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Improved Standby Support


phax

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Hi,

 

after much work I got DVBViewer to standby my HTPC, with wake-up for recording, etc.

 

Problem 1: It was hard. Too hard. Even with instructions on using the scheduler plug-in there was plenty of things to find out on one's own thru trial and error and sheer stubborness.

 

The results are acceptable. It works, and the wake-up times are better than restarting the box. Still, it could be better and it shows. In particular:

 

Problem 2: The start-stopping of DVBViewer managed by the scheduler plug-in is very visible, especially because DVBViewer, even if run in full-screen, always goes thru a windowed mode first. This is the one I visually dislike the most.

 

Problem 3: On manual wake-up (not scheduled, just fire up to watch TV) the program is restarted, but TV picture won't show until the channel is re-tuned and/or a filter graph rebuilt. I'm conscious this may be specific to my set-up, but it may be relatively common.

 

It is a minor nuisance for me, but is very confusing to the rest of the family who turn the box on, only see an empty screen and panic.

 

Assuming there wasn't any better way to set it up, I believe improvement to standby cycling operations is in order, especially if we'd like more users with less time to waste to take full advantage of the features.

 

From my observations, the key functionality I believe we need is:

 

1. Current Scheduler plug-in functionality fully integrated inside DVBViewer.

-> No need for set-up magic handwork

-> No need to stop/start DVBViewer on standby cycles. Prog would just suspend

-> Make standby-wakeup cycles really fast, almost on-par to regular sat receivers

 

2. Automatic re-tune of channel or graph rebuild on detection of a wake-up from standby

-> No empty screen on manual wake-up from

 

3. Going directly to full-screen on start-up (if option selected) instead of going thru a windowed phase first would also look better for users who will start-stop the box instead of putting it to standby.

 

 

Thanks for your consideration,

 

cheers,

 

Phax

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1) and 2)

 

Due to several problems that may occur when initializing a lot of stuff in an early stage after wake-up (with other words: when OS / services / drivers are still busy with getting themselves going, or remain sleeping, because the OS waits for user interaction due to energy saving policies etc.) we prefer to do it this way. It's from experience... many user reports, trying this and that, endless debug sessions... there's a very long story behind it, much longer than yours.

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Hi,

 

after much work I got DVBViewer to standby my HTPC, with wake-up for recording, etc.

 

Problem 1: It was hard. Too hard. Even with instructions on using the scheduler plug-in there was plenty of things to find out on one's own thru trial and error and sheer stubborness.

 

The results are acceptable. It works, and the wake-up times are better than restarting the box. Still, it could be better and it shows. In particular:

 

Problem 2: The start-stopping of DVBViewer managed by the scheduler plug-in is very visible, especially because DVBViewer, even if run in full-screen, always goes thru a windowed mode first. This is the one I visually dislike the most.

 

Problem 3: On manual wake-up (not scheduled, just fire up to watch TV) the program is restarted, but TV picture won't show until the channel is re-tuned and/or a filter graph rebuilt. I'm conscious this may be specific to my set-up, but it may be relatively common.

 

It is a minor nuisance for me, but is very confusing to the rest of the family who turn the box on, only see an empty screen and panic.

 

Assuming there wasn't any better way to set it up, I believe improvement to standby cycling operations is in order, especially if we'd like more users with less time to waste to take full advantage of the features.

 

From my observations, the key functionality I believe we need is:

 

1. Current Scheduler plug-in functionality fully integrated inside DVBViewer.

-> No need for set-up magic handwork

-> No need to stop/start DVBViewer on standby cycles. Prog would just suspend

-> Make standby-wakeup cycles really fast, almost on-par to regular sat receivers

 

2. Automatic re-tune of channel or graph rebuild on detection of a wake-up from standby

-> No empty screen on manual wake-up from

 

3. Going directly to full-screen on start-up (if option selected) instead of going thru a windowed phase first would also look better for users who will start-stop the box instead of putting it to standby.

