Optimizing Channel Change

[Kato]

Hello All,

I've read the FAQ regarding optimization of channel changing and can't seem to get it right.

Channel changing from my PC is fine but extending to the 360 is not 100% smooth.


When channel changing from the PC I note the following:

When I input a channel change and hit enter:

It takes about 3 seconds for the new channel to appear.

Does this mean that I should set my channel change discard stream duration to 3 seconds since it takes about that long to get the new channel?

If so how long should I set the stream stable duration setting? Another 3 seconds like the default?

Or ... is this way to vague and I'm going to have to keep findling with this one.

Thanks much,
Kato

[philibert]

Hello All,

I've read the FAQ regarding optimization of channel changing and can't seem to get it right.

Channel changing from my PC is fine but extending to the 360 is not 100% smooth.


When channel changing from the PC I note the following:

When I input a channel change and hit enter:

It takes about 3 seconds for the new channel to appear.

Does this mean that I should set my channel change discard stream duration to 3 seconds since it takes about that long to get the new channel?

If so how long should I set the stream stable duration setting? Another 3 seconds like the default?

Or ... is this way to vague and I'm going to have to keep findling with this one.

Thanks much,
Kato

You should set "Change Channel Discard Stream Duration" to about 1 second longer than it takes for your set-top-box to change channels. Cable set-top-box change more rapidly. Satellite set-top-box change slower. If you have cases where its glitching and/or fuzzy and/or pixelated, you may increase this a little more.

Then, keep the "Stream Stable Duration" setting basically unchanged. If you experience hick-ups you may extend this a bit.

I guess the difference between 360 and W7 MCE is how they deal/recover from a cut stream and restored stream. Maybe W7 MCE is more lax and permissive with the stream.

[Kato]

You should set "Change Channel Discard Stream Duration" to about 1 second longer than it takes for your set-top-box to change channels. Cable set-top-box change more rapidly. Satellite set-top-box change slower. If you have cases where its glitching and/or fuzzy and/or pixelated, you may increase this a little more.

Then, keep the "Stream Stable Duration" setting basically unchanged. If you experience hick-ups you may extend this a bit.

I guess the difference between 360 and W7 MCE is how they deal/recover from a cut stream and restored stream. Maybe W7 MCE is more lax and permissive with the stream.

Ok ... so if I set "Channel Discard Stream" to 4 seconds I should be fine?

Regarding "Stream Stable Duration" --- if I figure that my STB can change a channel in 3 seconds why does this setting have to be set so long at 3 seconds? .... couldn't I shorten it to 0.5 seconds or less?

I think it's my lack of understanding is what is playing out here. Please be patient.

Cheers,
Kato

[philibert]

Ok ... so if I set "Channel Discard Stream" to 4 seconds I should be fine?

Regarding "Stream Stable Duration" --- if I figure that my STB can change a channel in 3 seconds why does this setting have to be set so long at 3 seconds? .... couldn't I shorten it to 0.5 seconds or less?

I think it's my lack of understanding is what is playing out here. Please be patient.

Cheers,
Kato

If you make the "Channel Discard Stream" duration long enough you can shorten the "Stream Stable Duration". However you can also see it this way, the SUM of both these variables should be the time it takes for your set-top-box to change channel.

Then how deciding on "Channel Discard Stream Duration" lenght you might say? Best is to start at your maximum, make sure everything is working good. Then work you way shorter in 500ms increments (while incrementing the "Stream Stable Duration" parameter) and checking everything is good.

Once you are satisfied with this (remember you have to experience a lot of changes, SD-to-HD, HD-to-SD, HD-to-HD, etc.) you can start working the "Stable Stream Duration" down to optimize the speed of your channel changes. Again, in 500ms increments.

EDIT: None of these settings shall EVER be set to 0. Minimum value is about 500ms

[Kato]

Then how deciding on "Channel Discard Stream Duration" lenght you might say? Best is to start at your maximum, make sure everything is working good. Then work you way shorter in 500ms increments (while incrementing the "Stream Stable Duration" parameter) and checking everything is good.

Thanks for the detailed response. Makes alot of sense. I will play around with this over the next little while.

Just to clarify in the above, when you say ' (while incrementing the "Stream Stable Duarion" parameter) ' do you mean keeping it constant? or increasing it 500ms at a time?

[philibert]

Then how deciding on "Channel Discard Stream Duration" lenght you might say? Best is to start at your maximum, make sure everything is working good. Then work you way shorter in 500ms increments (while incrementing the "Stream Stable Duration" parameter) and checking everything is good.

Thanks for the detailed response. Makes alot of sense. I will play around with this over the next little while.

Just to clarify in the above, when you say ' (while incrementing the "Stream Stable Duarion" parameter) ' do you mean keeping it constant? or increasing it 500ms at a time?

While incrementing "Stream Stable Duration" so as to keep the overall duration constant (thus, in 500ms increments)

[Kato]

While incrementing "Stream Stable Duration" so as to keep the overall duration constant (thus, in 500ms increments)

Thanks again, will keep working on it!

[MrDude]

I've played around with the settings and don't see a lot of improvement even at 500ms and yes I do stop the service and restart between changing settings. I upgraded to version 3.0 from 2.0 and the channel changing is extremely slower than before. I also notice that the HDPVR is less stable with this version and cycles off and on ocassionally, it wasn't doing that before.

[ghost5]

Hello All,

I've read the FAQ regarding optimization of channel changing and can't seem to get it right.

Please can someone point me in the direction of this FAQ?

Thanks

[Kato]

Please can someone point me in the direction of this FAQ

http://1geek1tool.com/hdpvr/faq

[philibert]

I've played around with the settings and don't see a lot of improvement even at 500ms and yes I do stop the service and restart between changing settings. I upgraded to version 3.0 from 2.0 and the channel changing is extremely slower than before. I also notice that the HDPVR is less stable with this version and cycles off and on ocassionally, it wasn't doing that before.

How long is long? Can you time it with say a watch? How long was it with original settings? How worse did it become?

[MrDude]

I've played around with the settings and don't see a lot of improvement even at 500ms and yes I do stop the service and restart between changing settings. I upgraded to version 3.0 from 2.0 and the channel changing is extremely slower than before. I also notice that the HDPVR is less stable with this version and cycles off and on ocassionally, it wasn't doing that before.

How long is long? Can you time it with say a watch? How long was it with original settings? How worse did it become?

12 seconds, originally about half that.

[philibert]

I've played around with the settings and don't see a lot of improvement even at 500ms and yes I do stop the service and restart between changing settings. I upgraded to version 3.0 from 2.0 and the channel changing is extremely slower than before. I also notice that the HDPVR is less stable with this version and cycles off and on ocassionally, it wasn't doing that before.

How long is long? Can you time it with say a watch? How long was it with original settings? How worse did it become?

12 seconds, originally about half that.

You are saying that since you moved from 2.0 to 3.0, you channel changing went from about 6 seconds to now 12 seconds. 12 seconds feels quite quite long to me. There is nothing in the software algorithm changes that may explain this though. Can you enable verbose logging, do a few channel changes and post them back here?

Also, we have additional Debug Messages that can be captured with "Debug View", you may try that as well and post the results.

We'll see if anything obvious turns out.

[MrDude]

Will do.. my 10 year old hdtv died so I'm working on getting a new set, but thanks for the support, I'll post back in a few days when I can turn my focus back on this.