Beyonwiz Australia

I'll explain the setup, and then the problem I'm having.

I have a T4 that I do all of my recording on. The T4 has a 3 TB hard drive and has about 1.6 TB of data on it. The T4 is running firmware version 16.1.20170310, and the only extra plugin I have installed is Series2Folder.

The T2 has a 256GB SSD installed and is only used for live TV or watching programs recorded on the T4. I have tried various firmware versions on the T2 (the latest Beta is currently installed) and the T4 and this problem has been constant across all versions.

When playing a program and coming to a commercial I'll press the up arrow for a 3 minute skip and most times this will happen, but once or twice during a playback when pressing the up button the program freezes on the screen and nothing happens for up to 5 minutes, then the program will start back up at the point it should have jumped to immediately. It can be very annoying. It's not the T2 freezing up, because if I press the OK button the program info will display just like normal. While the T2 is doing whatever it is doing, pressing stop does nothing.

I'm running an all GB network at home with netgear prosafe switches. I can do a copy from the T4 to the T2. Doing a copy of a recording and all associated files results in a transfer averaging about 7.5MB per second.

Any ideas what could cause this?

Cheers

gib

gibster wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 05, 2017 17:46

When playing a program and coming to a commercial I'll press the up arrow for a 3 minute skip and most times this will happen, but once or twice during a playback when pressing the up button the program freezes on the screen and nothing happens for up to 5 minutes, then the program will start back up at the point it should have jumped to immediately.

Have you been able to time the freezes to check they are actually "up to 5 minutes" in duration? Is it possible that the duration of the freeze is the same duration as the attempted skip (ie. 3 minutes), or are they random?

Nice comprehensive information in your post btw .

MrQuade wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 05, 2017 17:56

gibster wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 05, 2017 17:46

When playing a program and coming to a commercial I'll press the up arrow for a 3 minute skip and most times this will happen, but once or twice during a playback when pressing the up button the program freezes on the screen and nothing happens for up to 5 minutes, then the program will start back up at the point it should have jumped to immediately.

Have you been able to time the freezes to check they are actually "up to 5 minutes" in duration? Is it possible that the duration of the freeze is the same duration as the attempted skip (ie. 3 minutes), or are they random?

Nice comprehensive information in your post btw .

I'll time it when it happens next. I guess 3 minutes could seem like 5 LOL.

If it is just 3 minutes does this point to a known problem?

gibster wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 05, 2017 18:01

If it is just 3 minutes does this point to a known problem?

Not one that I know of, but it may provide a clue to someone who knows the code. If the pause/freeze is the same duration as the jump, then you would suspect that the media player is actually seeking through the file in realtime instead of jumping immediately to the correct index point.

It could point towards the recording time index data being corrupt. Or it might be that the T2 is not reading the data correctly for some reason, or something else entirely (I am not familiar with the code and am just speculating).

Can you reproduce it more readily on some recordings than others?

You could try installing the "reconstructapsc" plugin on the T4 and run that over a recording. Then see if you still have problems when playing it back from the T2.

Is there something particular about the issue that led you to post about it in the networking section? Is it because the issue only arises when playing recordings across the net? That's implied, but not explicitly stated in your description.

prl wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 05, 2017 18:28

Is there something particular about the issue that led you to post about it in the networking section? Is it because the issue only arises when playing recordings across the net? That's implied, but not explicitly stated in your description.

Yes, that is why I posted it in the Networking section. I doubt if it's a network specific issue, but the fact that I'm playing a file over the network between Beyonwiz players seemed to make Networking the most appropriate place when trying to figure out where to post.

Feel free to move the discussion to the appropriate forum if Networking was the incorrect one. Or add "over the network" to the end of the Subject. I should have done that originally. Sorry

Does this happen only on longer recordings and only when you skip in the file where it would be past the 2GB mark?

If so, then you are running into a Samba issue at the server end. This is fixed in 17.5 20170828 - so upgrade your T4 and the problem should go away.

peteru wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 05, 2017 22:05

Does this happen only on longer recordings and only when you skip in the file where it would be past the 2GB mark?

If so, then you are running into a Samba issue at the server end. This is fixed in 17.5 20170828 - so upgrade your T4 and the problem should go away.

It did seem like the issue would happen in the last half of a recording. Most recordings are around 2 to 3 GB.

I did an update to the T4 last night but won't have a chance to test until later this afternoon. Will post the results.

gib

Here is the latest. T4 and T2 both operating on latest Beta.

While playing files on the T2 that were recorded and are resident on the T4 there are still delays when using various time shift buttons to skip commercials.

The delays are nowhere near as bad as it used to be. These are not reproducible, but when hitting the UP arrow (3 minutes skip) the recording will still randomly pause but only for 5 or 6 seconds now. I have the LEFT arrow set for a 7 second jump back and when pressing that it will also pause for 2 or 3 seconds randomly.

