Has anyone had problems with large files on the 7000? I have been adding tons of color logos and icons to my file it is currently at 8.77MB. This will not download to the remote. When I press download it works for a minute or so (never shows a progress bar). I assume its building the XML file. Then it says download failed. I have downloaded probably 50 times with no problem before. I can download the factory file with no problem. I tried several previous versions and when I got to 6.7MB it downloaded.

The computer is a 2.4GHz pent 4, 1 GB Ram, XP Pro SP1. No other programs running at the same time. I've tried ensuring the remote is awake, I've reset the remote, etc. It never attempts to clean area in target remote, just fails. Anyone else have anything similar?

The next step is to try merging with a clean system page I guess.

Jon


EDIT: I just downloaded a version that is 7.05mb in size. When I check the setup on the remote free memory shows 1%. I though the remote had 16mb of memory. There are a lot of pages and graphics but I don't see how a 7 mb file could use 16 mb of space even if firmware and UDB take up some of this space.

This message was edited by jcl on 01/28/04 22:54.

Well, you must remember that the PCF file size is not at all related to the size of the file downloaded to the remote, as the file is compiled before transfer (this is different than the original Pronto where the CCF file was the exact thing sent to the remote).

To be honest I have no idea of how much "real" free memory there is on the TSU3000 or TSU7000, or even how PCF file size might approximate the size of data sent to the remote.

I remember when the 3000s had just come out you noticed your file size decreased and you thought the software had done some "housekeeping". I opened my bitmaps folder and there are many copies of the same button. For instance, the pressed state of my channel icons is the same for all 400 or so icons (two satellite boxes). I think the bitmaps folder has it in there at least a hundred times. I'm sure there is no way to force it to compare bitmaps but do you think multiple saves, multiple simulations, or multiple attempts at a download would cause it to "clean house".

Also, I imported each bitmap manually. I wonder if I used ctrl, alt, drag to move one instance to the other bitmaps if that would force the software to use only one instance of it.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Jon

Well, I opened the file and just clicked some of the icons so they showed up in the appearance tab. After I saved the file size dropped from 8.77mb to 7.83mb. After I saw that I opened again and clicked every single icon for the three devices that use them. I also shifted a few buttons to the left or right so the software knew there was a change. After saving to a new file name this file was 7.65mb and the bitmap folder dropped to 1093 objects from 1268 objects (the largest version 8.77mb). I guess it did a little house cleaning. Hopefully it will do some more because the download still failed.

Jon

Looking around in the install directory, I see the following files:

TSU7000:
Default.bin 1720 kb
TSU7000.dat 6918kb
UDB_TSU7000.bin 534 kb

RU980:
Default.bin 1641 kb
RU980.dat 19,270 kb
UDB_RU980.bin 820 kb

I know that Philips once told us that the .dat files are the UDB.

The question is which of these files make up the firmware that goes in the Pronto. [Remember, the 980 size may be misleading as the 980 is not yet released]

Also, the program for updating the firmware is:
Update_ProntoPro_NG.exe 1258 kb
[But that could contain a compressed form.]

My guess is that the firmware is just the two .bin files.

After a little more playing around with a file, I opened one up, added a letter to one of the page names, then deleted the letter, then saved and the file size dropped a few kb. There was technically no change. This file started life as a 3000 but I have changed every button to a color version. Most buttons are the same for the transport and keypad pages. The differences are the tv logos, dvd and cd jackets and home page icons. I guess if I open and save making minor changes and undoing them that the file will continue to shrink - to a point. Hopefully it will get small enough otherwise I'll have to optimize all of my graphics further and replace them all again, not looking forward to that, but thats life.

Thanks for the input.

Jon

jcl,

Man, that is some file size! Are you using .bmp files for the channel logos, etc? I have used .png files everywhere, every button, every logo, everything. My channel logos when added to a page are under 10 k each and they look very nice.

My quick suggestion would be to review the file size of some of the items you have added to your config. Maybe they have been saved in some odd way that causes them to be very large files? My whole config so far is under 2 MB. Mine is not overly extensive but quite complete. That makes it 1/4 the size of yours though. Have all of your files been imported or in the gallery? Either way, you should be able to go to those directories and review the file sizes quickly. Maybe just scan for some unusually large files. Maybe it is just a handful that are really big, that are easy to fix.

Good Luck.

Dave D'Arche
http://ProntoWizard.com

All .png files. There is well over 1200 macros. 400 for each changer (400 DVD and 400 CD). Around 350 or so DVD jackets. All available channel logos from directv as well as my cable company. The Directv logos are on there twice for two satellite boxes, every button has a pressed state. Screens to control around 13 components, etc. The files were probably saved in a large .png format, but I was under the impression - maybe from another post - that the software looks at the file and determines what quality to save it at. Even if thats not true the software doesn't seem to be acting like it is supposed to. i.e. comparing bitmaps (pngs) and only saving one instance of it and pointing to that one instance. It has done this with most of my transport and keypad buttons, but not the channel logos. They were one of the last things I added so I asuume if I keep saving it and opening the pages it will eventually realize they are the same and reduce the file size. This has been proven in a few quick checks (see my post above for file sizes).

