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Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

techblog.netflix.com

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Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#131

Post by taeric »

corysama wrote: post #42
makecheck wrote: post #26

Interface performance is one of the strangest problems to have in this age of crazy processing power but it is extremely common. Some of the delay is just plain silly and avoidable, like having long and synchronous opening animations in response to an action, which only serve to waste the user’s time. (Oh how I love being on a web site like AT&T and watching their JavaScript poorly zoom open a blank box from the cent…

At the hardware level, the author of BSNES recently wrote up an excellent rant on sources of latency in modern machines https://byuu.org/articles/latency/ But, most of what you are talking about is software latency. At 1/30th of a second each, software pipelining systems seem cheap individually but pile up very quickly. Hit a button, read the button, react in AI, react in animation, react in physics, react in graphic…

I'm not sure what you are referring to about skipping halfway through a transition, but a sinusoidal transition is almost always what you want anyway. Possibly a power distribution, one. That is, it should not just evenly slide from point A to B. You want some acceleration.

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#132

Post by arjie »

novembermike wrote: post #103
usaphp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honda isn't a tire or windshield company either, it does not prevent them from ordering high quality tires or windshields...

Actually, a lot of the Japanese car companies are built on vertically integrated companies where a parent (usually a bank) company owns both the primary company (Honda) and a set of complementary companies that provide things like Windshields or Tires. It's called a Keiretsu.

Then maybe they should keiretsu their way to software because whether they're a software company or not they make shitty software. And either they can make good software or they can buy good software, but if they make shitty software they're a software company, just a shitty software company.

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#133

Post by usaphp »

smallnamespace wrote: post #127
usaphp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did the quality control passed it? The lag on some of these car infotainment system just to change the sound is abysmal, someone definely saw that and should have said something, you paying $30,000+ for something that takes 4 seconds to respond to a music volume change. Whoever is responsible for that should not work there...

The quality control came last in the process, so when they 'finished' not long before the delivery date is due, QA gets a ton of political pressure to not make the date slip. That's why test-driven design is valuable -- you iterate while testing .

What's the point of quality control then if it means nothing in that case?

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#134

Post by tracker1 »

usaphp wrote: post #34
makecheck wrote: post #26

Interface performance is one of the strangest problems to have in this age of crazy processing power but it is extremely common. Some of the delay is just plain silly and avoidable, like having long and synchronous opening animations in response to an action, which only serve to waste the user’s time. (Oh how I love being on a web site like AT&T and watching their JavaScript poorly zoom open a blank box from the cent…

Especially the lag that you see on some brand new cars, only BMW and Audi seem to have lag free interface, but anything else that involves touch interface is just horrid! I've recently sat in my friend's brand new Honda SUV and the interface lag is just plain silly, for a car that costs $30,000+. Why is that?

I have a 2016 car that I hate the screen's ui/ux... it's laggy, and looks like something from 2007. That doesn't even get into the fact that the onboard wireless is 3G, not LTE on something in 2016.

Really makes me wish the whole thing was more hackable.

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#135

Post by smallnamespace »

usaphp wrote: post #133
smallnamespace wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality control came last in the process, so when they 'finished' not long before the delivery date is due, QA gets a ton of political pressure to not make the date slip. That's why test-driven design is valuable -- you iterate while testing .

What's the point of quality control then if it means nothing in that case?

Making sure it doesn't burst into flames

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#136

Post by noblethrasher »

taeric wrote: post #131
corysama wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the hardware level, the author of BSNES recently wrote up an excellent rant on sources of latency in modern machines https://byuu.org/articles/latency/ But, most of what you are talking about is software latency. At 1/30th of a second each, software pipelining systems seem cheap individually but pile up very quickly. Hit a button, read the button, react in AI, react in animation, react in physics, react in graphic…

I'm not sure what you are referring to about skipping halfway through a transition, but a sinusoidal transition is almost always what you want anyway. Possibly a power distribution, one. That is, it should not just evenly slide from point A to B. You want some acceleration.

Acceleration is important, but the “pop” that they wanted was probably some form of the “squash and stretch” effect that we all subconsciously associate with good quality animation[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#137

Post by PretzelFisch »

swrobel wrote: post #130

Disheartening that A/B testing and user feedback led to video previews. One of those "features" that's so annoying you wonder how it ever made it past the brainstorming stage.

Still worse is auto starting the program when your trying to figure out what to watch. They have my money already why do they need to inflate their view numbers?

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#138

Post by taeric »

noblethrasher wrote: post #136
taeric wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you are referring to about skipping halfway through a transition, but a sinusoidal transition is almost always what you want anyway. Possibly a power distribution, one. That is, it should not just evenly slide from point A to B. You want some acceleration.

Acceleration is important, but the “pop” that they wanted was probably some form of the “squash and stretch” effect that we all subconsciously associate with good quality animation[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch

That makes sense. Curious that we think it is quality animation.

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#139

Post by corysama »

noblethrasher wrote: post #136
taeric wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you are referring to about skipping halfway through a transition, but a sinusoidal transition is almost always what you want anyway. Possibly a power distribution, one. That is, it should not just evenly slide from point A to B. You want some acceleration.

Acceleration is important, but the “pop” that they wanted was probably some form of the “squash and stretch” effect that we all subconsciously associate with good quality animation[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch

The conflict is that in the real world, people have momentum. They take a bit of time to change their velocities. In video games, we are accustomed to sprites that can instantly change velocity and sometimes go from motionless to moving significant distances in a single frame.

The publisher wanted both simultaneously. They wanted the human player character to instantly change direction in response to controls. But, they also wanted the character to move like a semi-realistic human who has momentum and takes a while to change directions instead of like a sprite that instantly changes direction. :/

Re: Crafting a high-performance TV user interface using React

#140

Post by voltagex_ »

StillBored wrote: post #107
makecheck wrote: post #26

Interface performance is one of the strangest problems to have in this age of crazy processing power but it is extremely common. Some of the delay is just plain silly and avoidable, like having long and synchronous opening animations in response to an action, which only serve to waste the user’s time. (Oh how I love being on a web site like AT&T and watching their JavaScript poorly zoom open a blank box from the cent…

Input lag is a common complaint of mine, but absolutely _NOTHING_ comes close to the Sony BDP S300 https://esupport.sony.com/p/model-home.pl?mdl=BDPS300 . Key-press response time can frequently be more than 30 seconds, depending on what the action is. Of course, you might say, that is because of bluray bloat on more recent disks, but I can assure you that its been that way from the day I purchased it. Sure some disks…

Given it's a BDP-series player, if you were interested you may be able to get a Linux shell of some kind on it and find out what's taking so long to run on it.

There's a whole lot of Phillips and Sony players that are based off some ancient Mediatek SDK.

Edit: Wow, that's old: Sigmatek, not Mediatek. A makefile in the GPL source suggests there's a similar Pioneer player somewhere, too.

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