flags all channels, this is a very big "Hmm..."
I would like to watch HBO, SHO, etc on all 5 Tv's in my house. Would be sad if I could only watch on the main MC Server Tv.
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I shouldn't assume how MC is going to work with Copy-Once programming - but maybe MC could use the "WMC Extender" that many WMC users already have for viewing the Copy-Once programming.
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If each room needs a $300+ windows pc, it's not likely to happen.
Cost of basic Windows 8.1/10 machines suitable for JR client purposes is plummeting.
Devices such as the Pipo X7 are down to $110 http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_137996.html?gclid=CIWC65nX0ckCFQ8taQod2bcEGA
Just add a remote.
But if I was in the market for one, I would look for a Cherry Trail based one (much more powerful graphics engine than the X7's quad core Bay Trail).
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I shouldn't assume how MC is going to work with Copy-Once programming - but maybe MC could use the "WMC Extender" that many WMC users already have for viewing the Copy-Once programming.
Definitely not - the WMC extenders are either a Microsoft XBOX or a dedicated WMC extender (there was never a vast choice of these), in both cases running software that will only work with WMC.
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...I would look for a Cherry Trail based one (much more powerful graphics engine than the X7's quad core Bay Trail).
Got my first Client setup and did some quick testing today with live tv and recordings (some wtv some ts). Had to tweak several things to get decent playback but it's still not as smooth as I would like. I am seeing some intermittent stutter in camera panning, scrolling news tickers, and especially for 1080i mpeg4 (which is going to become the norm). Using HDMI to Denon AVR to Sony 1080p LCD. MC Server with Q9450 CPU and nVidia GPU looks perfectly fine, so not too worried about clients for bedroom usage. I guess I shouldn't expect perfection from a $150 miniPC.
MC Client Settings:
VIDEO: Red October Standard & Hardware Acceleration
AUDIO: WASAPI & HDMI Bitstreaming
Client Intel Driver:
1080p 60Hz
Contrast Enhancement OFF
Film Mode On
Power- Max Quality
General - Performance
Client Hardware (miniPC box from China):
Windows 10 x64
CPU: Z8300 1.4GHz Quad Core
GPU: Gen 8 Intel HD
Hard Drive: 32GB eMMC
RAM: 2GB DDR3L
LAN: 100Mbps Wired Ethernet
Next client tests will be IR receiver + remote. Then only thing stopping me from ditching WMC is the Commercial Skipping behavior in MC.
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2GB of RAM on a 64bit Windows system. Is that enough?
Run the JRiver Benchmark and post the results please. I'm interested in your extender experiment results.
Oh, and on the Client, VideoClock set?
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Belarc says there is another RAM slot, but not sure if adding more is possible. Have to ask the manufacturer.
Tried VideoClock On/Off. Did not seem to help either way but I was trying all different kinds of settings, so I can re-visit.
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 11.916 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 6.201 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 6.792 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 3.718 seconds
Score: 664
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 3.086 seconds
Flood filling... 1.390 seconds
Direct copying... 2.572 seconds
Small renders... 6.779 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 4.191 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 3.022 seconds
Score: 1046
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 1.138 seconds
Populate database... 5.801 seconds
Save database... 1.320 seconds
Reload database... 0.215 seconds
Search database... 4.595 seconds
Sort database... 4.786 seconds
Group database... 2.541 seconds
Score: 1054
JRMark (version 21.0.30): 921
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Well the minimum memory required for Windows 10 64bit is 2GB, and I never trust a minimum, particularly if there isn't a lot of spare disk drive space for swap space.
That benchmark: Ouch for interlaced mpeg4, 1080i video. De-interlacing can put quite a load on a system. It gives me the most trouble on an Intel HD4000 iGPU. I think someone else did some testing and concluded a low power PC is good for all but de-interlacing.
Did you look through the benchmarking (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=54396.250) thread? There are a few NUC benchmarks for comparison.
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That's a weak benchmark.
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....cost of replacing 4 existing WMC extenders. If each room needs a $300+ windows pc, it's not likely to happen. Maybe $99 Fire Tv or similar?
Bummer, looks like a real MC Client should indeed be a $300+ PC :(
I'm going to try playing with Tools > Options > General > Video Card in MC. These clients are only bedroom Tv's and don't get used often compared to the Server Tv.
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I reduced the Client from 1080p to 720p and set the MC video card options to off except wait for vsync. Mpeg4 playback is much smoother but there is still some occasional micro stutter in news tickers at the bottom of the screen, which I can live with. Opened a new thread for two other more serious Client bugs - garbled audio and setting up recordings.
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Looks like my $150 Client experiment is done. Cannot resolve the garbled audio problem. Unacceptable for every day use. Cannot walk up to a tv and have garbled audio more than 50% of the time, just won't fly in this house.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=102325.0
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Returned the miniPC and got a SFF machine.
No more issues with garbled audio on starting up video/live tv.
No more problems intermittent stutter in camera panning, scrolling news tickers, and 1080i mpeg4.
Have to live with much larger footprint, more power consumption, and fan noise.
New machine has these specs:
Core 2 Duo 2.40GHz
4GB DDR2
250GB HDD
Windows 7 Home Premium
ATI Radeon HD 5450
Gigabit LAN
MC Client Benchmark:
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 4.690 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 2.934 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 4.697 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 2.934 seconds
Score: 1246
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.374 seconds
Flood filling... 1.455 seconds
Direct copying... 2.453 seconds
Small renders... 3.048 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 4.462 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 2.570 seconds
Score: 1532
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.482 seconds
Populate database... 2.991 seconds
Save database... 0.770 seconds
Reload database... 0.270 seconds
Search database... 2.157 seconds
Sort database... 2.017 seconds
Group database... 1.250 seconds
Score: 2163
JRMark (version 21.0.34): 1647
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Thanks for the follow up. Glad you got it working. You may even be able to step up to RO+HQ (madVR) now.
So a JMark score around 1500 is the minimum for interlaced TV playback it seems.
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The new machine was under $150 (refurbished with 1 year warranty) and they have more in stock. But the more testing I do, the more problems pop up. Seems like some evil power does not want JRiver to replace WMC in this house :-\ Only a few days left in the trial software and two things are stopping me from purchasing:
- AC3 Stereo tv channels have severe audio drop outs (Server and Client) http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=102559.0
- Automatic commercial skipping & no commercial markers in the timeline http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96783.0
If the AC3 Stereo issue gets solved, I will assume that commercial skipping will be added later....