Thema: SmartDVB 0.2.5 RC 1

[dada]

also working flawlessly here, thanks!

[jackjavo]

ok thanks guys, looks like the release is coming then and i can finally move on to other things (i prefer making new things, but well since the vs 2010 migration smart had been less stable compared to the previous 0.1.5 vs2005 releases i think so i guess it had to be done)..

[kater]

zum EPG Problem. Jetzt kann ich aus jedem beliebigen Renderer in Kombination mit jedem Decoder EPG ein und ausschalten.  Smart friert nicht mehr ein.
Allerdings gibt es eine Verzögerung von 5-10 Sek bis das Bild sowohl im kleinen Vorschaufenster (EPG) und nach dem ausschalten des EPG im großen Fenster wieder läuft.
Alles andere funktionierte ja schon vorher. 

Sil, vieleicht kannst du das bitte für jackjavo übersetzen.

[jackjavo]

@kater: ist schon gut, ich verstehe schon deutsch aber es ist lange her das is es geschrieben habe (hoffe du kannst gut English lesen) I'll look into that delay, i didn't see it on my system (only during testing, not in the final release)..

[ritschibie]

Hi jackjavo,

Thx for the "fresh" version. I had a few issues in getting it to run (some of them imho connected to the DVBViewer Recording Service installed on the PC). After a restart I got the RC1 running. I did a rescan of my 2 sattelites (Astra 19.2 E & Hotbird 13 E). I had no problem tuning in "Das Erste HD" and other Astra channels and the same for "RAI 1, 2, 3". Instead I could not tune in the SKY channels (from CI). Only after setting the "PMT send count" to 3 I got the picture.

Scanning Astra was very quick (total Time 03:10 min) and got me more channels than ever: 1403 in total (931 video, 223 audio and 249 data channels).
Scanning Hotbird was of course less quick (total time 06:44 min) and produced a total of 1926 channels (1396 video, 399 audio and 131 data channels)

I am testing right now the feature of recording a SKY HD (Cinema HD) channel with time setting to 2 hours. Will report this as an edit in this message later on  

Edit: omygod, was wondering why I had no file in the "Records" subdirectory! Because I did not change the mpg rec into a TS recording. Will test again on HD with 120 min preset the recording function and give result tomorrow 

[kater]

nö, nur a little bit. 

[jackjavo]

oh darn ritschibie ;-) I guess default is mpg when installing, i'll change that to TS ofcourse (was less of an issue back when there were less HD channels i guess).

[ritschibie]

No, jackjavo, only the "click & run" boyzz 'n girlzz (like, unfortunately, I am  ) should be harmed by that. Normally, everybody should check that as well as the recording output 

But, there's another one from my side 

I did this time programmed recording on "Cinema HD" yesterday. I clicked on the 2 hours range and forgot about smartdvb. This was around 9 p.m.. At 11:30 p.m. I recalled smartdvb from the tray. The program opened but had kind of a partially frozen picture, no visible menues in the window (which came back by moving around the mouse in the window but, without any functionality meaning that you could click on the "file" menue and nothing happened). Worst thing was that it had not recorded any byte in the dedicated subdirectory "records" of the smartdvb directory. Furthermore, I got no bda.txt file for this trial!

So I'm guessing if this is a "feature" of my CI (but I had not that problem with a previous version of smartdvb) or of my tray "cage" under Vista Ultimate?
I will test again today (afternoon) the recording process on CI system: First with manual recording of about 1 hour, then time programmed for 2 hours.
How can I get a "bda.txt" file for this 2 tests (unfortunately, it made no protocol of my tests yesterday evening)?

greetings
ritschie

[jackjavo]

okay rischibie. Seeing you reported things like this before i think i'll also run some longer recordings tests here then to see if i can reproduce anything like this in debug mode here. Can you perhaps make sure you have the 'reload on freeze' option turned off? I seem to remember seeing stability problems with that turned on a while back so maybe that has to be looked at still. I assume you mean the bda.log, from bda.dev in the devices directory. This would be really odd as that should always be created (are you sure again you're using bda.dev and not bdas.dev, the latter creates bdas.log in the main smartdvb directory (instead of devices dir)).

[ritschibie]

Hi jackjavo, yes I had the "reload on freeze" option off. And, I'm so sorry (but shit happens  ), I have also found the recorded clip! This was because I still looked into the "smartdvbtest" directory instead of looking under "program files\smartdvb\records". So the recording problem is mostly solved. The recorded file shows good HD quality but instead of 2 hrs it recorded only 1:28. I'm pretty sure this was because I stopped it earlier when I got the "frozen" smartdvb window.

Anyway, I will test again this evening (a friend is visiting me, so I'll have only time after 21:00) as written below. Sorry again for any inconvenience my distraction might have caused!

Ritschie

[jackjavo]

oh okay then :-) i will await ur report ..

[ritschibie]

Here I go again....

So, today I tested CI-recording twice:
a) manual recording 1 hour
b) programmed recording 2 hours

a) gave a flawless recording of the "Cinema HD" program this evening
b) programmed recording (2 hrs.; action: quit) produced the same result with quite surprising "side-effects":
I minimized the program. This program (unlike others) is not minimizing to the "normal" tray but get's to "sleep" into the "services" tray (bottom right) I checked (by doubleclicking) after 30 min if the program window was still working properly - yes it did. The picture changed after the next check I did: approx. after 1 hr running. Again I had (after "awakening" it from the tray) a picture but no program menues, status line, etc.. I sent the program again into the tray. 2 minutes later it disappeared completely from the tray but the process (checked via task manager) was still active. The process ended with the two hrs. over and disappeared from the task manager.

