Jump to content

Let's talk about optimizing encoding/settings, from HDHR to Playback


Marc_G

Recommended Posts

Marc_G

Hi folks,

 

The reason for this thread is that I often notice skipping in playback of some recorded shows, whereas watching those channels live via the HDHR viewer shows clear live playing of the same channels even minutes before the recording. My theory is that small faults in the data stream aren't noticeable when viewing live in the HDHR viewer but along the way become more noticeable during whatever encoding/decoding happens in the path to watching a show.

 

I've noticed using Emby to play live these same channels at the same times of day that there will be some glitches, not seen just moments before when watching with the HDHR software. This strengthens my suspicion that it's something in the way Emby or the Emby player handles the data.

 

We will start with the TV towers for the channels in question, which are visible to me on a clear day, about 8 miles away, across the flat Indiana landscape. The 8 miles is filled mostly with single or two story homes, no big buildings in between.  My antenna is this one, which is plenty strong enough to receive lots of channels from even much farther away:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GIT002/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's, outside, in our screened porch area, well mounted and shielded from wind, connected via quad shield RG6 to the HD HomeRun Extend tuner.

(note, I also have this stronger one up in the attic, and it's TOO strong; I get more reflections and stuff with it:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018BZJNS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )

 

If I open up the HDHomeRun ConfigGUI, I see something like this, showing strong signal strength and great quality. For most channels the quality figure stays above 95%; even a few channels where it drifts up and down in a range of 75-100%  play just fine and glitch free on the HDHomeRun viewer. Small dips in quality (but still 75% or better) DON'T EVER result in a visible/audible glitch in the HDHomeRun viewer.

post-489-0-46763900-1506884581_thumb.jpg

 

Just now, I watched several minutes of glitch free football (I hate football by the way) in the HD HomeRun viewer. Looked fine. Then I switched to watching via Emby (Chrome browser, clicked on the guide entry). Within a minute I counted three glitches where it lost perhaps two - three frames, no audible glitches, and MASSIVE comb filter visual artifacting all the time (presumably due to interlacing not being cleaned up).

 

If I go to the MyHDHomeRun page, and use the web interface to check on the tuner status, I see this:

post-489-0-02512700-1506884983_thumb.jpg

 

Of note is the Transcode Profile "heavy" which I understand is 1080x1920 at 30 fps, so typical for a 1080i signal I suppose.

 

Here is the profile for this tuner:

 

post-489-0-35426300-1506885207_thumb.jpg

 

So, as I understand it, I'm telling the tuner to do NOTHING to the incoming data; it will send out whatever stream it receives.

 

I changed channel to a lesser channel... showing Night Court reruns. This channel (6.3) is also 100% strength and steady 98% quality, but watching in Emby (Chrome, clicked on from guide), gives LOTS of glitches that have not corresponding events while watching the Config GUI. Switched to yet another channel (8.1). 97% strength, signal quality 90% (symbol quality steady 100%), lots of glitches in Emby viewing. No glitches watching via the HDHomeRun directly (from ConfiguGUI, it launches Windows Media Player, on my Win7 box). This latest channel, showing a baseball game, shows Transcode profile "None" (1080p as I understand it)

 

Here is where I admit ignorance: I'm not too familiar with the EMBY settings that would impact any of this. If I go to Server admin, Live TV, I see my tuner and Schedules Direct information. Settings at the top of the page gives me options to convert to a streaming friendly format (I've checked this, yesterday, wasn't checked before), as well as preserve original video and audio.

 

I'm not aware of any other settings that impact what exactly gets stored during a recording, or what processing happens while watching live TV (in this case via browser). I'm on my home network (gigabit ethernet, so presumably no transcoding needed) Please advise!!

 

In Emby Theater, (on my Win7 PC) while watching Live TV, more of this mind numbing baseball because it's an important channel, I'm noticing significant comb artifacts, that get a lot worse when not full screen (no surprise). All my video settings in ET are default. I will also try downstairs (where I usually watch TV, on a Win10 box that holds server and ET), but I still see some video glitches (dropped frames, sometimes with lost audio), that doesn't happen while watching via HDHR directly. I've heard mixed reviews on changing Enable Deinterlacing to Yes (from Auto)... what's the current thinking?

 

Anyway, the main issue is the dropped frames that aren't due to weak signal since I don't see them when watching with non EMby software.  What further troubleshooting can I do, and what logs would make sense?

 

I normally watch TV maybe weeks or months after it is recorded; I don't want to record many episodes of glitchy stuff at the beginning of the season then have to troubleshoot this later... trying to get ahead of it.

 

Thanks for your help!!

 

Marc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...