ASIAIR Pro - video lag

[simonharrison]

Hi all

I've been playing with an ASIAIR Pro connected to a ZWO 462 camera for imaging Jupiter and Saturn, and I'm finding it rather tough working with some extreme lag that occurs on the live video feed when I reduce the ROI to smaller than the full res. Is there something I'm missing or is this just a feature of using ASIAIR Pro over wifi to the ASIAIR app?

Just to be clear what I'm doing is:

- set up lightbridge 16" dob on eq platform, find and centre Jupiter using 9mm eyepiece

- swap over to ZWO 462 cam and connect it to ASIAIR Pro

- on my phone, connect to the AISAIR wifi and open the ASIAIR app

- Click 1080p to get max resolution and find and centre Jupiter. (Note the lag while in 1080p mode is not too bad, about 1/2 a second between focussing or moving scope and seeing the movment in the app)

- Click 480p to reduce ROI. => the lag between focussing or moving the scope and seeing the result is now massive, about 5-10 seconds - this makes making any adjustments eg centring the planet in the now tiny FOV very frustrating!

Is there perhaps something I'm missing or doing wrong? Connecting the camera to a PC directly there's no lag whatsoever so it has to be the ASIAIR Pro and/or limitations of wifi. Wondering whether I should have gone with a little laptop instead of the ASIAIR.

cheers

Simon

[Davey-T]

Asiair WiFi is pretty poor but can't see why it should be slower on ROI.

Dave

[powerlord]

Yeh it's a pita. For stuff like adjusting exposure or focus it's impossibly.

What I reckon is happening is the memory buffer is a certain size. At 1080p that's only a few frames, but as you roi it down it can fit more and more frames into that buffer. Go down to 240p and it's crazy long. Imho this is dumb and they should only use the buffer when recording.

Anyway my botch workaround is, make a change then force clear the buffer. How? Just change the roi. It then has to dump the buffer as its all now bad data.

So I was trying to get the exposure right for jupiter a few nights back and shooting at 240p. So I adjust to say 5ms. I then change roi to 480p, and then back to 240p.

Now I see 5ms exposure.

As I say, just bad coding to not realise that the last thing you want in preview/live is a fecking buffer.

I did mean to bring to up on the zwo forum but not done as it wouldn't let me post!

Edited July 24, 2021 by powerlord

[simonharrison]

Ok good to know it's not just me... Thanks. Will try again when weather allows and try mode switching see if that helps.