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Emby Live TV (Sattelite and OTA tuners): Streaming Quality


Marlor

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Hi, 

I access tv through two PCIe tuners so I am not sure this is about streaming, but I have noticed that when I tune in to channels (even on the server that has the tuners installed so no internet required), the quality of the image defaults to much lower than it is available.

I apologise if this has been asked before and if I am missing a setting, but I have looked everywhere and I can't seem to find an option to default to maximum quality possible. Is is possible for us to choose a default for this?

For context, in my settings I have transcoding set to max, H.264 encoding preset to very slow, and under playback I have internet quality set to max, home network quality set to max and I tried changing these values (although, like I said, Internet isn't even needed when I watch channels via my tuners) but it still defaults to a lower setting when the channel is a HD one (and it seems that it always defaults to 480p.

I have also tried on iPad (which in this case would require streaming) and it also defaults to 480p.

A bit of an off-topic and maybe there is a better place to report this, but I noticed in the iPadOS app when I change the quality, the channel will freeze and not come back, so I need to come out of it and tune in again, but when I do this, it will tune in in the quality I chose (highest).

Emby Server v. 4.7.0.14 beta

Emby Theatre Windows v. 3.0.15

Emby iPadOS v. 2.0.9

Thank you for your help. 

M

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Hi, let's start with how you have these setup in Emby.

What method did you use to add these PCI satellite tuners to Emby?

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Hi cayars, 

I am using the playlist method using a third party to tune them. And suddenly I realise there may be streaming involved so apologies for the information in my initial post. 

My Internet speed I fast enough though, I can watch the channels in the highest quality available. It's just that I can't seem to set that as default. 

Thank you for your help. 

Edited by Marlor
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Maybe my previous comment sounded like I have figured it out, but I haven’t and so was wondering if there is a way to default live tv to max quality.

Thanks.

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Spaceboy

you're saying the quality opening the stream via the m3u you are feeding emby with is worse than when played through emby?

if so, i don't see this with the same setup and no settings in emby other than default. using dvbviewer as the backend. but dvbviewer has options to provide both direct stream and transcoded playlists, which is why i ask the above

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5 hours ago, Marlor said:

Hi cayars, 

I am using the playlist method using a third party to tune them. And suddenly I realise there may be streaming involved so apologies for the information in my initial post. 

My Internet speed I fast enough though, I can watch the channels in the highest quality available. It's just that I can't seem to set that as default. 

Thank you for your help. 

What server are you using for this?

If you open the m3u file is it passing TS or HLS streams?
I don't know your setup but it's possible if using HLS that multiple streams are available and likely written in the wrong order for Emby but that's just a hunch.

Do you have the ability to force TS to Emby on your "headend" server?

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Hi both, 

Thank you for your support. 

I also use DVBViewer as backend and my playlist is in ts and so, no multiple streams.

8 hours ago, Spaceboy said:

you're saying the quality opening the stream via the m3u you are feeding emby with is worse than when played through emby?

if so, i don't see this with the same setup and no settings in emby other than default. using dvbviewer as the backend. but dvbviewer has options to provide both direct stream and transcoded playlists, which is why i ask the above

Spaceboy, I may have not been clear, I can still choose the highest stream quality in emby and it will play flawlessly, it just doesn't default to that in the first place for whatever reason and will choose 480p most of the times. I noticed though, if I change the quality of a channel and then tune in to another channel, when I come back to the first channel, it remembers that I chose the highest quality. I have not tested this for a long period of time to see if it persists indefinitely but will keep this in mind. 

I chose ts to keep the original feeds. 

If it isn't possible to set highest quality by default in settings, it really isn't terribly problematic, just means I need to adjust the quality when I tune a channel, but maybe it could be a feature request? 

And thank you both for your support 

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Hi, when you say choosing the quality, how exactly are you doing this?
Is this from the cog icon during playback using the Quality menu choice?

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Hi Carlo, 

Yes, from the cog menu after tuning the channel. The channel comes up and I have to change the quality to the highest setting from the cog menu on the bottom right of the screen. That's when most often than not the channel freezes, and I have to come out and to back in but when I do it retains my choice. 

Would there be a way to default this to max? 

Thank you for all your support. 

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This is doing something different than what you think it might be doing.  This works for all playback, not just TV.
What this Quality menu choice does is lower the bitrate of anything you are watching.

If for example you took your notebook to Burger King and used their WIFI you may not be able to get 10-15Mb connection rate but maybe only 3 or 4 Mb.  So this menu allows you to tell the server to force transcode the stream so it can be played over the bandwidth you have available.

This is a manual override of the app settings in the playback menu (from the person icon, top right).

Any time you play media it remembers your last setting.  So anything you've watched previously will get the same settings again. You will likely need to change it for those previously viewed streams.

If using any client on your home network and your Emby Server is also on that same network you likely want to set this to the highest setting possible to avoid transcoding.
The likely exception might be WIFI clients if you don't have enough bandwidth.  But I'd suggest starting out with the highest setting and slowly lower it if needed for bandwidth issue.

Hope that helps

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Thank you for your detailed explanation, I understand it much better now and particularly in terms of how it overrides the main settings. Also, how the main settings work which has been very helpful. 

Thank you so much for your support! 

 

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3 hours ago, Marlor said:

Thank you so much for your support! 

It's our pleasure.

Have you had a chance to retry playing anything yet with the Quality turned up to avoid transcoding?

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16 minutes ago, cayars said:

It's our pleasure.

Have you had a chance to retry playing anything yet with the Quality turned up to avoid transcoding?

I have thank you, my bandwidth is good enough so I'm able to go for the highest stream available and it works perfectly. My mistake must have been not knowing exactly how the quality settings from the cog menu work. You have taught me something knew and I appreciate it. 

By the way, thank you for all your and Luke's work and support, I follow the forum and have learned so much just by reading your explanations. Also thank you for the support and dedication to the community. Love Emby and the team is amazing!! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The support on this website is second to no one, it's the reason I paid for a lifetime emby membership ! If something is not working you can bet you ass people here will stop at nothing to help you 🙂

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