Library Scrolling Speed: PC vs HD100

[garmpe]

Hi,

I've posted before about the speed at which I can scroll through my library in SageTV and investigated several solutions (Java heap size, album art cover size, RAM, etc). I've recently made the move from the HD100 back to a PC client b/c the scrolling speed was so slow on the HD100. The funny thing is on the PC it's way faster despite coming over a wireless (g) network while the HD100 was on an ethernet connection (same router in both cases).

I noticed when using the HD100 the CPU on the server would go straight to 100% when scrolling through albums but on the PC client there's no such problem on either the server or the client.

I don't use playlists or lots of genre's as I like to just scroll through and stumble on something I want to hear so the speed of scrolling is a big issue.

I'd love to move back to the HD100 so I can redeploy the PC as a WHS. Any ideas on what I can do to improve the scrolling performace on the HD100?

Cheerio,

Garmpe

[Lucas]

What's your SageTV server hardware?

The Media Extender UI is 'rendered' on the server and I have found that depending on how powerful the server is the extender response changes.

[garmpe]

Hi,

The server I was using is the now the client. It's a 2Ghz AMD s939 with 1 Gb of RAM. The server now is a dual 3.2Ghz Xeon with 2GB of RAM.

Would I be safe to say that the rendering is only done on the server when running a HD100 but on the client when running a PC client?

I was hoping to get away with a relatively low power WHS by simply redeploying the client PC but maybe I need something more powerful????

Cheers for the feedback,

Garmpe

[gplasky]

If your server is hitting 100% when scrolling thru files on your HD100 you may want to look a bad or corrupt file. It could be a photo, video or music file so start with the type that is causing you the issue-your music files. Take them all out of the import library and start adding them back in singly or in groups until it shows up or look thru the Sage log files to determine where it is hanging. You'll probably have to set debug_logging=TRUE in the Sage.properties file. (Or maybe in the Clients folder for the particular extender .properties file.)

Gerry

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by garmpe

Would I be safe to say that the rendering is only done on the server when running a HD100 but on the client when running a PC client?

That's correct.

[paulbeers]

My HD100 isn't as fast as a client pc, but it certianly isn't slow (although that is relative to the user) and considerably faster than an MVP....

Using the channel up and down buttons that refresh a whole screen of videos/dvds/music/etc, it feels fairly quick. I just logged in via VNC into my server and started going thru my 1800+ Music Albums and about half have album art attached to them and my server never showed more than 10% usage. Sometimes the HD100 would take 3-4 seconds to fully render all album art, but I wouldn't call it slow and certainly am not seeing anywhere near what you are seeing.

[cncb]

Did you try the "ui/enable_hardware_scaling_cache=true" property?

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29132

[emveepee]

Has anyone captured the output of the SageTV HD extender showing the how it works speed etc? I did this for GBPVR on the Popcorn Hour via simple svideo capture linked here http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=pTXH4PtX4qM and I'd really like to see how scrolling speed and album art display from SageTV.

Martin

[garmpe]

Thanks very much for all the replies. Turns out the properties code made all the difference. Hardly any CPU usage and response time pretty much the same as the PC client despite the files going over a wireless g network to the Sage server and through a second router (just for testing purposes). I'm willing to be it'll go even faster when I have my network setup right.

Cheers & beers,

Garmpe