Fast Forward of Live TV recording on Roku app is extremely slow

[frankmb 27]

For some reason on the Roku app if I fast forward in a recording to resume there is long buffer period. The recorded file is .ts.

It looks like it needs to "Convert to compatible container" but this is extremely slow to resume. If I fast forward multiple times, this happens each time (though sometimes it doesn't... not sure why)

Why wouldn't the recording be made in a way that is easy to fast forward through in the first place.

 

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by frankmb

[ebr 14910]

Hi.  We record the raw streams which are not designed for seeking (because they are live streams).  You can convert them to a better container after recording using the post-processing feature if you wish.

[frankmb 27]

7 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  We record the raw streams which are not designed for seeking (because they are live streams).  You can convert them to a better container after recording using the post-processing feature if you wish.

Hi, Thanks for the response. I find it very disappointing this is not done by default. I really thought whis was a bug, not expected behaviour! I consider the ability to fast forward or quickly seek a recording to be an absolutely essential feature and was present in all tv recording devices and software I have used in the past 30+ years. Isn't this a core feature of all DVRs ever?

I don't use watch or record Live TV much anymore, but this issue shows obvious lack of polish in user experience for Live TV.

If I want to do the post-processing as you suggest, how do I do that?

[justinrh 174]

For post-processing, you enter the cmd line info in admin > Live TV > Advanced.  You can run FFmpeg, MCEBuddy, Handbrake, etc.  More experienced users may have better solutions.

My Shields don't show much lag, but it does seem longer higher the resolution.  The Shield can direct play TS, which it looks like your Roku can't?

Edited September 11, 2022 by justinrh

[frankmb 27]

2 hours ago, justinrh said:

For post-processing, you enter the cmd line info in admin > Live TV > Advanced.  You can run FFmpeg, MCEBuddy, Handbrake, etc.  More experienced users may have better solutions.

This sounds pretty complicated.... I'm only interested in some sort of built-in to Emby server way of doing this since my Emby server runs in a docker container.

2 hours ago, justinrh said:

My Shields don't show much lag, but it does seem longer higher the resolution.  The Shield can direct play TS, which it looks like your Roku can't?

My Roku needs to change the .ts stream to a different container from what I understand. Resuming after fast forwarding is very slow with a buffering delay. 

Edited September 11, 2022 by frankmb

[justinrh 174]

Well, I think FFmpeg can be as simple as this: 
  application: ffmpeg.exe
  command line: -i {path} myfilename.mp4

Hold up, Emby!  How do we specify the output filename??!!

Okay, here's a built-in way:  Download the file, and that will force a conversion to MP4.  Of course, you'll have to wait on it to finish ...  Then you can select that file ("version") to play in the video details page (if you don't choose to replace the original).

Edited September 11, 2022 by justinrh

[frankmb 27]

Thanks for the help but ffmpeg is not in the docker (or at least I can't find it). I'm not interested in a workaround with manual steps like doing a download of each recording..

My point is that the Emby server should automatically create a file that doesn't cause this issue when recording.

Edited September 11, 2022 by frankmb

[Luke 37060]

@frankmb are you still having an issue with this? Can we please look at an example?

How to Report a Problem

 

[frankmb 27]

Yes it still happens. But not every time I fast forward.

I'm attaching my log. In the last playback starting at 20:56, I started playing the episode, then immediately fast forwarded at 4x speed to around the 30 minutes mark. Then when I press play to resume, I get a circle with % increasing for around 10 seconds until it resumes. This is very reproducible if I do the same steps.

I'm using the Roku client.

embyserver.txt

embyserver.txt

[ebr 14910]

14 hours ago, frankmb said:

I get a circle with % increasing for around 10 seconds until it resumes

I think that is fairly normal on this platform.

[frankmb 27]

On 10/7/2022 at 11:48 AM, ebr said:

I think that is fairly normal on this platform.

That is not true in my experience. I tried doing the same fast forwarding with other videos (h.264 mkv mostly) and the roku client always resumes instantly without delay. (I know a delay after fast-forwarding would be normal if transcoding but I basically never need to transcode)

This is why the Live TV recordings stand out. After fast-forwarding, they have this very long delay before resuming when the problem occurs. 

 

Edit: I did a bit more testing. I tried an anime with subtitles that needs to be transcoded on Roku. In this case, there is buffering with % increasing at the start of playback. And when resuming after fast-forward, there is again bufferring. Stats for nerds says it is transcoding.

With recorded Live TV it is a bit different. There is no buffering at the start of playback. However on resuming after fast-forwarding there is bufferring with % increasing. Stats for nerds says it is "Converting to compatible container" but not transcoding.

 

On the Web App and on Emby Theater for Windows seeking is instantaneous for Live TV recordings. There is no fast-forwarding like on roku for those platforms. So the problem looks specific to Roku, 

Edited October 8, 2022 by frankmb

[ebr 14910]

Hi.  I'm sure this comes down to the TS container which the Roku does not support (with seeking anyway).  I've seen varying performance across different firmware versions seeking these.

If you convert one of those recordings to MKV, does it seek faster?

[frankmb 27]

4 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  I'm sure this comes down to the TS container which the Roku does not support (with seeking anyway).  I've seen varying performance across different firmware versions seeking these.

If you convert one of those recordings to MKV, does it seek faster?

I see. How would I convert from ts to mkv?

[roaku 795]

46 minutes ago, frankmb said:

I see. How would I convert from ts to mkv?

Mkvtoolnix is a good option with a UI for a one off test.

I have Emby run a post record script to convert ts to mkv and add a stereo aac track that uses ffmpeg.

The ffmpeg command is something like:

[/usr/bin/ffmpeg] -hide_banner -fflags +genpts -i [inputfilename.ts] -map 0:v -c:v copy -map 0:a:0 -c:a:0 copy -map 0:a:0 -c:a:1 aac -ac 2 -ab 192000 -y [outputfilename.mkv]

The parts in [] will be specific to you.

Edited October 9, 2022 by roaku

[frankmb 27]

I remuxed a .ts to .mkv with mkvtoolnix. The resulting file seeks properly without delay in the Roku app.

I think the emby server should create mkv files by default when recording live tv. Or at least this should be an option since the user experience is poor in the roku app with .ts files.

[ebr 14910]

Hi.  There is a post-recording process capability in the server.  You can set that up to convert these if you wish.