Thanks for your consideration,

 

cheers,

 

Phax

 

Hi Phax

You seem to know how to get the computer to wake up from Hibernation. Do you have a document or something that describes this? I have downloaded the plugin you mention, but it's not too obvious what the the next step is.

You are right, wake-up (fx. through the win scheduler) should be standard, like it is in Hauppauge software (that bit of it is OK). It's an essential feature of any videorecorder.

 

Cheers,

Thomas

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Do you have a document or something that describes this?

What about the included Readme?

 

The DVB Task scheduler configures all events as "wake-up-events", so there is nothing special to do.

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  • 2 weeks later...
What about the included Readme?

 

The DVB Task scheduler configures all events as "wake-up-events", so there is nothing special to do.

 

OK - here's my "newbie" experience getting this to work.

 

If, as it's been said, suspend-wakeup-record-suspend behaviour is expected to be standard in any HTPC, either I missed something big time here or in DVBViewer it's way, way too hard for normal people to get it.

 

.... or it's me and my HTPC being pretty jinxed.

 

============

 

Step 1. Getting the box to Standby-Resume from DVBViewer

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

STANDBY is relatively easy, but I found a snag upfront.

 

You can have DVBViewer to standby your box using the Options->General->Shutdown panel. At this point you can even turn off your PC thru DVBV via the remote. Great.

 

The snag: I found it works perfect with BOTH the OSD Extended Exit and Normal Exit, AS LONG AS IT IS PROMPTED. If I select "no confirmation on exit" on the Shutdown option, I get a nasty problem: PC will IMMEDIATELY go back to standby when I wake it up. I then get into an endless standby-resume loop.

 

The work-around was to always go thu the exit prompt (exit yes/no) which looks silly for a TV but was tolerable. Still, this cost me a lot of time. It MAY be just something with my ASUS motherboard or BIOS setting. I'd be curious to know if others have had this.

 

The bug only appears when no Scheduler plug-in is installed, so when I did that it went away. I have therefore no further investigated the issue.

 

RESUME - worked great. Actually at this point DVBViewer was running already after the resume, so it was really fast. My only problem is I have a serial remote, so I didn't get the PC to wake up from Remote. I know that can be done with some USB kits - anyway it's not a DVBViewer problem, but a PC design issue.

 

I was really happy till I learned that in this set-up DVBViewer was not scheduling recordings....

 

 

Getting Standby+Resume+Rrecord+Standby to work

-------------------------------------------------------------

 

PC's with new Mboard/BIOS can be programmed to wake up from standby on a clock and do things. The MS Windows Scheduler does it reliably. Therefore to record from standby-wakeup, developers go thru Windows Scheduler services.

 

Inside DVBViewer, you find an Options->Extended->Use Microsoft Task Scheduler. I checked it and though HA! I assumed at this point things would work. Of course they didn't. Fun had just started.

 

For reasons I don't understand, it turns this Windows Scheduler programming is NOT internal to DVBViewer. It is done in the DVBViewer Scheduler Plug-In (scheduler.exe). This option just makes DVBViewer work with the plug-in SO THAT eventually the Windows scheduler gets programmed. However, DVBV doesn't tell you when you play with options. You've got to find out by reading around.

 

So, I download and install the plug-in in the DVBViewer directory and make sure the Windows Task Scheduler service runs (control panel, administrative tools, services). I activate the DVBViewer option and am ready to go.

 

Hitting exit on the remote now makes DVBViewer standby the PC and go thru the plug-in for programming. It also got rid of my "standby loops", which was good. So I could now tick the "no confirmation on exit" option and have the box go down on a single remote click.

 

Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, I was not done yet. Problems appeared at this point.

 

First, I realized that the Scheduler plug-in forced a DVBViewer exit before standby. Reading the readme file carefully makes me think this is mandatory so that DVBViewer can read the updated recording entries from the .INI file.

