Shield 3.2 update issue or App issue?

[jasonmcroy 315]

I am on the Beta version of the App and I am bringing this up because I am not sure if it my issue is with the App or the Shield 3.2 update. It has to do with some stuttering/shimmering affect happening while watching recorded TV, Live TV or my Bluray rips.

 

It seems like it started with the 3.2 update and I am seeing it only with TV Recordings (not my Bluray rips) in Kodi and SPMC.

 

I have seen reports in the Shield and Kodi forums about the 3.2 update messing with deinterlacing or something like that. 

 

Is anyone else seeing this? 

 

In case it matters, my settings in the App include:

 

Enable Refresh Rate Switching: Checked

Direct Stream Live TV: Checked

Attempt to use VLC for Live TV: Checked (however, I am going to uncheck this because using it causing Lipsync issues)

Audio Output: Direct

Bitstream DTS audio: Checked

 

My tuner does do DTS decoding (True HD, AC3, Dolby Digital, etc.)

 

Is anyone else seeing this using the Shield specifically? Is there more data I can provide that would help if this is an App issue Ebr? 

 

 

[ebr 14897]

Try without the auto refresh rate switching.

 

I saw a note in the release notes for 3.2 that said something like "Improved 29.97 playback".  It may be that it wasn't really "improved" or that the improvement was with playing it back at other frame rates.

[jasonmcroy 315]

Thanks for your response Ebr. I had some more time this morning to do some more thorough testing and here are my results:

 

I changed each setting one at a time to see if anything made a difference. Turning off refresh rate switching didn't have any affect. I then turned off bitstream DTS audio. That did not have an affect. I then turned of set downmix to stereo. While playback does look much improved with it set that way, it's still there a little bit. I honestly think that issue has to do with the Shield itself so perhaps we will have to wait until the next Shield update to see if there is any improvement.

 

However, there is another issue that was happening along with the other playback issue and that is the fact that on my recordings if I skip forward to move through the commercials, at some point the audio will go way out of sync with the video. If I stop playback and restart it will be back in sync. If I don't try to skip forward and just let it play the audio also stays in sync. This completely goes away if I set the settings to downmix to stereo. So something goes awry when I skip forward with it set to Direct with the syncing. It's almost like when playback restarts after a skip the video visually pauses just before playback fully starts but the audio starts back immediately so I think that is what causes the issue.

 

When I have it set to downmix to stereo and playback starts again after a skip I notice the audio and video pause for a brief second before playback begins and I think it's the player syncing everything up.

 

I don't mind having it set to downmix too much when we are watching TV Show recordings because I have noticed that if I leave it up to my tuner to handle changing the audio back up to surround sound the voices come through much stronger than when I am direct playing which is good.

 

So, not sure if you want me to test anything regarding the audio syncing issue. Let me know if you do or if you can recreate it. The video files I am testing are recordings I have made using the Emby Live TV DVR without any conversion, just straight recordings. I haven't tested for any audio sync issues with my Bluray rips since I don't have to skip forward any during playback of those.

[ebr 14897]

Are the recordings .ts?

[jasonmcroy 315]

Yes. There are a couple that are .mpg from when I have also been testing the Silicon Dust DVR, but I get the same thing happening with either type of file.

[ebr 14897]

Okay.  I'm pretty sure the sync on seeking issue is within VLC and may just be due to how they had to implement that feature.

 

Google refused to implement seeking in .ts in their player because they said the format is not inherently seekable and all other players that do it are using some sort of "guessing" technique based on bitrates and file sizes to accomplish it.  They don't want to do this because they say it would likely be unreliable.  This sounds like the kind of thing that could produce out of sync video/audio (especially with bitstreamed audio) to me so that may explain it.

[jasonmcroy 315]

Ok, at least I understand it then.

 

Yes, I have found seeking to be very wacky in the .ts recordings (probably also sees the .mpg files the same way?). It seems to react differently on the files even though I may try it in 4 different files that are all .ts. 

 

So, if I understand this correctly, if I try playback and the app is using the vlc player I will probably run into sync issues? If it uses the other player then it just won't work? 

 

I think I will try to use the convert to mp4 setting in Live TV and see what that produces. Thanks for answering this one Ebr.

[jasonmcroy 315]

I did some more testing today and recorded a couple of random shows and used the MP4 conversion (first couple also converting the audio to aac and a couple of more preserving the original audio). I then played each of the different files while leaving the settings for audio as direct and bitstream DTS. 

 

So far I haven't been able to reproduce the issue with these files which makes sense per what you said above.

 

Plus, my receiver will take a 2 channel audio source and convert it to surround sound and it sounds pretty good to me. I may just start converting the recordings the MP4 with AAC if it keeps working this well.