The guide is very slow

SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
edited 6 March 2017, 10:48PM in Archived Posts
Only had the TalkTalk box since Saturday, but am already frustrated with how slow it is to move around the guide, and having to wait for the program names to appear. It seems like it's not cached at all, which is proved by closing and then reopening it, to see the guide empty again until the programs are fetched again, either from the freeview broadcast, or some database. Coming from a Toppy with MyStuff that holds the whole EPG in RAM this seems prehistoric.

Is this the same for everyone? If so is there an existing request to improve this?
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Comments

  • UnknownUnknown
    edited 26 September 2013, 8:33AM
    Hi

    I've never used the TalkTalk box but I've never had this issue on the Humax built YouView box.
  • marcusd666marcusd666 Member Posts: 14 ✭
    edited 1 October 2012, 10:53PM
    I would agree only had my TalkTalk youview box since Saturday and the whole operation is slow it's a shame because the system has potential to blowing Sky+ out of the water.
  • Steve AllenSteve Allen Member Posts: 47
    edited 24 December 2013, 11:52AM
    If you have the humax box, I have had a similar experience every time I do a channel re-scan, so you may be seeing this from an initial channel scan.
    Normal speed returned after this (standard) procedure (which is documented in a few places):

    Press and hold the front panel standby button for 8 seconds to soft reset the device

    Tried this a number of times and it is a consistent action. After this reset, everything appears OK ie all new channels/update working fine.
  • VisionmanVisionman Member, Super User Posts: 10,303 ✭✭✭
    edited 26 February 2017, 2:39PM
    Once one does a channel re-scan the EPG needs to re-populate. So the EPG would be slow after performing such an action. But after that it will be fine and at normal speed too.

    As for the TalkTalk box, it contains different hardware, but the firmware is the same.

    Query - Has anyone yet seen published the new full specification of the TT YouView box?

    Because I'll be dammed if I can find it.
    I'm now happy with the disagree icon, because its gone.
  • SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
    edited 5 November 2013, 8:40PM
    Steve, Thanks for the tip, I'll try the soft reset tonight and see what happens. Out of interest what does this reset actualy reset, presumably not recordings, or scheduled recordings, but just some sort of cache / buffer.

    Visionman, not I cannot find the spec for the talktalk box, there is no info supplied in the box, or on the web, not even the HD size.
  • RottyRotty Member Posts: 107
    edited 17 January 2017, 7:15PM
    I concur that the TalkTalk box is more sluggish with the EPG and menus than the Humax. It was something I noted straight away, and whereas the Humax tends to be a bit sluggish after a full reboot or retune, in general use it seems pretty snappy, whereas the TT box seems to stay somewhat sluggish.

    Taking the box out of Low Eco standby, and pressing the Guide button, it often fills the guide initially with No Information Available, and then gradually populates each channel. Seldom if ever seen that happen on the Humax.

    However, some things like doing a retune are quicker through the process than the Humax.

    Assume different hardware and firmware will mean the different manufacturers boxes will act differently (same happened with Topup TV with their Thomson and Vestel versions).
  • SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
    edited 2 June 2014, 8:15PM
    Tried the soft reset and it's no different, can take up to 4 seconds to populate a page in the guide when changing up or down using the page up or down button. I think this may be the slowest EPG I have ever used!
  • VisionmanVisionman Member, Super User Posts: 10,303 ✭✭✭
    edited 26 February 2017, 2:39PM
    @Soniclife

    This is a TT box issue. As a TT YouView user, you have exclusive access to a TT YouView forum upon which I beleive you'll find a lot more help than anyone could provide on here. And hope you get this resolved soon.
    I'm now happy with the disagree icon, because its gone.
  • Joe KellyJoe Kelly Member Posts: 7
    edited 2 October 2012, 9:34PM
    Its the same for me, and is painfully slow to populate with information. I have left a message on the talktalk forum, so will see what their response is
  • SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
    edited 5 November 2013, 8:40PM
    I have added to your thread over on the TT forum.
  • iSPYiSPY Member Posts: 166
    edited 2 October 2012, 10:45PM
    For those of you not aware of the Talk Talk Forum click here
    http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums...
  • VisionmanVisionman Member, Super User Posts: 10,303 ✭✭✭
    edited 26 February 2017, 2:39PM
    Oh, no. Thats the general forum.

    The above users should have been informed about access to a 'closed' separate YouView forum, which I beleive Martin has access to.
    I'm now happy with the disagree icon, because its gone.
  • iSPYiSPY Member Posts: 166
    edited 5 November 2013, 8:40PM
    I put the Link there because Talk Talk users may get an answer to their problems there rather than posting on this Humax box related one and they can view Soniclife's post there too.An example of posting on the wrong Forum was Jean Ireland and the remote button problem which was for the Talk Talk one.
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 3 October 2012, 4:33PM
    Can Sonicliffe and Rotty confirm how much quicker the Humax box is than TalkTalk; and what broadband speeds they have? Over on the TalkTalk forum it is being suggested that the TalkTalk box refresh of data on a new page in the EPG might be faster for those with faster broadband.

