Shield TV - HLS streaming issues

[kijojo 0]

I have an issue with hls live TV (via m3u tuner) streaming on Shield TV.

 

Server

Version 3.2.60.0

 

Shield TV

6.2

 

Emby for Android TV

1.5.22g

 

 

When I select a channel it shows loading screen for 25 seconds and then I have a dialog that says:

Playback error?

Is the currect item exhibting a playback problem like no video or audio?

Yes/No

 

 

When I select:

"yes" it looks like it starts transcoding and i have stream playing (not really desired because it can be transcoded on the device)

"no" - loading keeps showing, no audio/video

 

This dialog shows up with "Direct stream live TV" option checked as well as unchecked.

 

 

 

So I tried to switch to VLC for live TV.

 

 

Attempt 1.

 

I've installed VLC (for this step it probably wasn't required?) and selected "Attempt to use VLC for live TV".

Nothing changed and I had the same issue as described above.

 

 

Attempt 2.

 

Then I selected "Direct stream live TV" option.

Video starts right after I select the channel but it only plays for like 2 seconds and after that video freezes.

 

 

Attempt 3.

 

Selecting "Use External Player for Live TV", starting stream, selecting VLC as an external player - everything works.

And even picture is better. Looks like deinterlacing is applied automatically.

It would definitely be my choice... But it runs VLC on foreground without emby overlay and switching channels is not a really great experience.

 

 

I would say that the Attempt 2 could be the best one (at least for me) if it worked.

 

 

One observation that could help you to fix "Attempt 2" way of playback.

 

When I select "Use External Player for Live TV" - "Direct stream live TV" and "Attempt to use VLC for live TV" become grayed out.

 

The interesting part is that "Direct stream live TV" flag does actually affect URL passed to the external VLC player. When it is:

selected - URL passed is direct one (the same one that is specified in the m3u file)

unselected - URL - {embyBaseUrl}/emby/videos/{id}/stream.mkv?DeviceId={id}&MediaSourceId={id}&VideoCodec=....etc

 

When I have "Direct stream live TV" unselected I get similar behavior with the external VLC player as I had on the Attempt 2.

 

My guess here is that when:

"Direct stream live TV" - checked

"Attempt to use VLC for live TV" - checked

"Use External Player for Live TV" - unchecked

the URL passed to the built-in VLC player is not the direct one.

 

And if it can be fixed by passing direct URL to built-in vlc it would be really awesome.

[Luke 37134]

hi there @@kijojo, can we please look at an example of this? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks !

[kijojo 0]

Hi @@Luke,

 

See report about the issue below.

 

 

Steps to reproduce:

1. under live TV section add m3u playlist with "M3U tuner" type

2. start the app on the Shield TV

3. open live TV folder

4. select channels tab, select any channel

 

Actual result: stream stops after 2 seconds of playback

Expected result: stream playback continues

 

Under settings for the Shield TV app I have:

"Direct stream live TV" - checked

"Attempt to use VLC for live TV" - checked

"Use External Player for Live TV" - unchecked

 

Shield TV app logs sent at 7:05-7:06PM UTC, 1/2/2018

Local user name: Max

 

Server logs attached.

 

 

 

I believe I described two separate issues in the first post.

Tell me if you want me to reproduce issue about stream not starting for 25 seconds.

 

 

Thanks!

Log.txt

[Luke 37134]

Ok, @@ebr will review this. Thanks for submitting.

[ebr 14940]

Isn't this the same issue we had before with IPTV setup as hls instead of progressive?