Afterwards I checked again the "settings" submenue and unchecked the "send to tray" option. Minimizing the program now reulted in sending the program into that what I understand as the "normal" tray, the one where every open window is minimized central at the bottom of the vista screen (some might have other arrangements  ).

I will test tomorrow, if similar things happen to FTA HD programs such as "das erste HD" when I check the box "send to tray" or when it is not checked. Maybe somebody here can test this too?

Jetzt auszugsweise auf deutsch:

Ich habe smartdvb mit der TT 3200 S2 und angehängtem CI-Modul getestet Nah einigem Frickeln und Schrauben am Programm hatte ich keine Probleme, SKY mit dem Alphacrypt light und der Nagra 3 smartcard zu empfangen. Ich hab dann das Verhalten bei "Aufnahme" getestet: Einmal manuell (Start mit dem Aufnahmeknopf, Ende mit Aufnahmeknopf) 1 Stunde lang mit null Problemen (Aufnahme mit TS). Dann habe ich die zeitprogrammierte Aufnahme probiert: auf 2 Stunden eingestellt und als Aktion nach der Aufnahme "quit", also Programm verlassen, gewählt. Das Programm lief ordnungsgemäß was die Aufnahme betrifft durch und stieg auch nach 2 Stunden (genau: 2:00:01,4) aus und produzierte eine fehlerfreie Aufnahme des streams auf "Cinema HD". Merkwürdig war nur, dass es sich in dem "Dienste-Tray" unten rechts minimierte anstatt in die "normale Tray-Leiste unten Mitte. Nach einer Stunde habe ich das Programm von dort "aufgeweckt" und nur noch das TV-Bild im Fenster gesehen. Es fehlten Menue-Leiste, Status-Leiste, Kanalfenster, etc.). Ich hab das Programm dann wieder in den "Tray-Schlaf" geschickt, 2 min. später war es aus dem tray verschwunden und war nur noch im Task-Manager als laufender Prozeß zu finden. Der verschwand dann nach der programmierten Zeit aus dem Task-Manager.

Kann das jemand mittesten? Wichtig ist, dass die Option "minimize to tray" angeixt ist im "Settings"-Untermenü bei "General". Stellt man die nämlich ab, minimiert sich das Fenster wie alle anderen laufenden Programme auch in den Tray unten Mitte. Da habe ich allerdings das entsprechende Verhalten noch nicht getestet.

Danke
Ritschie

[jackjavo]

hi ritschibie: i'm starting to think this might be some vista related thing, as i've never heard of this before. Just to be clear what do you mean by the services or normal tray and sleep? To my understanding there's just one tray and apps there don't go to sleep or anything alike? I wonder if this is a tray problem or some other vista/window problem which might also occur if not minimizing to the tray but to the normal window icons bar in the middle of the taskbar. I'll test this here on win7 but am unable to test this on vista atm so hopefully others can verify this and perhaps send some logs also (preferrably smartdvb.log as i might see something there or if not try adding debug messages lateron). Btw for later versions i might add some crash log reporting with the possibility of sending mail or ftp whatever to me in such cases as i've seen this is possible atm (i remember nice tools for that in the past for Delphi).

[ritschibie]

Sorry, jackjavo, my "computer" english is a wreck!

Normally, when you minimize a program, it should minimize to the taskbar. When you minimize smartdvb and you leave the "minimize to tray" checked, smartdvb enters the tray where the System Icons (like the network, graphics card utility, etc.) are located. This causes under vista ultimate on my PC the described problems. I have to admit that I don't understand why a running program should minimize to the tray where all the System Icons are located and not to the taskbar where all running programs (like firefox, winword, etc.) are located when minimized. Is there any advantage from programmers side to send it to the tray when minimized?

In my case it's simple: I'll just uncheck this option ("send to tray when minimized") given that the tray location destabilizes the program window under my vista ultimate. I tested now the RC1 for more than 10 hours with and without CI functions and: "It's only for tv but I like it!" (credits go to The Rolling Stones)  

[Jürgen]

Minimizing to the tray saves task bar space.
This may be important for users, that are working with a multitude of open windows frequently.
Multi tasking junkies, maybe...

The task bar normally uses relatively wide buttons, holding an icon and a part of the window's title each, but a tray element just shows an icon.
Using default settings and a modern FullHD screen, there's room enough for eight to ten task bar buttons, depending on space occupied by tray and quick launch areas.
Any extra task bar button would then cause the others to get reduced in width, up to a maximum number, then force some grouping or another task bar line to be added below.
 
Applications minimized to the tray also are outside of focus management (normally), though they can still either open a popup window or show a message box, if required.
And there is a chance for programme(r)s, to implement some kind of different behaviour for each way of minimizing, like muting audio on one way, but not on the other, for example.
Of course it's necessary, to define which way of minimizing would be used on title bar button / context menu action, or by any other typical GUI element for this.

However, the tray area also provides it's own grouping routine, depending on OS version and settings.
Therefore, it also comes with it's own possible bugs.

[OT]
BTW, Germans aren't used to write all language and country names with a leading capital letter (except for institutions or a few other official names).
Like, it's 'der deutsche Ausdruck' here, meaning 'the German expression'...
Of course it should read like 'my computer English' was a mess, at least.
Hope, native English speakers won't ever feel offended over here, even if nasty Germans occasionally fail on using capitals properly.
By chance, including me.
Be assured, we're all just doing the best we can.
[/OT]