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denmonta · 2015-05-15, 17:26

I am replacing cable boxes with Raspberry Pi2 running Openelec.
My ServerWMC is running on a WIndows 7 PC that is dedicated to this and nobody logs into it.
When 2 kodi clients are using the LiveTV on separate channels (High Def channels) things work fine.
As soon as I add a third client running LiveTV, I notice a lot of buffering start/stop on all the clients.
I have been searching around and I have narrowed it down to the Disk IO on my Windows 7 server.
When 3 clients are using LiveTV, the activity on the "Recorded TV" disk is quite heavy (30 MB/s) and the
Disk Queue Length varies between 2 and 6.
I have configured the server so the Recorded TV folder is on a separate drive (G:\). That drive is a
Seagate 5 TB Expansion drive connected via USB3 cable.
I want to reduce the activity on that drive.
Any idea on what is the best solution for me ?
Does anybody run in a configuration similar to mine with several kodi clients on LiveTV at the same time.
Of course, I could configure to use DLNA, but this would prevent us from using the Pause, Skip Forward and Back
which is the best feature for us.
Thanks

krustyreturns · 2015-05-15, 21:38

You can try using a different disk for the remux files (i.e. the temporary ts files). You need to specify this disk using a unc path. In the swmc config file search for RemuxCustomFolderUNC and replace the line its on with this:

<RemuxCustomFolderUNC>//machineName/pathToFolder</RemuxCustomFolderUNC>

denmonta · 2015-05-15, 22:53

Thanks for the suggestion.
I just tried it and I still can't handle more than 2 LiveTV without buffering.
I made sure that the changes I made to the config.xml file actually took, and I could see the TS file on the separate drive,
but it still started buffering after a while.
I could see that the original drive was still having a fairly large Disk IO Queue (around 3) and the extra drive had some
activity but not too much.
At least now I know how to re-create the problem and monitor the situation.
Hopefully I can find a solution.
Thanks again.

mhulvey · 2015-05-16, 21:24

I am having a similar problem. I attempted to make the suggested change to the setting for the remux folder but every time I bring the config.xml file back up my changes are gone. Any ideas why this would happen Krusty?

krustyreturns · 2015-05-17, 03:02

It has to pass three tests, otherwise swmc resets it back to empty. If you look at the log file right after swmc starts, it should tell you if it failed one of these tests:

a) it has to exist
b) it has to be specified as a unc path
c) the folder needs to be writable by the account swmc is run under.

Also all of your clients need to be able to access it (but this if not tested).

denmonta · 2015-05-17, 17:27

just to clarify, I was able to redirect the Remux to another drive as Krusty suggested.
At first I had the same problem as mhulvey, but that was due to a mistake I made in the file name.
Once that was corrected, the config file stayed with my changes.

However, this did not reduce the Disk IO enough to allow more than 2 clients without buffering.

I am now looking at alternatives.
I am unchecking the "Remux active recordings" box, hoping that it would not create the .ts file and
therefore reduce the IO, but that option does not seem to work in my config as I still get the .TS file
created.
I am running kodi clients ver 14.2 on either Windows 7 or OpenElec 5.0.8 but in all cases it creates
the .wtv and .ts files.
Krusty, am I right in thinking that the .ts file should not be created at all when that box in unchecked?

Thanks

krustyreturns · 2015-05-17, 18:00

Not quite. Live-tv streams (when not using dlna mode) always produce a wtv and a 'remuxed' ts file. When playing back a wtv that is actively being recorded to, the default is to remux this wtv also (producing a ts file). Since you turned off 'remux active recordings', it will not produce a ts file for an active recording - but the downside of doing this is that the playback will stop once it reaches what kodi thinks is the end of the file - i.e. kodi doesn't notice that the file is growing due to the active recording (that's why we don't enable this by default). So the principle in general is that if the wtv file is growing, remux to ts happens by default.

Playing back a pre-recorded wtv file does not produce a ts file, since the file is not growing.

Sorry you are having this problem, for what its worth (not much) my main mediaserver comfortable plays back 4 live remuxed streams.

denmonta · (This post was last modified: 2015-05-17, 18:16 by denmonta.)

Thanks a lot for your quick reply.
In fact I should probably have realized that the option was just for active recordings
and not really for liveTV. Your explanation makes it totally clear.
I will need to look elsewhere.

Do you know if there is a way to relocate the whole TempSWMC directory to another drive?
I have tried to create a symbolic link in the "Recorded TV" folder, and the serverWMC process can create the
subdirectory structure on the linked drive, but I can't seem to get the right permission for the clients to be able
to open the files there.
I thought that it should be transparent to the clients, but it does not seem to be the case.

mhulvey · 2015-05-17, 20:10

Krusty: thanks for the info. I had put my slashes backwards. I now have the remux temp files on a different drive, but like denmonta, still have the buffering problem. After 3 tuners are in use it buffers really bad. I also tried the symbolic link for the TempSWMC folder and had the same problem. I am using the Ceton 6 tuner card. Curious if that is the same one you are using, denmonta? I also know of at least one other person who has the same issue.

krustyreturns · 2015-05-17, 20:33

Symbolic links don't fool the recording service...

@denmonta
Due to the way wtv files are created, the recording service always needs to create the wtv file in the recorded tv directory. So the only way to move it is to move the recorded tv folder used by wmc. However, it is okay to move the remux folder (which holds just the remuxed ts) to any place you want - as you have already tried.

It seems like creating a custom remux folder on a different drive should have reduced your disk io by around 50% for the recorded tv disk, so if it's really a disk io problem, I don't know why this didn't work.

@mhulvey,
I don't know how many times I have made the same mistake Smile

.

denmonta · 2015-05-17, 20:58

mhulvey
I am actually using 2 HDHomerun Prime from SiliconDust

mhulvey · 2015-05-18, 00:21

denmonta: what's the specs on the pc you are running? Mine is Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit. Dell Inspiron 3847 with Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz and 8 GB RAM. Realtek 1Gig network card. I'm just trying to figure out what we have that is different from other people who are able to use 3 or more tuners without a problem.

krustyreturns · 2015-05-18, 03:11

I'm also curious if you are using a usb3 drive for recTV like denmonta.

mhulvey · 2015-05-18, 03:25

I have a small USB3 flash drive that I created a symbolic link to for the live TV buffer in WMC. But I only did that in an attempt to fix the buffer issue. I originally started with everything on the primary C: drive that is a traditional spinning drive. Moving the buffer to the USB drive doesn't seem to have made a difference good or bad.

cdvreede · 2015-05-19, 07:34

running 6 tuners on a Win7 64, 8GB, quad core 3.2Ghz with SSD system and 2TB Green recording drive. Yes, disk is busy but no buffering. What about the network?? Quite easy to saturate a 100Mb link - or the backplane of your router. Myself running Gbe with all Gb switches...

thnx