    They also say an update is out soon to make the EPG faster - but I've yet to find confirmation of that.

    I'm debating whether or not to cancel my TalkTalk Youview order and switch to BT if the Humax box is significantly faster - though if both will be able to refresh data in around 1 second when moving to a new page in the EPG that would be acceptable so I might then stay with TalkTalk. Generally the TalkTalk service seems more complete and its also cheaper.
  • Joe KellyJoe Kelly Member Posts: 7
    edited 3 October 2012, 5:38PM
    Adrian Wood1 said:

    Can Sonicliffe and Rotty confirm how much quicker the Humax box is than TalkTalk; and what broadband speeds they have? Over on the TalkTalk forum it is being suggested that the TalkTalk box refresh of data on a new page in the EPG might be faster for those with faster broadband.

    They also say an update is out soon to make the EPG faster - but I've yet to find confirmation of that.

    I'm debating whether or not to cancel my TalkTalk Youview order and switch to BT if the Humax box is significantly faster - though if both will be able to refresh data in around 1 second when moving to a new page in the EPG that would be acceptable so I might then stay with TalkTalk. Generally the TalkTalk service seems more complete and its also cheaper.

    Not sure about this as I am on 70 meg download and 14 meg upload and its still slow for me
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 3 October 2012, 5:58PM
    Adrian Wood1 said:

    Can Sonicliffe and Rotty confirm how much quicker the Humax box is than TalkTalk; and what broadband speeds they have? Over on the TalkTalk forum it is being suggested that the TalkTalk box refresh of data on a new page in the EPG might be faster for those with faster broadband.

    They also say an update is out soon to make the EPG faster - but I've yet to find confirmation of that.

    I'm debating whether or not to cancel my TalkTalk Youview order and switch to BT if the Humax box is significantly faster - though if both will be able to refresh data in around 1 second when moving to a new page in the EPG that would be acceptable so I might then stay with TalkTalk. Generally the TalkTalk service seems more complete and its also cheaper.

    Thanks- how slow to display a complete new page of data in the freeview EPG? 2 seconds, 4 seconds? Is that for a Huawei router or Humax router.
  • Joe KellyJoe Kelly Member Posts: 7
    edited 3 October 2012, 6:49PM
    Adrian Wood1 said:

    Can Sonicliffe and Rotty confirm how much quicker the Humax box is than TalkTalk; and what broadband speeds they have? Over on the TalkTalk forum it is being suggested that the TalkTalk box refresh of data on a new page in the EPG might be faster for those with faster broadband.

    They also say an update is out soon to make the EPG faster - but I've yet to find confirmation of that.

    I'm debating whether or not to cancel my TalkTalk Youview order and switch to BT if the Humax box is significantly faster - though if both will be able to refresh data in around 1 second when moving to a new page in the EPG that would be acceptable so I might then stay with TalkTalk. Generally the TalkTalk service seems more complete and its also cheaper.

    Thats the Huawei router, and yeah about 4 sec
  • SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
    edited 3 October 2012, 9:13PM
    iSPY said:

    I put the Link there because Talk Talk users may get an answer to their problems there rather than posting on this Humax box related one and they can view Soniclife's post there too.An example of posting on the wrong Forum was Jean Ireland and the remote button problem which was for the Talk Talk one.

    Isn't this a general youview forum and not a Humax forum?
  • SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
    edited 5 November 2013, 8:40PM
    I tested with the LAN cable unplugged, it's the same so I doubt any IP call is involved in using the guide.
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 30 January 2013, 1:08PM
    So for Huawei box the guide takes up to 2 seconds for some people but 4 or 5 seconds for others, and there is now strong evidence that is nothing to do with broadband speed.

    It seems to me there are only a few possibilities (or combination thereof) to cause for people's experience to vary so much:

    1. A technical or design fault that applies only to certain boxes
    2. A technical or design fault that applies only to certain freeview transmitters or reception conditions
    3. A technical or design fault that results in a conflict with some routers and / or fibre broadband etc
    4. An issue that arises whilst the EPG data is being initially retrieved - if so this must be taking some days or weeks to populate so signifies another technical or design fault.
    5. An technical or design fault that impacts TalkTalk users only.
    6. A memory handling fault in either box causing the EPG to slow down over time.

    In addition to the above there appears to be a major design fault in that the EPG is populated each time a new page of data is requested making it slow (ie at least a second) for everyone - this should never be the case if the data is cached to memory or hard-drive - new pages of data should be displayed nearly instantaneously as it is on all other modern freeview platforms.

    So YouView reps really must comment on this - what aspects are to be improved in the forthcoming release(s) for Huawei or Humax and by how much? Is this slow EPG something that can be expected to remain a failing of the YouView platform, or can we confidently expect it will be addressed in the near future?
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 4 October 2012, 6:15AM
    Of course, the Huawei box from TalkTalk may be under-powered exacerbating a problem caused by non-performant code or design,

    What is not clear is how Humax compares with Huawei - do any Humax users find the a new page of EPG data takes more than about a second to display, if so how long?
  • swedish cookswedish cook Member Posts: 27
    edited 4 October 2012, 7:48AM
    Forgive my ignorance, but are we talking navigation into the past here or future/current.

