Interlaced video on Recorded TV with HD Homerun

[casminkey 15]

I am getting some fairly bad interlaced video when playing anything that was recorded from Emby using an HD Homerun Prime. It doesn't seem to be too bad when viewing live TV, just mostly with things that were recorded. I get it with anything moving fast, considering I watch mostly sports, this is a pretty big problem.

 

When I play the recorded file using VLC, I still get interlaced video so I don't know if it's something that can be adjusted with the HDHomerun itself, or something with Emby. It's a .TS file that Emby records. I have Verizon Fios with a cable card, if that matters. Playing live tv through Windows Media Center or the HD Homerun software don't show any interlacing nor does recording from Windows Media Center. I was just hoping this would work better through Emby, being that Emby is supposed to work natively with the HD Homerun was the main reason I purchased it.

 

Screen shot of example is attached

 

I have been trying to follow some conversations in the threads and believe there's things in the works to improve the Live TV/Recording functions.

 

If there's anything that can be adjusted from the HD Homerun or in Emby or if you need any logs or such, please advise and I'd be happy to help.

[Luke 37064]

Hi,

Can you please provide the media info as seen in the web interface? thanks.

[casminkey 15]

Gladly...

 

Media Info

 

Container  ts

Path  \\FLEXRAID\Flexraid\DVR\Sports\NHL Hockey\NHL Hockey 2016-01-31 EP000195595441T635897952000000000C590.ts

[Luke 37064]

has the recording finished yet? try refreshing it from the detail screen, underneath the dot menu. this normally should happen automatically though.

[casminkey 15]

It did finish. I believe I cancelled the recording before it was scheduled, if that matters. I started another recording and will let it finish on schedule if that makes a difference.

[casminkey 15]

Just to update, I let a recording finish on it's own. I don't get anything different for Media Info:

 

Media Info

 

Container  ts

Path  \\FLEXRAID\Flexraid\DVR\Sports\Winter X Games\Winter X Games 2016-01-31 EP002047140389T635898024000000000C570.ts

[Luke 37064]

i'll have to check when we probe it. just to make sure the probing didn't fail, try to refresh it from the detail screen

[casminkey 15]

Interesting, it finally refreshed after about the 6th try...

 

Here's the info from the screen shot I attached in the original post:

 

Media Info

Video

CodecMPEG2VIDEO
ProfileMain
Level4
Resolution1920x1080
Aspect ratio16:9
AnamorphicNo
InterlacedNo
Framerate29.97003
Bitrate15073 kbps
Pixel formatyuv420p
Ref frames1

Audio

Languageeng
CodecAC3
Layout5.1
Channels6 ch
Bitrate375 kbps
Sample rate48000 khz
DefaultNo

Audio

Languagespa
CodecAC3
Layoutstereo
Channels2 ch
Bitrate187 kbps
Sample rate48000 khz
DefaultNo

Containerts

Path\\FLEXRAID\Flexraid\DVR\Sports\NHL Hockey\NHL Hockey 2016-01-31 EP000195595441T635897952000000000C590.ts

Edited January 31, 2016 by casminkey

[Luke 37064]

it was probably just taking a little while. Sometimes probing video can be slow. What is your server version?

[casminkey 15]

Version 3.0.5818.0

[jasonmcroy 315]

This is an interesting thread to me. I see something similar to this no matter what DVR software I use (Emby, HDHomerun DVR or NextPVR) and I always thought it was a video player issue, not an issue with the original recording although I have never used the WMC software.

 

The player's that play my recordings very well are Kodi and the new Emby Theater. VLC always looks bad when I try to play one of the recordings in there. There are settings in the VLC player to deinterlace the video and in Kodi as well.

[mellomade 140]

Firstly - the fact that you are seeing interlacing has nothing to do with the HDHomeRun Prime or Emby.  Broadcast television is transmitted interlaced as MPEG2/AC3 (in the US anyway).  The HDHomeRun just passes the stream to your network devices.  Nothing more.  Emby and WMC just copy that raw stream to a file - no processing.  If you tried to take the WTV files you recorded in WMC and play them back in VLC you would see the interlacing.

