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A New Chapter for MagicMirror: The Community Takes the Lead
Read the statement by Michael Teeuw here.

Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Troubleshooting
mmm-pirvideoplayer
40 Posts 9 Posters 25.7k Views 8 Watching
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  • R Offline
    Reotch2 @Nystro0m
    last edited by Sep 30, 2017, 2:00 PM

    @Nystro0m I have minimal transitions on the screen (weather, newsfeed, clock). It looks like there is an occasional hiccup on the newsfeed, but otherwise, no issues. My front door cam is kind of a cluster and naturally clunky because it’s a non-rtsp feed, so I’m stuck doing snapshots every 500ms to give ma a “live” picture. Thinking this may be the culprit, I disabled it in the config.js to verify it wasn’t the one killing the video.

    I like where you’re headed though. (top) is showing two electron processes, is that normal? The highest processor abusers are Electron # 1 / Electron # 2 / XORG.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • M Offline
      Mykle1 Project Sponsor Module Developer @Reotch2
      last edited by Sep 30, 2017, 3:47 PM

      @Reotch2 said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

      it turns out running the video as a module within electron is super “clunky” on my RPI-3.

      What version combination of MM and Electron are you running? We’ve had great success eliminating excessive Electron CPU usage with MM v2.1.0 and Electron v1.4.15 on Pi3 B’s, and just recently, a Pi2 as well.

      Obviously, the results are at the end of the topic

      https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4684/electron-cpu-usage

      Create a working config
      How to add modules

      R 1 Reply Last reply Sep 30, 2017, 4:41 PM Reply Quote 0
      • R Offline
        Reotch2 @Mykle1
        last edited by Sep 30, 2017, 4:41 PM

        @Mykle1 said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

        What version combination of MM and Electron are you running? We’ve had great success eliminating excessive Electron CPU usage with MM v2.1.0 and Electron v1.4.15 on Pi3 B’s, and just recently, a Pi2 as well.

        Obviously, the results are at the end of the topic

        https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4684/electron-cpu-usage

        Unsure on electron (kinda hard to find a version). But I’m running 2.1.2, and still running Jessie. I should have some more time MUCH later today to tinker. I’ll use the steps on page 15 of that thread for a clean install and report back. Do any of these combinations allow GPU usage within electron? As always, appreciate the help.

        -Rich

        N 1 Reply Last reply Sep 30, 2017, 5:09 PM Reply Quote 0
        • N Offline
          Nystro0m @Reotch2
          last edited by Nystro0m Sep 30, 2017, 6:34 PM Sep 30, 2017, 5:09 PM

          @Reotch2
          I got helped with this yesterday from Mykle and i went from 80-100% cpu usage to 2-45% cpu usage.
          The biggest difference was by downgrading electron to 1.4.15.
          But running MM 2.1.0 instead of 2.1.2 also made a improvement.

          How to downgrade electron
          Navigate to your home folder, from here delete all maps including electron. there should be two:
          .electron & .electron-glpyh.
          Navigate to you node-modules inside MM.

          § cd ~/MagicMirror/node_modules
          

          Uninstall electron by

          § sudo npm uninstall electron
          

          install electron with desired version in this case 1.4.15 by:

          § sudo npm install electron@1.4.15
          

          Now open file manager or navigate to “~/MagicMirror/node_modules/electron” and look in package.json
          Here you can confirm your version number of electron.

          How to downgrade MagicMirror
          If you want to downgrade your MM version you will need to make a new install.
          I would suggest everyone doing this to NOT delete it BEFORE you have made a backup.

          You can find MM 2.1.0 here (thanks to Mykle for providing me with link):
          https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/archive/v2.1.0.zip.

          Unpack the zip in you home folder, and rename it to MagicMirror
          then just run npm install from the folder.

          § cd ~/MagicMirror/
          § npm install
          

          Note: You will need to re-install electron 1.4.15 after the clean install of MM 2.1.0.
          Make sure to have everything up and running before you do that.

          I did run the gun and needed to redo everything twice.

