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| Don't forget the little things https://computerhaven.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1625 |
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| Author: | jaylach [ Mon Apr 24, 2017 7:02 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Don't forget the little things |
The other day I discovered an issue with my media system. I use PlayOn TVas a software DVR and had previously only used it with Netflix. The other day I tried it with Amazon Prime and Charter/Spectrum. Every attempt would start but fail. The issue turned out to be that too much CPU usage was in effect. Keep in mind that video encoding on the fly uses a LOT of system resources. Lowering the recording video quality from 'HD' to 'High' solved the issue with plenty of CPU usage to spare. The problem with this was that I could see the difference in video quality. It was the PlayOn support team that suggested lowering the quality as a test. While waiting for another reply from PlayOn I started digging through the Advanced settings and found the cure. I enabled Hardware Acceleration and all was well at the HD level of recording quality. In this case hardware acceleration means that a lot of the CPU load is transferred to the video card. Due to the nature of the beast a video card is often better suited to video encoding than the CPU. My video card is pretty strong being a Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 380 series Nitro 4 GB cardand can handle doing this without strain. This simple settings change lowered my CPU usage from 90-100+% to an average of around 60%. Bottom line, and the reason for this post, is that one should never forget to look at the simple solution. If you are having a hardware issue do the simple first and just totally shut off the system and start again. Does it always work? Of course not but it often will. If having a software performance issue don't automatically think that you need better hardware. Also consider that there just MAY be a settings option that can cure the issue. Don't just look at settings that seem to be related but look at ALL settings as there just may be a secondary setting that relates to the issue even though the main setting title appears to not apply. |
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