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[jachin99]

Channel changing is a little slow in jrmc.  To compund the problem they get even slower when I back out to the guide and pick a new channel.  Changing channels under these circumstances often results in jriver freezing for a minute and the windows loading circle popping up.  It can take up to thirty or forty seconds for a smooth video stream to appear after changing the channel.  I use hdhr primes and madvr.  My question is, are there any plans to improve channel changing in the future?  Wmc did this flawlessly.

[Yaobing]

30 seconds is not normal.  Channel changing should take only 3 - 5 seconds.  Theater view seems to be slower than before, not sure what causes it.

[jachin99]

If there is anything I can do to help, or any kind of info I can provide I can do that also.  Just for testing, I tried changing channels in standard view, and I counted 15 seconds before I got smooth video.  I saw a buffering message for about the last three or four seconds. 

[Yaobing]

Are you using RO HQ or Standard?  If HQ, try Standard.

Is your hard drive slow?  Have you setup your antivirus properly so it exempt MC from monitoring?

[RoderickGI]

For me, on a MC Client, connected to the MC Server in my signature, and running RO HQ;

Starting channel using the Watch menu option under the Guide in Theatre View (select channel in Guide, select Watch) without a channel already playing: 8 seconds
Starting channel playback from Standard View Television pane, by double-clicking the program or selecting it and clicking the Watch button: 8 seconds

Changing channel using the Watch menu option under the Guide in Theatre View (select channel in Guide, select Watch) while a channel is already playing: 3 seconds
Changing channel using the OSD while an existing channel is playing in Theatre View: 3 seconds
Changing channel from Standard View Television pane while a channel is already playing, by double-clicking the program or selecting it and clicking the Watch button: 3 seconds

So the time it takes to start a channel is longer than the time it takes to change the channel, using any method, and is pretty consistent. I would think that extra time is required to find and take control of a tuner, rather than just asking it to change channels.

The longer time you are seeing would possibly point to the hardware environment I suspect, rather than the MC configuration.

Jachin99, you are using an HDHomerun Prime tuner by the look of it, as you see it under DLNA devices. It looks like you are on Windows 10 for MC now. Are you still running WMC on a separate PC for DVR capabilities? If so, WMC could also be interfering with the release on the tuner for MC to use. Or at least co-existence of MC and WMC may be causing a delay in tuner aquisition and channel changing. At a minimum, MC has to check if the tuner is available to start a channel, which takes a little time. But more likely it is just because it is a network tuner.

The tuner on my MC Server is an internal PCIe four tuner card. I suspect the hardware I am using is just faster than yours, as MC relies on network traffic to change channels on the HDHomerun Prime, while mine does not.


BTW, you said back in June that "I also enabled Media network, and setup public folder sharing and media streaming on the computer". MC doesn't need either public folder sharing or Media Streaming in Windows 10. You may want to use Shares, although that isn't necessary for MC Client/Server configuration. But Public Folder Sharing is a specific thing. Media Streaming in Windows 10 is a built-in DLNA Server for Windows 10, and is not required as MC's Media Network and DLNA Servers handle that functionality. You are basically duplicating servers by running Media Streaming in Windows 10.

[Mans]

Great day to all of you, Yaobing, yes same here:

Theater view seems to be slower than before, not sure what causes it.

I'm noticing this larger lag in Theater View since the last 2-3 versions aswell.

[jachin99]

Are you using RO HQ or Standard?  If HQ, try Standard.

Is your hard drive slow?  Have you setup your antivirus properly so it exempt MC from monitoring?

Changing the renderer to RO Standard greatly improves things.  Channel changes are only a few seconds under all circumstances.  I moved my TV buffer to the main drive which is a SSD but this didn't yield any improvements with MadVR.  I also disabled the WMP network sharing service, uninstalled a few programs, tried changing the MadVR CPU and GPU buffers, changed the audio buffer, among other things.  I still get a Windows loading circle on channel changes in theater view with MadVR

[JimH]

Using madVR with ROHQ, did you make any changes to madVR? 