So still an issue. I can live with it the way it is. I'm open to testing if someone wants me to check something. The files I watched today and tested on where NCIS recordings that are about 2.3GB in size. I went through 3 different episodes with the same random pauses in skips.

Network playback will always be a little less responsive than local playback. 2-3 second delay for big jumps should be about the limit though. At least, that's my experience with a 100Mbit Ethernet link (i.e. the T2 Ethernet port)

It may be an interesting exercise to figure out where these delays come from, but I suspect it would require a fair bit of work and time to get to the bottom of it. Something I don't have the spare cycles for, but I would be happy for someone else to dig deeper and I can advise from the side-lines.

The pauses are acceptable now, and my network topology might be a contributing factor. The long pauses are gone which is what was bothering me before. So I can live with the way it is now.

I'll explain a little of my network setup and you'll see why I say it might be a contributing factor.

I have the T2 in the living room connected to a Netgear Prosafe 8 port GB switch. This switch connects to a Netgear Prosafe 16 Port GB switch in my office which is also connected to the Router/NBN Modem. The switch in the office is connected to another Netgear Prosafe 8 port GB switch in the media room to which the T4 is connected.

So basically the network is as follows

Switch 1
Panasonic TV
Beyonwiz T2
Foxtel Box
Apple TV
Telstra TV
Efergy Energy Monitor

Switch 2
Link to switch 1
Link to switch 3 (corrected)
Link to Fritz!Box 7490 (router/NBN FTTN modem)
Personal workstation
HP EX495 Media Smart Server
ASUS AIO computer (wife's)
Brother Laser Printer

Switch 3
Sony TV
Beyonwiz T4
Win10Pro USB stick PC
HP ML10 V2 Win 2012 R2 server

There is not a lot of network file sharing going on when these issues occur. I know this because the only time I use the T2 is when the wife is at work so I'm home alone watching things on the Plasma TV. Still has a great picture, but can't wait to upgrade to an HDL UHD set one of these days. Probably when I replace the Panasonic after our move to Victoria in 2 years or so.

I will make a comment (unrelated to this post) that the live picture on both the Beyonwiz T2 and T4 on both the Sony and Panasonic TV are better then both TV's native tuners.

That type of Ethernet topology should not be an issue. Switches will introduce minimum latency and should not drop any packets. Routers, on the other hand, could cause a multitude of issues.

I don't appear to have that skip-delay issue with recordings residing on a T4 when playing on a T2. Today I tested 3 recordings that were on the T4 of > 4 GB size, with playback using the T2. There was no skip degradation, including when skipping right near the end of the recordings.

Large recordings on the T4 also play and skip fine on my Windows 10 computer (Potplayer).

The T4 (lounge) and T2 (family room) are connected by ethernet cable to different gigabit switches, with the switches connected by ethernet runs to a Billion 7800VDPX gigabit modem/router.
The T4 is on (17.5) 20170828 whilst the T2 is still on 20170807.


Cheers,
Geoff

Grumpy_Geoff wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 07, 2017 16:25

I don't appear to have that skip-delay issue with recordings residing on a T4 when playing on a T2. Today I tested 3 recordings that were on the T4 of > 4 GB size, with playback using the T2. There was no skip degradation, including when skipping right near the end of the recordings.

Large recordings on the T4 also play and skip fine on my Windows 10 computer (Potplayer).

The T4 (lounge) and T2 (family room) are connected by ethernet cable to different gigabit switches, with the switches connected by ethernet runs to a Billion 7800VDPX gigabit modem/router.
The T4 is on (17.5) 20170828 whilst the T2 is still on 20170807.


Cheers,
Geoff

Interesting. Wonder what the difference is. Still have issues.

I caught up on 5 recordings of The Brokenwood Mysteries tonight and they are all over 5GB in size. There were random pauses during skips using the 3 minute skip button but they were never more than 5 or 6 seconds, and they were anywhere in the files, not necessarily at or after the 2GB boundary as was mentioned before.

So conclusions on my end are that the upgrade to the latest version of the OS on both Beyonwiz improved the situation dramatically but did not solve it entirely.

If I understand it, ethernet switches are smart and learn routes to other devices on a local network. So they would not need to continuously talk to the router which is also connected to switch number 2.

I suppose I can take the T2 and move it into the room with the T4. Hooked up to the same switch I could then eliminate the local network as the cause and then swap switches if the problem persists to eliminate external hardware.

After trying all of the above, the symptoms are still the same. Not related to the local network as far as I can tell.

Cheers

gib

Just thought I'd post an update.

I've upgraded both the T2 and the T4 to the latest non beta versions of the Firmware. Things now seem to be working as one would expect. I do have the occasional random delay when doing a skip, but it's only ever 2 or 3 seconds now. More than acceptable. Most of the time the skips are instantaneous. It was very annoying when you'd do a 3 minute commercial skip and it would sit there paused for 3 minutes LOL.

Other then a new TV nothing else on the local network has changed. It's now very enjoyable catching up on shows on the new 65" Sony.

Cheers

Gib