Mon Nov 28, 2011 12:10 am
options for underpowered synology nas cpu?
The feature set of serviio is fantastic, but i've noticed the ARM cpu in my ds411j doesn't have enough power to run things smoothly. i'm now regretting not getting the atom based model, but wondered if there might be solutions for the following issues:
-indexing uses high cpu, nice this?
if i run 'top' on the nas, i can see whenever serviio runs its index sweep, it hammers the cpu at 99%. if i'm trying to do anything else with serviio at the same time, it gets very sluggish. i'd happily trade slower indexing for better interactivity, is there any way to run indexing at a lower priority?
-ffmpeg -i also high cpu, nice this?
similarly, i can see via top that just running 'ffmpeg -i' to grab metadata per video also hurts the cpu. could this also have an option to run at a lower priority?
-serviio web frontend timeouts, run at higher priority?
a constant frustration due to the above 2 points is trying to access the web front end. if serviio is busy doing anything else, the web interface will timeout. i have to wait for indexing to finish before i can change settings. inverse to the above, could we get an option so that this runs at a HIGHER priority? i haven't tried using any other console interfaces yet, would i have better luck there? (btw, the web page errosr with a giant red X button and the message "Required Serviio 0.6.0.1, but found ''Cannot connect to Serviio server, it does not seem to be running. Exiting..." )
-move meta folders to top of list (folder display slow on ps3)
again i assume this is due to the arm cpu. comparing our samsung tv when browsing serviio to the ps3 browsing serviio, it looks like the samsung client waits for the entire list to be sent before displaying, whereas the ps3 displays results as they stream in. this means you see 0-9 first, pause, a-e, pause f-l, pause, etc. normally i'm after the meta-folders ('folders', 'last viewed', 'last added', 'online feeds'), which are at the very bottom of the list. the scroll down is a little frustrating. is there any way to move those to the top of the list?
-granular control over thumbnail generation
patters suggests disabling thumbnail creation for videos, again due to the underpowered CPU. however if they exist in a zero-effort format (like the .THM files i mention in that canon thread), it would be nice for those to be used. do we get this level of control over when and how thumbnails are used?
-manual add to index (ala synology's 'synoindex -A <folder>')
like i said, auto indexing appears to be just beyond the capabilities of the arm cpu. alternately, is there a way we could add files manually, vs an automatic sweep? the builtin dlna server has a command, 'synoindex', that lets you do exactly that, very handy for quickly adding a file or folder to the index RIGHT NOW, or even adding/removing/renaming stuff in the index. would be great to know if a similar feature exists in serviio.
-disable indexing, just use 'folder' as a dumb smb index
would that be possible? i tend to keep my files and folders pretty organised, i usually default to browsing for stuff from the 'folders' view rather than the alphabetical order. strikes me that this might be a way to bypass the cpu intensive indexing completely; just display folders on the nas directly, and only display media files based on a simple wildcard of expected formats (*.avi, *.mpg, *.mp3, *.mkv etc). doable?
cheers,
-sea
-indexing uses high cpu, nice this?
if i run 'top' on the nas, i can see whenever serviio runs its index sweep, it hammers the cpu at 99%. if i'm trying to do anything else with serviio at the same time, it gets very sluggish. i'd happily trade slower indexing for better interactivity, is there any way to run indexing at a lower priority?
-ffmpeg -i also high cpu, nice this?
similarly, i can see via top that just running 'ffmpeg -i' to grab metadata per video also hurts the cpu. could this also have an option to run at a lower priority?
-serviio web frontend timeouts, run at higher priority?
a constant frustration due to the above 2 points is trying to access the web front end. if serviio is busy doing anything else, the web interface will timeout. i have to wait for indexing to finish before i can change settings. inverse to the above, could we get an option so that this runs at a HIGHER priority? i haven't tried using any other console interfaces yet, would i have better luck there? (btw, the web page errosr with a giant red X button and the message "Required Serviio 0.6.0.1, but found ''Cannot connect to Serviio server, it does not seem to be running. Exiting..." )
-move meta folders to top of list (folder display slow on ps3)
again i assume this is due to the arm cpu. comparing our samsung tv when browsing serviio to the ps3 browsing serviio, it looks like the samsung client waits for the entire list to be sent before displaying, whereas the ps3 displays results as they stream in. this means you see 0-9 first, pause, a-e, pause f-l, pause, etc. normally i'm after the meta-folders ('folders', 'last viewed', 'last added', 'online feeds'), which are at the very bottom of the list. the scroll down is a little frustrating. is there any way to move those to the top of the list?
-granular control over thumbnail generation
patters suggests disabling thumbnail creation for videos, again due to the underpowered CPU. however if they exist in a zero-effort format (like the .THM files i mention in that canon thread), it would be nice for those to be used. do we get this level of control over when and how thumbnails are used?
-manual add to index (ala synology's 'synoindex -A <folder>')
like i said, auto indexing appears to be just beyond the capabilities of the arm cpu. alternately, is there a way we could add files manually, vs an automatic sweep? the builtin dlna server has a command, 'synoindex', that lets you do exactly that, very handy for quickly adding a file or folder to the index RIGHT NOW, or even adding/removing/renaming stuff in the index. would be great to know if a similar feature exists in serviio.
-disable indexing, just use 'folder' as a dumb smb index
would that be possible? i tend to keep my files and folders pretty organised, i usually default to browsing for stuff from the 'folders' view rather than the alphabetical order. strikes me that this might be a way to bypass the cpu intensive indexing completely; just display folders on the nas directly, and only display media files based on a simple wildcard of expected formats (*.avi, *.mpg, *.mp3, *.mkv etc). doable?
cheers,
-sea