Config quality setting

[socbrian]

Right now I am running an old Pentium D and it can not handle the HD feed from my 350. (At least I think that is the issue) I get video / audio sync issues when the quality bumbs to the top tier on slingbox.com and my CPU is at 100% usage when the happens. I noticed if I set the quality to the 2nd highest I do not have issues and CPU is only around 70%. With sling front I notice that after the image quality bumbs up to the top tiet I get the same a/v sync issue. I was wonder if I can hard code or have a setting to not allow the quality to go above the 2nd highest.

Any other thoughts on resolving the issue are more than welcome. Thanks for the time and help!

[oviano]

Right now I am running an old Pentium D and it can not handle the HD feed from my 350. (At least I think that is the issue) I get video / audio sync issues when the quality bumbs to the top tier on slingbox.com and my CPU is at 100% usage when the happens. I noticed if I set the quality to the 2nd highest I do not have issues and CPU is only around 70%. With sling front I notice that after the image quality bumbs up to the top tiet I get the same a/v sync issue. I was wonder if I can hard code or have a setting to not allow the quality to go above the 2nd highest.

Any other thoughts on resolving the issue are more than welcome. Thanks for the time and help!

You can hack the code alright, for example I currently have the following system butchered into the code:

Four different quality settings each with a hardcoded resolution and videobitrate, and also different arrangements for different Slingboxes.

eg for my box outputting 720p I have it setup like this:

Q1 - 640 x 240 @ 800kbps

Q2 - 640 x 480 @ 1600kbps

Q3 - 640 x 480 @ 2400kbps

Q4 - 1280 x 720 @ 3400kbps

This is the optimum setup for me for streaming from a 720p output box from the UK to Istanbul, taking into account my achievable speeds between the two locations.

So while i don't think you can intercept the automatic Sling system and 'cap' it as you suggest, you can insead bypass that system completely and implement hardcoded bitrates and resolutions, if you're prepared to get your hands dirty with the code (Visual Basic). In your case you would experiment with different resolutions and bitrates until you find the combination(s) you are happy with that doesn't overload your CPU.

Note that the above system stops all automatic fluctuating of the video bitrate so it acts much more like a traditional IPTV system where a minimum stable bandwidth is required, but personally I'm not a really big fan of the way Sling's automatic system works, indeed with a 720p output from the remote STB I find that for some reason (and this is on multiple machines) it keeps trying ever-higher bitrates until it exceeds my available bandwidth and starts getting into a death cycle of stopping and starting from which it never recovers. That's why I hacked this system in the first place!

i suppose a more generic solution would be integrated into the UI so that the resolutions and bitrates can be configured on a per-Slingbox basis in the settings, rather than be hardcoded as I've done it.

If you think what I've done would be useful to you, and you've access to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 in order to adapt it to your needs then let me know and I'll zip it up and stick it in my dropbox.

[socbrian]

I don't mind getting dirty in code. I will just d/l the express version of VS 10. I was playing around with the hardware acceleration setting in slingplayers webapp and if that is turned on, I can stream at full res. Does the direct x version support this?

Maybe use git to share code?