Xibo

Best Practice for Powerpoint/Videos

Asked by David

I have had several issues with the clients freezing up. I removed everything except my main content and both of my clients are still freezing at random times. I have installed the debug client and it has provided very little insight into the problem. I suspect its the videos or Windows Media Player causing the issue but I don't have any errors in my event logs to prove that. All that being said, I wanted to tell you what I currently have playing and maybe you can tell me if its right or wrong and point me in the best direction to display my content.

I currently have two, wmv files, generated from Powerpoint 2010. The pptx files are 4MB and 1.3MB. When the videos are generated they are 32MB and 10.9 MB. I stopped using the ppt viewer earlier in my use of xibo because my CPU usage was high. Although the videos are larger the machine ran much more efficiently. Both of my videos are added to a main region and there is a text item at the end which forces the videos to restart (I read another post where this is how you start the videos over).

Do you recommend using Powerpoint or converting to videos? Is there a specific version of Powerpoint that works better than the rest? Do you recommend a single file or multiple files? What else could I do to get to the bottom of these freeze-ups?

Thanks,
David

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Xibo Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Dan Garner (dangarner) said : 		#1

As a general rule I would always recommend using videos over PPT - simply because we have no real control over the PPT playback once it has started.

Videos should be very stable indeed - we have a number of examples where videos are the only content and screens are running for months without problem.

Perhaps you could give a little more detail on what you mean by "freezing up"? We might be able to suggest some strategies for solving the problem.

Revision history for this message
David (dpring) said : 		#2

Thanks Dan.

Sounds like at least the videos are the way to go.

Am I doing the multiple videos correctly where I am placing an empty text item after my two videos to get it to loop back to the first video?

Have you noticed that wmv files cause issues? Should I be playing another format instead?

My clients have frozen 3 times today. By freezing I mean, the entire thing just feezes. My flash clock stops, weather stops, news feeds stop and the video has stopped playing. I believe the video is causing the issue because I got rid of all the other items except he one region that contained two vids and a text item. When the client feezes the video section is gone. Its not like the screen has a paused video on it, there is just nothing in that region when it freezes. Could it be the transition between the text item and the video content? Could it be a timing issue between layout refresh and the video loading? I'm reaching in all directions here.

Thanks,
David

Revision history for this message
Dan Garner (dangarner) said : 		#3

That does sound very odd indeed... have you tried playing your videos
through in WMP directly to see if they freeze?

The Xibo Client will support any video format that WMP will support -
so perhaps you could try a different format.

If the whole client freezes then this usually means there is something
occupying the entire CPU and unfortunately the .NET client is single
threaded - so that kills the entire thing. As you are using videos
instead of PPT have you considered trying the Python client?

Revision history for this message
David (dpring) said : 		#4

Doesn't appear like you have a Python client running on Windows yet. I am setting up some performance monitors on that machine to see if something else is causing a CPU spike.

Revision history for this message
David (dpring) said : 		#5

Doesn't appear like you have a Python client running on Windows yet. I am setting up some performance monitors on that machine to see if something else is causing a CPU spike.

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask David for more information if necessary.

To post a message you must log in.