Would a new HDHomerun speed things up?

[bcm00re 18]

I am using Roku to watch Live TV (using the Emby Beta app) and that means the Emby server has to transcode from MPEG2 to MPEG4.  I am using a somewhat old HDHR-US tuner, and it seems to take awhile when selecting a channel to watch before the video starts playing.  Would a new HDHomerun tuner, that supports DLNA, make this work notably faster?  My Emby server is running on a Win10 machine equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700 Quad-Core 3.4GHz processor -- so I would think that should be more than enough processing power.

 

[Luke 37064]

if you get the hdhomerun model that has onboard transcoding then in some cases we are able to offload the transcoding to the tv tuner, so yes that would make a difference.

[speechles 1917]

If you had a rokuTV it could natively handle mpeg2 streams with direct play just an FYI.

Edited October 7, 2017 by speechles

[bcm00re 18]

@@Luke

So just a newer HDHomerun Connect tuner with DLNA will not speed up the process; it would take the HDHomerun Extend that has built-in MPEG4 encoding to get snappier performance.  You did mention "in some cases" though -- can you expand in that?

 

@speechless

Good info, but I am not ready to buy 4 rokuTVs to replace my 4 rokus. 

[Luke 37064]

A newer HD Homerun might help a little because we are able to use newer api's that are available, but it's not a big difference. 

 

In some cases even though the Extend will transcode, Emby Server may have to transcode again, depending on your settings in the server as well as settings in the app that you're playing from. So that's what I meant there.

[bcm00re 18]

So I ordered a HDHR Extend earlier today.  Can the hardware transcoding it can do be utilized when using the Emby app on Roku devices?  Some older posts were saying that the hardware transcoding on the Extend only does the video and that the AC-3 audio used in OTA broadcasts wasn't compatible with most apps, but from what I can tell Rokus can pass AC-3 audio so it would seem I should be able to utilize the Extend's extra capability -- unless I am missing something or there is some limitation with Emby.

[Luke 37064]

Yes we can use it with Roku.

[bcm00re 18]

Sweet -- thanks for the prompt confirmation Luke! 

[bcm00re 18]

Well I got the Extend a couple days ago,but I'm sad to say it didn't speed things up at all.  It still takes about 10-20 seconds before video starts playing when I tune to a Live TV channel.  And on top of that, it often sputters/stalls/freezes a few times after newly tuning to a channel.  I am fairly certain I am using the Extend's hardware transcoding because I see "1080" instead of "Transcode" in the status.  I have tried both "Heavy" and "Mobile" transcoding but it didn't appear to affect things.  So the issue must be somewhere else other than the transcoding.  As I said before, my Emby server is running on Intel Core i7-6700 and I have a Roku Premiere, Roku 3 (which is connected via wired ethernet), and a Roku Express.  So is this just as quick as Emby can tune to OTA -- and I'm just expecting too much?

[Luke 37064]

Well I got the Extend a couple days ago,but I'm sad to say it didn't speed things up at all.  It still takes about 10-20 seconds before video starts playing when I tune to a Live TV channel.  And on top of that, it often sputters/stalls/freezes a few times after newly tuning to a channel.  I am fairly certain I am using the Extend's hardware transcoding because I see "1080" instead of "Transcode" in the status.  I have tried both "Heavy" and "Mobile" transcoding but it didn't appear to affect things.  So the issue must be somewhere else other than the transcoding.  As I said before, my Emby server is running on Intel Core i7-6700 and I have a Roku Premiere, Roku 3 (which is connected via wired ethernet), and a Roku Express.  So is this just as quick as Emby can tune to OTA -- and I'm just expecting too much?

 

@@bcm00re - please see how to report a problem. Thanks !

[bcm00re 18]

See attached.  It appears that even though the HDHR Extend is doing hardware encoding, so is Emby Server.  Any thoughts on how to fix this would be appreciated.

 

server.txt

ffmpeg-transcode.txt

[Luke 37064]

The tuner isn't doing any transcoding there, notice the input is mpeg2video.

[bcm00re 18]

Or is Emby bypassing it and getting the raw stream?  When I look at the tuner is says it is hardware encoding (using the 'mobile' setting):

Tuner 0 Status
Virtual Channel
none
Frequency
647.000 MHz
Program Number
3

Modulation Lock
8vsb
Signal Strength
100%
Signal Quality
98%
Symbol Quality
100%

Transcode Profile
mobile
Streaming Rate
3.980 Mbps
Resource Lock
192.168.X.Y

Is there some setting I need to do on Emby Server to support it?  I have "Allow hardware transcoding" checked for that Tuner.

Edited October 29, 2017 by bcm00re

[bcm00re 18]

The Extend must be hardware transcoding because it says the bit rate is 3.980 Mbps -- that's not broadcast MPEG2 in 720P.

[Luke 37064]

From what i can see it looks like you haven't enabled the option in emby to allow hardware transcoding. What you've done instead is enabled it on the HDHR, and although transcoding might be happening on the HDHR, emby server isn't aware of it.

[bcm00re 18]

[bcm00re 18]

I have this checked on my Extend tuner -- and not checked on my old HDHR-US tuner.

[bcm00re 18]

Just to be clear, I have had that boxed checked all along (since I first setup my new Exend tuner).  So it appears Emby Server is ignoring that setting.  And I am certain I don't have the setting backwards; I know it is indeed checked for the HDTC-2US and not checked for the older HDHR-US tuner.

[bcm00re 18]

All the above has been done using a Roku Premiere. So I decided to see what happens when using Emby Theather on a PC instead (but not the Server PC) -- I still get conflicting results:

 

But the Extend tuner shows this:

 

So it sure looks like Emby Server refuses to use the hardware transcoded stream from a HDHR Extend.

 

[Luke 37064]

That doesn't look like emby theater. That looks like the web app.

[bcm00re 18]

FYI, I was able to watch hardware transcoded video from the Extend using the DLNA Server feature on  my Panasonic TV.  So my new HDHR tuner is able supply a hardware transcoded stream.

[bcm00re 18]

That doesn't look like emby theater. That looks like the web app.

Yes, that is what I was using. 

[Luke 37064]

Yes, that is what I was using. 

 

There is no browser that supports the mpegts container format, and only one browser that supports AC3 audio. So in the case of browser playback, the server will always be converting no matter what is coming out of your HDHR.

[bcm00re 18]

OKay, that explains why I am seeing that using the Browser -- but that was only a test anyway.  I use Rokus for TV viewing, and tuning to channels seems to take too long (as least for our family) so I bought the HDHR Extend because it has hardware encoding and would speed up thing when tuning to channels -- or so I was lead to believe.  But for some reason Emby Server seems to be ignoring H264 stream from the Extend and doing it's own encoding.  Any idea why?

 

I tried checking "Allow Hardware Encoding" for both tuners (the old HDHR-US and my new HDTC-2US) and even restarted the Server (which is on the latest released version) but that didn't change my results.  I also tried hardware encoding off on the HDHR just to see if it needed to be off for Emby Server to control it, but again that didn't work.  I now have the settings back to where I started.

[bcm00re 18]

Here is some more info.  It appears Emby Server is using the Extend's hardware transcoded stream when just recording (as opposed to Live TV viewing) and when I play those recording, on a Roku, the video is showing it is direct streamed.  So that proves the Extend's hardware transcoded stream is compatible with Roku without the need for manipulation (i.e. more transcoding).  For whatever reason, Emby Server is getting confused when streaming Live TV when using a HDHR Extend that is hardware encoding -- even when the settings are setup for that.  Let me know anything else you want me to try...