          R 1 Reply Last reply Sep 30, 2017, 7:46 PM Reply Quote 2
          • R Offline
            Reotch2 @Nystro0m
            last edited by Sep 30, 2017, 7:46 PM

            @Nystro0m So went all out, and did a fresh install of Raspbian Stretch, MM2.1.0 and electron 1.4.15… even with just the default modules and htmlvideo, electron has the CPU pegged at >75% playing the .webm file. The video is slightly less choppy than before, but still not as seamless as OMXPlayer. Do I just have a crappy Pi3? Are there memory, GPU, or overclock settings I’m missing in my pi config file that may help? I’m also running it through PM2… is that causing issues?

            Thanks,
            Rich

            M N 2 Replies Last reply Sep 30, 2017, 9:55 PM Reply Quote 0
            • M Offline
              Mykle1 Project Sponsor Module Developer @Reotch2
              last edited by Sep 30, 2017, 9:55 PM

              @Reotch2 said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

              even with just the default modules and htmlvideo, electron has the CPU pegged at >75% playing the .webm file.

              If you read through the Electron CPU Usage you would see that your results are not as bad as you think they are. Many people saw drastically worse results without asking their Pi to run htmlvideo. A simple default installation of MM 2.1.1 or higher and Electron higher than 1.4.15 would bring a Pi3 to its knees.

              The video is slightly less choppy than before, but still not as seamless as OMXPlayer. Do I just have a crappy Pi3?

              I don’t believe it’s your Pi3. Again, all the testing we did in that topic pretty much ruled that out and pointed the finger squarely at the MM/Electron version combination,

              My opinion: We’re asking the Pi to do things that it’s just not capable of, or at least pushing it to its limits. I’m not bashing the Pi. I love the Pi. There’s just only so much it can do. I think you should be glad that OMXPlayer is giving you the results you want on the Pi. If you moved from the Pi to something more robust then you would likely not have the problem running htmlvideo within MM, no matter what versions of MM and Electron.

              Create a working config
              How to add modules

              R 1 Reply Last reply Oct 1, 2017, 7:12 PM Reply Quote 0
              • N Offline
                Nystro0m @Reotch2
                last edited by Sep 30, 2017, 10:54 PM

                @Reotch2
                Sorry that it does not seem to work.
                The only thing i can think about now is the read speed of your micro SD card.
                In video editing playback often is limited due to read speeds of the drive.
                But here we talk about 100MB+ per second. And that is an understatement.

                I would try to see if you can get html video running from a embedded source such as Youtube.
                Else, if you have not tried running OMXPlayer and the PIR module as “behind” in the config i have no idea.

                Im interesting in following up this project in the future, when i run out of things to incorporate in my MM.

                If you decide to not follow this up anymore i would love to see a summary post what you have up and running, including scripts and such. Also a summary of what did and did not work in your research :)

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • R Offline
                  Reotch2 @Mykle1
                  last edited by Oct 1, 2017, 7:12 PM

                  @Mykle1 @Nystro0m

                  My opinion: We’re asking the Pi to do things that it’s just not capable of, or at least pushing it to its limits.

                  Honestly… this is good news. Gives me permission to stop troubleshooting :). I’m still doing a clean install of STRETCH (having minor issues on another thread), and I’ll fall back on my OMXPlayer workaround.

                  Thanks EVERYONE for helping me try every possible workaround. When the time comes for me to scale-up to a bathroom mirror, I’ll definitely plan on a little more processing power.

                  Also, I’ll post my final workaround/setup when I’m back up and running.

                  M 1 Reply Last reply Oct 2, 2017, 1:33 AM Reply Quote 1
                  • M Offline
                    Mykle1 Project Sponsor Module Developer @Reotch2
                    last edited by Oct 2, 2017, 1:33 AM

                    @Reotch2 said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

                    Also, I’ll post my final workaround/setup when I’m back up and running.

                    Yeah dude, keep us posted!

                    Create a working config
                    How to add modules

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • J Offline
                      jasondreher @pyrosmiley
                      last edited by Oct 3, 2017, 3:49 PM

                      @pyrosmiley
                      What module did you use to play the .webm file? I have converted a file but dont know how to play it on the MM.

                      P 1 Reply Last reply Oct 4, 2017, 5:17 AM Reply Quote 0
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