[mythtvnz] Pause between video files

[Nick Rout]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2006 20:47:23 +1300
"Tim, Donna & Erin Gibson" <tim_donna@slingshot.co.nz> wrote:

> On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:46, criggie@criggie.dyndns.org wrote:
> > > I've got the vob files split at 1gig a piece and when the next file is
> > > loaded
> > > there is a pause... the screen goes back to the gallery and then to the
> > > next file and carries on playing, is this normal?
> >
> > I don't play files like that, so I've not seen this myself.
> >
> Do you transcode? or what...
> 
> > Why are you splitting the files at all?  Both XFS and JFS have good
> > response time with huge files.  I routinely deal with 8x 95 Gb backup
> > files on an XFS partition.
> >
> > Try not splitting them and see how you go.  Otherwise make sure that dma
> > is on for your hard drives - use    hdparm -i /dev/hda    as root to
> > check.
> >
> I use DVDDecrypter running on wine and the default is to split at 1gig plus I 
> rip on my main pc and transfer the files across my network to the mythtv box, 
> any large (full dvd vob's) files just die mid transfer so splitting seems a 
> good idea...

I suspect that the vobs are not "split" at all. DVD's are restricted to
1G file size, take a look at the video_ts directory on a dvd, none of
the files are over 1G. DVD player firmwares are not guaranteed to work
with anything over 1G, no matter that any decent OS can do so.

Therefore the vobs have probably been copied direct from the DVD to the
hard drive. 

As for the pause, what are you using to play them? You can specify the
program to use in mythtv. xine is best for ful dvd rips as it deals
best with dvd menus, whereas mplayer will play only one title at a
time, without the full dvd menu experience. 

Also in relation to pauses, I have noticed that 

mplayer *

in a directory of media files will give a noticeable pause (as
described by you) between files, whereas 

xine * 

will not.

Frankly I avoid full dvd rips. They take up 4-8G and I rarely require
the "extras", which are often out takes that were left off the final
cut of the movies for a damned good reason. I prefer a DVD rip encoded
with XviD of 700M to 1.4G, and any decent extras can also be ripped
with a corresponding reduction in file size. If you work out mp4 format
and an h.264/aac codec combination then you can probably knock another
30-40% off file size[1]. Hard drive space is cheap, but theres no point
in wasting it. Those cross dressers in hollywood keep puitting out more
movies and tv programmes to fill it up, so oyu might as well be as
parsimonious with HD space as you can.


[1] people claim that h.264 will give the same quality at half the
bitrate or vastly superior quality at the same bitrate. Adding a grain
of salt I reckon a realistic target is 30-40% reduction in file size.
YMMV, particularly on fast action journeys :-)


> > > I'm running myth on a Celeron 2.8ghz with 512meg ram so it should be
> > > good. I
> > > have set the machine up with cpu frequency scaling and watching a video
> > > it's at 700mHz, live tv it's at 1.05gHz, could this be it?
> >
> > Doubt thats the problem.  The machine should step up the instant more CPU
> > is required.
> >
> >
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> -- 
> Regards
> Tim, Donna & Erin Gibson
> 
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