[AG-TECH] Video freezing on the iSight

[Eric Olson]

Hi Jason,
That's a good to hear.  Can you see if it freezes with the exact
command-line options that your VideoService or VideoProducerService start
transmitting with?  They command-line options are logged in
.AccessGrid/Logs/Video*Service.log
If you find that it then freezees, can you try to narrow down which
command-line argument might be causing the problem?

Also, I expect the quality setting is more likely to reduce the cpu than
the other settings (framerate or bandwidth), so it's worth checking if
that is what's helping (if you haven't checked already).

Another thing worth checking is whether running other things at the same
time causes the problem.  So rat and/or the VenueClient without
video might be good things to run at the same time.

And one last thing you might try is to make sure multicast networking
isn't causing problems by seeing if it freezes while using unicast.

If you want to send your log files, I would't mind seeing if the
configuration or command-line arguments are different than I'd expect.

Eric

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Jason Bell wrote:

> G'day Eric and all
>
> It appears that I might have found out something that might explain why
> my "Vic" freezing on the iSight occurs.
>
> At Eric's suggestion, I ran vic manually and to my surprise I found that
> the video works fine and never froze once.  Basically I ran vic manually
> by entering the command ./vic {multcast address}/{port number} and then
> adjusted the device, bandwidth, framerate and quality settings and
> selected transmit to stream video from the iSight.
>
> I ran this for a couple of hours and it all appears to work fine....  I
> then did the exact same thing again, but this time I ran the VenueClient
> as well as running "vic" manually and the video froze again.
>
> To double checked that my first time wasn't a fluke, I re-ran vic
> manually without AG2.3 running and it has been working fine now for a
> few hours again.
>
> Therefore, I would conclude that the AG2.3 has got something to do with
> why the video freezes, rather than vic itself.
>
> Any ideas on what else I can try.
>
> Thanks,
> Jason.
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Jason Bell, B.I.T.
> B. Info. Tech. (Honours) Student
>
> Network Engineer
> Information Technology Division
> Central Queensland University
>
> High Performance Computing Support Officer
> Central Queensland University
>
> Research Assistant to the Nonlinear Intelligent Systems Research Group
> Faculty of Informatics & Communication
> Central Queensland University
>
> E-mail : j.bell at cqu.edu.au
> Phone : 07 4930 9229
>
> --------------------------------------------
>
> Patience is a virtue.
> But if I wanted Patience,
>
> I would have become a Doctor.
> --------------------------------------------
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Olson [mailto:eolson at mcs.anl.gov]
> Sent: Friday, 25 February 2005 02:01
> To: Jason Bell
> Cc: Paul Mercer; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov; accessgrid-l at clix.aarnet.edu.au
> Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] Video freezing on the iSight
>
>
> The log files will probably not have any information about a video
> freezing problem, but they are in /Users/<username>/.AccessGrid/Logs.
> If you want to submit them in a bugzilla bug, we can take a look at them
> too.
>
> Also, the command and arguments used to run vic will be in the logs.  If
> you want to run it manually with those arguments (and maybe without some
> of the arguments), we can detect if the issue is related to vic or the
> AG
> code that starts it.
>
> If we can verify that it's not a problem due to something the AG toolkit
> is doing wrong, we should ask openmash mailing list for help.
>
> Eric
>
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Jason Bell wrote:
>
> > G'day Eric
> >
> > Even after dropping the bandwidth and framerate, I still have the
> video
> > feed freeze....
> >
> > Any other suggestions I could try...  Also, is there a log file in
> which
> > I can look at which might give me some clues...
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jason.
> >
> > --------------------------------------------
> > Jason Bell, B.I.T.
> > B. Info. Tech. (Honours) Student
> >
> > Network Engineer
> > Information Technology Division
> > Central Queensland University
> >
> > High Performance Computing Support Officer
> > Central Queensland University
> >
> > Research Assistant to the Nonlinear Intelligent Systems Research Group
> > Faculty of Informatics & Communication
> > Central Queensland University
> >
> > E-mail : j.bell at cqu.edu.au
> > Phone : 07 4930 9229
> >
> > --------------------------------------------
> >
> > Patience is a virtue.
> > But if I wanted Patience,
> >
> > I would have become a Doctor.
> > --------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Eric Olson [mailto:eolson at mcs.anl.gov]
> > Sent: Thursday, 24 February 2005 04:48