 

Secondly - that you are seeing the interlacing effects means you have not adjusted the deinterlacing settings appropriately on your player software.  This can be confusing coming from WMC because the WMC player deinterlaces natively without any user input.  Most other programs like VLC, Kodi or Emby Theater will require you to configure the deinterlacing settings manually.  Since you don't mention which is your target Emby player - we cannot be that helpful with recommendations.

 

The take away here is that all your Live TV and recordings - regardless of whether you use WMC or Emby - will be interlaced.  It is up to the playback software to correct this.

[casminkey 15]

Thanks for the explanation, all makes sense.

 

So I am mostly using the Emby web client when testing viewing recordings, but do not see any settings for deinterlacing or such.

 

My hopes is to use Emby Theater to get away from WMC. I know there's a lot more options for playback, but again nothing referring to deinterlacing (I know it may just be called something different, I'm not up to all the lingo).

 

Can you point me in the right direction for either of these on where I would make these settings?

[puithove 208]

It seems to me that the issue is Emby server is not properly detecting the stream as interlaced.  The server probably uses this detection/flag to decide whether or not to turn on deinterlacing during transcoding, and the clients probably use the same to decide on deinterlacing during playback.  I've seen the issue randomly myself - some are deinterlacing, some are not when they should be.  I see in the screenshot above that the recording is shown as "Interlaced: No" when it obviously is interlaced (based on the other stats).  Looking at my own recordings, interlaced content is marked as interlaced sometimes, but not on others.

 

Emby is probably using the embedded flag in the stream (rather than doing an actual inspection of the content which is costly), and that is often not set properly by the content provider.

 

It would be good for Emby to do a better check for interlaced content on LiveTV.  One easy thing to do might be to look at the other content params.  For instance, if MPEG2, 1920x1080, FPS 29.97, then it is interlaced.  If 1280x720 FPS 59.94, it's progressive (not interlaced).  Under LiveTV, this is a very safe bet.  I believe the same holds true for 25/50 FPS content under PAL.  Even if this results in streams being marked interlaced when they're not, the slight loss of quality from deinterlacing progressive content is a much better tradeoff than having interlaced content get missed.

[Luke 37064]

Interlaced detection is being adjusted for the next release

[mellomade 140]

Thanks for the explanation, all makes sense.

 

So I am mostly using the Emby web client when testing viewing recordings, but do not see any settings for deinterlacing or such.

 

My hopes is to use Emby Theater to get away from WMC. I know there's a lot more options for playback, but again nothing referring to deinterlacing (I know it may just be called something different, I'm not up to all the lingo).

 

Can you point me in the right direction for either of these on where I would make these settings?

 

The web client and the new Emby Theater (sorry I don't use the old one) should deinterlace content automatically - but it sounds like the detection of that was not optimal.  I noticed that my channels show in the metadata that they are NOT interlaced (when they are) but the web client and Theater have deinterlaced them so I'm not sure what is going on there.

 

My main clients are Kodi based - and in this player if you bring up the OSD and select 'Video' settings it will give you the options for deinterlacing.  I am not terribly sensitive to the quality - so I just set everything to Auto and let Kodi detect what is best.  Generally these options are dependent on what type of graphics hardware you have.  Obviously the more intensive/higher quality deinterlacing will require a better graphics chipset.

[casminkey 15]

To provide an update to anyone who helped (or finds this in the future), the Nexus player app and Emby Theater (old and new) seem to de-interlace fairly well. I was just testing in the web client and seemed to be the only place where it doesn't deinterlace all that well but that's not a real concern for me.

 

Now working out some problems with recordings but will address them in a new post if I can't get them sorted out on my own.

 

Thanks for the wonderful help and information on how the process works.

[fc7 123]

Interlaced detection is being adjusted for the next release

 

This is great news Luke. I was also about to report that interlacing detection wasn't working properly. As mentioned before in this thread Live TV in Spain is also interlaced, always. Yet during stream probing (TVH plugin does this on the fly for every live TV playback), Emby stream probing mechanism doesn't seem to detect it correctly and recognize it as not interlaced. Looking forward the next release!