Jon

JCL,

You have some serious stuff going on in your config! Interesting problem, if you think about it. As far as I know, no size limits have been discussed, with regard to size of .pcf files versus available memory. You may be hitting the upper limits of .pcf size and the rest of the internal memory is being used by system functions, etc. In a thread I started a few weeks ago, Archer indicated the system would "save down" the .png so that we did nor have to be particularly worried about the .png file sizes. I assume you have all of your .png files saved to a specific directory. Can you give us info on some of the sizes of files that you have added to your config? Such as file sizes of some of the channel logos, etc? That may be an indicator. As I mentioned, my channel logos, which were initially captured as .bmp files and were pulled into PSP and converted to .png files, are under 10k each. I recall I used 16M colors and then saved them using the .png converter in PSP. Maybe that process pared them down a bit.

So, if you could review your logos in your windows location, how big are they there?

Regards,
Dave D'Arche
http:ProntoWizard.com

The software is reducing the file size. One channel logo, for instance, has a file size of 34.5kb on my hard drive but is reduced to 3.70kb in the bitmaps folder of the config. I think I am at the upper limits. One config that was around 7mb I was able to finally download. I took out my PC device and all channel logos from one of the DSS boxes. This brought the new version down to under 7mb (6.85 I think). This started to download and failed. I tried again and it made it halfway through, then failed. That gave me a "The CF version is not correct or the memory is corrupt" message on the remote. I have had this before and its fixable by forcing a firmware download. Which usually takes several attempts. Everything would be great if this thing would just get rid of the duplicate buttons.

Jon

Checked one of my PCF's...

Free Memory on Remote 71%
PCF size 1901KB
Unzipped size 2.89meg
Number of PNG images: 478
Largest PNG images: 44KB (full screen lot of colors)
Channel icons 59x44: 8KB
Large button: 9KB
Small button: 2KB

As you noted the file seems to clean up "duplicates" upon saving. I changed on PCF with a lot of dupes in it from 2400KB to less the 1800KB by just adding a button and "Save As", remove the button and "Save As" doing this multiple times until the file seemed to reach its smallest size.

Dave

jcl,

I've run into the same problem, although my configuration was only about 4.4 MB.

I had the same symptoms:
The download process starts building the image for the remote; it runs for a short time, then displays 'download failed'. The configuration worked fine in the emulator though.

My PC had only 256MB RAM. Thinking it might be running out of memory, I upgraded to 512 MB. However, the download still failed.

Since my configuration was only 4.4 MB, it does not seem like a memory problem on the remote. I thought this problem might still be a memory issue on the PC but with your 1 GB of memory, it does not seem likely.

I was working on adding sliding menus to my design where a macro would flip through a few pages shifting a translucent menu out from the side or bottom of the display. After trying it in one device, I duplicated the technique in all of my other devices. After this, when I tried to download, it failed.

After going back to a version which would download, I started adding sections back in. The pcf has been up to 3.6 MB and downloaded without problems. After making some minor tweaks here and there, the pcf has shrunk to 3.3 MB. It does seem to be cleaning up the file over time.

Maybe its a matter of making changes in smaller increments.

My feeling is that when adding too many changes at once, the file is not optimized and has too many duplicated graphics, buttons, etc. Maybe the complexity of it when building the image for the remote causes the process to fail. Other posts have mentioned the remote acting sluggish after some changes. When additional changes are made, the speed goes back to normal.


Thanks,
Mike

I agree with the small changes overtime. However, the last changes I made to the remote were adding all of the color channel icons and then my help menus. From start to finish of these changes I "saved as" to a different file name 12 times. Looking at these files the size grew and grew. Opening each device and clicking on each button and saving to a new file name gave me the biggest drop in file size. I don't really even use the icons but I build my remote as a template file for all of my customers. Then its just a matter of deleting some of the devices, maybe changing some ir codes and its done. I'll probably just have to ditch all of the channel logos and optimize my home page graphics (they are still fairly large). Once, they release the firmware upgrade that opens up memory to 32mb maybe I can add this stuff back in.

Thanks for the advice.

Jon

Just an update to anyone interested. I got the file to shrink considerably by deleting everything. Saving just the system page and then merging the file back in. Fixed a couple of the links and the file size was below 7mb. That seems to be the limit and even then its hit or miss. This version (6.82mb) wouldn't download. I deleted the PC control and it shrunk to 6.74. This downloaded and worked. All channel icons for the three devices that used them are still intact. When looking in the bitmaps folder there are far fewer duplicates. Still some remain but far fewer than before. Time to upload for the contest.

Jon

Jon, the size of a PCF is its compressed size. It is likely that a better figure is the size of the uncompressed PCF. Do you know what that is for your PCF?