> > To: Jason Bell
> > Cc: Paul Mercer; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov; accessgrid-l at clix.aarnet.edu.au
> > Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] Video freezing on the iSight
> >
> > Hi Jason,
> > I haven't seen that here yet, but we don't have many machines for
> > testing.
> > You could try reducing the cpu load by changing the
> VideoProducerService
> > (or VideoService) configuration and reducing the framerate and/or
> > bandwidth.
> >
> > For others reading this who haven't done this before:
> > To configure a service, select Preferences->Manage My Node..., select
> > the service, then right-click (control-click on the mac) and pick
> > "Configure...".  Change the setting, close the configuration dialog,
> > then
> > disable and enable the service to see the effects.  If it does fix the
> > problem, make sure to save the configuration you want to keep.
> >
> > Unfortunately, the quality setting doesn't work yet, but you could
> test
> > it by manually adjusting the setting in vic -- although the effect
> would
> > be temporary.
> >
> > Let us know if you find something that helps.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 23 Feb 2005, Jason Bell wrote:
> >
> > > G'day Paul
> > >
> > > Thanks for your feedback.
> > >
> > > Basically when my video freezes, it does so on the other machines in
> > the
> > > same venues as well.
> > >
> > > The only thing they I can se that might be affecting it is that I am
> > > running this on a low-end iMac and at times it is running at 0%
> > > idle.....
> > >
> > > Other than that, I have no idea what else could be causing it.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Jason.
> > >
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------
> > > Jason Bell, B.I.T.
> > > B. Info. Tech. (Honours) Student
> > >
> > > Network Engineer
> > > Information Technology Division
> > > Central Queensland University
> > >
> > > High Performance Computing Support Officer
> > > Central Queensland University
> > >
> > > Research Assistant to the Nonlinear Intelligent Systems Research
> Group
> > > Faculty of Informatics & Communication
> > > Central Queensland University
> > >
> > > E-mail : j.bell at cqu.edu.au
> > > Phone : 07 4930 9229
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > Patience is a virtue.
> > > But if I wanted Patience,
> > >
> > > I would have become a Doctor.
> > > --------------------------------------------
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Paul Mercer [mailto:mercer at arsc.edu]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, 23 February 2005 12:01
> > > To: Jason Bell; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov; accessgrid-l at clix.aarnet.edu.au
> > > Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Video freezing on the iSight
> > >
> > > Jason
> > > We were having the same problem when running the beta version.
> > > Sometimes the video would freeze in the vic window but then I'd go
> > > over to another machine running ag and that machine was still
> > > receiving video from the other.  That was really wierd. Since
> > > installing the release version I have not seen the freezing video. I
> > > noticed that it seemed to freeze most when nothing was happening.
> > > Like I would leave my cubicle with the camera running and return in
> > > 10 minutes and the video would have froze. When there was action,
> the
> > > video did not freeze as much.
> > >
> > > Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
> > >
> > > We are running mac osx 10.3.8 on  powerpc G4 laptops.
> > >
> > > Paul
> > >
> > >
> > > At 10:45 AM +1000 2/23/05, Jason Bell wrote:
> > > >G'day All
> > > >
> > > >I was just wondering if any of you have had similar difficulties,
> > > where,
> > > >when running the AG software on OS X 10.3, the video feed from the
> > > >iSight using a video producer freezes.
> > > >
> > > >The video works fine for 5-10 minutes, then for some reason the
> video
> > > >stops sending any video updates.  I am hoping that someone else may
> > > have
> > > >experienced a similar problem and knew of a fix.
> > > >
> > > >Thanks for your time,
> > > >Jason.
> > > >
> > > >--------------------------------------------
> > > >Jason Bell, B.I.T.
> > > >B. Info. Tech. (Honours) Student
> > > >
> > > >Network Engineer
> > > >Information Technology Division
> > > >Central Queensland University
> > > >
> > > >High Performance Computing Support Officer
> > > >Central Queensland University
> > > >
> > > >Research Assistant to the Nonlinear Intelligent Systems Research
> > Group
> > > >Faculty of Informatics & Communication
> > > >Central Queensland University
> > > >
> > > >E-mail : j.bell at cqu.edu.au
> > > >Phone : 07 4930 9229
> > > >
> > > >--------------------------------------------
> > > >
> > > >Patience is a virtue.
> > > >But if I wanted Patience,
> > > >
> > > >I would have become a Doctor.
> > > >--------------------------------------------
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>