    Future/current should be coming from cached broadcaster transmissions (shouldn't it).

    Past data should also be coming from cached broadcast transmission with overlay from the web of what the broadcasters have available for catchup TV - just needs the delta from them of what they have added since the box last inquired.

    Obviously given the poor population times, they've implemented it wrongly, but do we know WHAT it actually does, especially when you go into the future - which very clearly should be cached and background updated.
  • TechnogranTechnogran Member Posts: 152
    edited 4 October 2012, 8:22AM
    I always thought that the EPG data was saved to RAM memory as it filled up, and would then always be available as long as the unit was switched on. Thought that this was how all PVR's worked. ??
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited 26 September 2013, 8:33AM
    FWIW I don't have a problem with EPG speed on my Humax.
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 4 October 2012, 8:36AM
    swedish cook said:

    Forgive my ignorance, but are we talking navigation into the past here or future/current.

    Future/current should be coming from cached broadcaster transmissions (shouldn't it).

    Past data should also be coming from cached broadcast transmission with overlay from the web of what the broadcasters have available for catchup TV - just needs the delta from them of what they have added since the box last inquired.

    Obviously given the poor population times, they've implemented it wrongly, but do we know WHAT it actually does, especially when you go into the future - which very clearly should be cached and background updated.

    Its current data we're talking about, though I believe the same happens for past data too,
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 4 October 2012, 8:38AM
    Martin1 said:

    FWIW I don't have a problem with EPG speed on my Humax.

    Do you not have a problem because you have a high tolerence for delay, or because its actually very quick? Only timings I've seen for Humax suggest about 1 second to populate a new screen of the freeview EPG (for example when you page down to next page). Is yours faster than that? Most modern freeview EPGs are almost instant (less than half a second).
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 4 October 2012, 9:52AM
    Sonicliffe - on TT forum someone said "Just noticed now that going back in the EPG (catch-up) it's taking 4 to 5 seconds to populate, everything else is about 2 seconds." Does that apply to you - ie is it quicker in the normal freeview EPG?
  • RottyRotty Member Posts: 107
    edited 17 January 2017, 7:15PM
    I did a 'sideways day-by-day scroll' to next tuesday to add a scheduled event and when I got to the day I wanted, it took about 6 seconds to populate the EPG. On the Humax, it seems to do it in no more than a second after I stop scrolling across with the >> button.

    Everything on the TT box seems noticeably slower to me (other than doing a box retune which is quicker than the Humax), having had a Humax for a while. My DSL speed is just over 7Mbps/1Mbps (and is a 'rate assured' line, as it's on a business service) and I'm not a TT DSL customer.

    If I press the YV button, scroll to System and press OK, it takes several seconds for the box to respond to give me the next menu. It's almost as if the box is busy doing other stuff in the background and can't service the UI as a priority, which from a usr point of view is annoying.
  • Adrian Wood1Adrian Wood1 Member Posts: 235
    edited 4 October 2012, 11:18AM
    Rotty said:

    I did a 'sideways day-by-day scroll' to next tuesday to add a scheduled event and when I got to the day I wanted, it took about 6 seconds to populate the EPG. On the Humax, it seems to do it in no more than a second after I stop scrolling across with the >> button.

    Everything on the TT box seems noticeably slower to me (other than doing a box retune which is quicker than the Humax), having had a Humax for a while. My DSL speed is just over 7Mbps/1Mbps (and is a 'rate assured' line, as it's on a business service) and I'm not a TT DSL customer.

    If I press the YV button, scroll to System and press OK, it takes several seconds for the box to respond to give me the next menu. It's almost as if the box is busy doing other stuff in the background and can't service the UI as a priority, which from a usr point of view is annoying.

    Thanks - how long does the same operation take on the Humax box - less than 6 seconds? Does it make any difference if you reboot or soft reset the box?
  • SoniclifeSoniclife Member Posts: 23
    edited 5 November 2013, 8:40PM
    Going back in time is much slower than now, or in the future, this makes sense as it has to check the programs are still available to stream. I don't think going backwards is acceptably fast, but far more excusable, and there are multiple ways of getting to these programs, search possibly being the fastest.

    The rest of this post only deals with now and the future in the guide, i.e. the bit broadcast as part of freeview.

    I have tested a bit more and an confident that the guide is populating correctly and fully, and is being written to disk between reboots. It always seems complete and program information does not arrive in dribs and drabs as it does on boxes that do not save the EPG between reboots.

    My take on the problem is that this cached guide must be being held only on disk, and not in RAM, and the difference between the 2 makes is probably hardware, and most probably HDD performance. Does anyone know what type of HDD the Humax version has, the TT box probably has a laptop type disk in it given the very low weight of the whole box, possibly even a 1.8" disk which are also common in laptops but very slow. My best guess is the youview firmware is the same on both boxes, but the HDD on the humax is either really fast, or has a good sized ram cache to speed it up.

    Incidentally it is all access to the EPG data that is slow, even changing channels is very slow to bring the now and next data up, in fact it's so slow the picture is usually there 1st.
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