I upgraded to the TinyPilot OS 2.5.3 to use h.264 video and it works fairly well (quicker and more responsive than MJPEG). I have a question on the h.264 settings, though. For the "quality" slider (which affects Mbps) would lowering this: a) cause higher CPU use on the TinyPilot doing more compression to get a lower bitrate or b) tell the TinyPilot to not worry so much about the image quality and it's okay to send a lower quality image?
David @david2023-03-06 13:21:32.450ZHi @FreiEitner, thanks for your question!
would lowering this: a) cause higher CPU use on the TinyPilot doing more compression to get a lower bitrate or b) tell the TinyPilot to not worry so much about the image quality and it's okay to send a lower quality image?
From some quick (and not exactly scientific) tests, changing the quality doesn't significantly impact CPU usage on my device. And a lower bitrate might even reduce CPU usage a little.
If you set a lower bandwidth limit, TinyPilot will compress the video more which impacts image quality. Depending on the tasks you're doing, the quality difference may or may not be noticeable to you.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
- FDon Eitner @FreihEitner
Thank you. I am not worried about the bandwidth but when running it all day for work I am always concerned about heat generated by the TinyPilot's CPU, so if lowering the Mbps for h.264 video might lower CPU load (by telling it to not worry so much about image quality) I'd be fine with that.
I haven't done intensive testing, but seeing no significant different one way or the other between the default 5 Mbps and 3 Mbps, for instance.
David @david2023-03-07 12:29:02.365Zwhen running it all day for work I am always concerned about heat generated by the TinyPilot's CPU
I don't think heat generation is a big concern with TinyPilot. It doesn't draw much power and its fan helps keep it cool. Even if your TinyPilot does get quite hot (if your ambient temperature is very high with low airflow for the fan) the CPU will throttle its performance to compensate - but this is rare.
You can take a look at your TinyPilot's logs to see how hot it is and whether its throttling. Go to System > Logs and look for "TinyPilot state":
TinyPilot state temp=31.6'C throttled=0x0I haven't done intensive testing, but seeing no significant different one way or the other between the default 5 Mbps and 3 Mbps, for instance.
Yeah, I don't think you'd see much difference with a change from 5Mbps and 3Mbps. Any significant differences would be between the two extreme ends of the spectrum (0.5Mbps and 20Mbps for example).
- FDon Eitner @FreihEitner
Thank you for that and for the suggestion on how to check the logs for thermal throttling. The area where I have my TinyPilot can get pretty warm in the summer months so I'll keep an eye on that--last year it seemed to handle okay, but last year I was not doing h.264 encoding on the device. :-)