[jachin99]

For me, on a MC Client, connected to the MC Server in my signature, and running RO HQ;

Starting channel using the Watch menu option under the Guide in Theatre View (select channel in Guide, select Watch) without a channel already playing: 8 seconds
Starting channel playback from Standard View Television pane, by double-clicking the program or selecting it and clicking the Watch button: 8 seconds

Changing channel using the Watch menu option under the Guide in Theatre View (select channel in Guide, select Watch) while a channel is already playing: 3 seconds
Changing channel using the OSD while an existing channel is playing in Theatre View: 3 seconds
Changing channel from Standard View Television pane while a channel is already playing, by double-clicking the program or selecting it and clicking the Watch button: 3 seconds

So the time it takes to start a channel is longer than the time it takes to change the channel, using any method, and is pretty consistent. I would think that extra time is required to find and take control of a tuner, rather than just asking it to change channels.

The longer time you are seeing would possibly point to the hardware environment I suspect, rather than the MC configuration.

Jachin99, you are using an HDHomerun Prime tuner by the look of it, as you see it under DLNA devices. It looks like you are on Windows 10 for MC now. Are you still running WMC on a separate PC for DVR capabilities? If so, WMC could also be interfering with the release on the tuner for MC to use. Or at least co-existence of MC and WMC may be causing a delay in tuner aquisition and channel changing. At a minimum, MC has to check if the tuner is available to start a channel, which takes a little time. But more likely it is just because it is a network tuner.

The tuner on my MC Server is an internal PCIe four tuner card. I suspect the hardware I am using is just faster than yours, as MC relies on network traffic to change channels on the HDHomerun Prime, while mine does not.


BTW, you said back in June that "I also enabled Media network, and setup public folder sharing and media streaming on the computer". MC doesn't need either public folder sharing or Media Streaming in Windows 10. You may want to use Shares, although that isn't necessary for MC Client/Server configuration. But Public Folder Sharing is a specific thing. Media Streaming in Windows 10 is a built-in DLNA Server for Windows 10, and is not required as MC's Media Network and DLNA Servers handle that functionality. You are basically duplicating servers by running Media Streaming in Windows 10.

MC works pretty well as a DVR so I tore down WMC, and changed everything over to Win 10.  The only program MC shares tuners with is Emby, which I closed for testing.  It seems like a graphics to me because it only acts up when ROHQ is enabled but take that as a grain of salt because I'm certainly no expert.  I should note that I rarely have issues with Emby not sharing tuners, if ever.  The only thing I can think of next is to start uninstalling Computer Games. 

[JimH]

The only way to rule out Emby is probably to uninstall it. 

[RoderickGI]

So, graphics driver?

Update to the latest version, or if you are already on it, downgrade to an earlier version, and see if that changes things?

It would be good if more people tested how long a channel change takes, and reported it here.

You could also make sure no Emby services are running, before trying an uninstall test. Some DVR software will run services for tuner communication, even if the software isn't running. Or if you don't use the Emby TV functionality, turning that off and rebooting may shut down such services.

PS: I comment because I would love to have sub one second channel changes. MC was sped up for large Libraries, maybe there is some optimisation that can be done for channel changes, or just video startup generally?

[JimH]

Rod,
How long does it take for you?

[RoderickGI]

It's buried in my previous post.

3 seconds to switch if any channel is already playing
8 seconds if MC needs to start playing a channel when none are playing

Oh, and that is on a MC Client, which I would consider worst case, compared to doing it on a MC Server directly.

[jachin99]

So, graphics driver?

Update to the latest version, or if you are already on it, downgrade to an earlier version, and see if that changes things?

It would be good if more people tested how long a channel change takes, and reported it here.

You could also make sure no Emby services are running, before trying an uninstall test. Some DVR software will run services for tuner communication, even if the software isn't running. Or if you don't use the Emby TV functionality, turning that off and rebooting may shut down such services.

PS: I comment because I would love to have sub one second channel changes. MC was sped up for large Libraries, maybe there is some optimisation that can be done for channel changes, or just video startup generally?

THIS!!!  I would also love to have this.  I'm not willing to remove emby to test things but I will try things out on a different PC.  The only thing I might not have mentioned is that I'm using native and not jtv.  I'll test some more and come back

[tzr916]

Time cut in half with version 25.0.86 (64bit) of MC. Nice 

Still running v25.0.86, still have 3-4 second channel tune/change. Try rolling back MC?