 

Exiting DVBV takes a little while, makes the HTPC go back to Windows Desktop (ugly) and, worse than everything, it means at resume DVBViewer needs to be restarted. That's not what I wanted. There goes half of my time saving going to standby. All this effort for only half the gain....

 

If there's a way to avoid the DVBV exit, I didn't find it.

 

Then I came to the point of resuming the PC for normal usage. PC was resuming, but DVBViewer was not starting... This really puzzled me.

 

IF the scheduler MUST (and always does here) exit DVBViewer on a standby, how can DVB then be restarted at normal (non scheduled) resume???? How can then the plug-in be generally used in "hidden" mode as described in the readme file???

 

I then decide to use the scheduler in "manual" mode, external to DVBViewer. So I put a link to the scheduler it in the Startup folder and restart the box. At this point I am able to use all the extended scheduler plug-in features described in the readme, and the scheduler MUST restart DVBViewer when the PC resumes.

 

Try again to resume the PC to watch TV, DVBViewer still does not restart. This is where I nearly got mad. I went thru all the Scheduler plug-in options, read the readme file and couldn't find why. However, I was SURE it had to be possible. Finally, I had the inspiration to check the scheduler.INI file, where I found the following option:

 

[frmScheduler]

DVBRestartOnResume=1

 

This option does not look accessible from the Scheduler plug-in GUI and it was 0 in the .INI generated by my scheduler. I don't know if this has anything to do with my sequence of attempts. Anyway, turning it to 1 made the trick. Now DVBViewer was exiting on suspend, restarting on resumes to record AND restarting on resumes to just watch TV.

 

The suspend-resume process now works, but is now very slow, though still not as slow as shutting down and restarting the PC. Definitely a delusion after all this effort.

 

Finally, I must have selected the "don't tune last channel" on the Plug-in GUI AS RECOMMENDED IN THE README. Then I forgot about it. Only after a while I realized that on NORMAL restarts of the PC (to view TV as usual) it was not retuning. I thought it was a problem with my codecs or something and wasted another bunch of time before realizing the option was turned on in the plug-in. Removing it I finally got DVBViewer to retune again when I power the box to watch TV.

 

In summary...... VERY MESSY EXPERIENCE

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Phax this question depends on how you have DVBViewer set for recordings.

 

i normaly run DVBViewer, minimize to system tray on exit ( red X button pressed). When it does this audio/video is dissabled also, how i like it.

 

I could set the option for audio/video dissable on record, though i do not want that feature active. At the moment the pc's are on 24/7, would be nice to use them with standby scheduling.

 

 

Q. When DVBViewer, woke up for a schedule. Was the DVBViewer surface window open or closed.

 

 

Q. Did also the mouse, lan, usb and other harware wake up correctly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update for this.

 

I have full use of standby modes using XP scheduler.

Created a .bat file windows comes out of power saving modes for the .bat file ok.

 

Prefering to use S3 standby, as it suits my needs.

 

In DVBViewer i can see the use MS scheduler but is always shaded. I cannot yet invoke a chedule recording. It is saying in the help to use a plugin. Not wanting to do that will be installing the latest version soon, hoping to see this fully intregrated into DVBViewer.

 

I can for the moment, which is not ideal use the XP scheduler, with the .bat file. Just keep setting up as many as needed. Nowhere as clean as doing it from withing DVBViewer.

 

One annoying note, is that a pc wakes up from S3 but DVBViewer screen remains black. It is not a problem if it has to tune to a different mux, that works. But if tunning to another channel on the same mux after S3 resume the screen remains black. Is there some remedy fix for this, have tried it in all DirectX and overlay modes. With and without detect audio video codecs, it still stays the same.

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after S3 resume the screen remains black

 

Already answered elsewere... at moment the best solution is to check the "disable AV" option, so DVBViewer doesn't use any rendering at all and don't cause any harm...

 

:(

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