Issue with watching in-progress recording on Roku TCL TV

[DamnedUndies 17]

This is my first attempt at watching an in-progress recording using Emby Premiere DVR on my Roku TCL TV, and it didn't go so well.

 

If I try to pause, ffwd, or rewind, it doesn't work and immediately starts over from the start of the recording.

 

Is there a setting or perhaps configuration I've fat-fingered here?

[ebr 14910]

Hi.  Please provide the information requested in How to report a playback problem.

 

Thanks.

[DamnedUndies 17]

I've tried a couple times since to reproduce the problem and unfortunately cannot reproduce it.

 

However, if there's a chance there's a log file from last night when the issue occurred, I'd be happy to upload it.

[DamnedUndies 17]

Attached is the log file from the time when the issue occurred.

 

I'm using Emby Server Version 3.6.0.2 beta.

 

ffmpeg-directstream-4a978443-d637-4325-896d-f7e152e29866.txt

[DamnedUndies 17]

Was this log file helpful?

 

Any idea what caused the issue?

 

Thank you.

[ebr 14910]

Hi.  Unfortunately, that log won't tell us much about what happened.

 

If it happens again, please provide more logs - including sending one from the app if possible.

 

Thanks.

[speechles 1917]

It's a TS. This is a problem with the roku TV models. I think with direct stream, it might be getting confused.

 

https://support.roku.com/article/115005649508-how-to-pause-live-television-on-your-roku-tv-

 

You need a usb thumbdrive to act as the RAM the roku can use to store the stream in. It is live streams that have this limitation.

 

If instead the emby app was using HLS and transcoding to h264/m3u8 using ts slices (instead of mpeg2 in .ts). You could pause, rewind, and fast-fwd up to the "live" point. But once you fast-fwd to the live point it would end the stream. You would have to get close to the end, not right at it, and let it go. FFmpeg will keep feeding ts slices in, as you play on from that point and you technically never get to the end. But if you fast-fwd and think you can resume that way like you do on realTV dvr, keep in mind, on a roku it won't work that way.

Edited August 29, 2018 by speechles

[DamnedUndies 17]

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm a bit baffled by this Roku issue you mentioned.

 

Isn't this something that the Emby app should be able to handle without relying on a USB stick hanging off my Roku TV?

 

Let's say I have a Samsung TV, or an Android TV, or nameYourFavoriteSmartTVorDongle - the same issue potentially exists in any/all of these devices?

[speechles 1917]

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm a bit baffled by this Roku issue you mentioned.

 

Isn't this something that the Emby app should be able to handle without relying on a USB stick hanging off my Roku TV?

 

Let's say I have a Samsung TV, or an Android TV, or nameYourFavoriteSmartTVorDongle - the same issue potentially exists in any/all of these devices?

 

Roku chose to save you money on your TV. it doesn't need to have factory RAM set aside to buffer content when playing in liveTV mode. Instead, it uses the USB to store up to 90 minutes.

 

How can emby do anything? It is giving the roku the direct video, and altering the audio. The roku sees this and mistakes it. It is a mpeg2 stream inside a TS container. This in effect looks live to the rokuTV. It will now use its built-in magic to do everything. Emby is left going.. okay.. so we start entirely over again? Because thats the only indication it is given and the only option. Your TV isn't cache unless you use the USB.

 

There is potentially an issue with every device. Samsung can buffer with its onboard RAM, but damn is the UI slow and painful. LG has onboard RAM, but the UI and store are clumsy and painful. RokuTV has the clumsy UI, lack of onboard RAM, but the price of TV is low low low for the quality you get. So you take the good, you take the bad, you take em both and there ya have. Misses Garret, Tootie and Blair. And to a lesser degree "Jo" the tom boy girl.. lol.. RokuTV would be like Jo. Samsung is misses garret, and blair is amazon fireTV. so pretentious.. lol..android TV is tootie.. friendly, young, and everybody loves her.

Edited August 29, 2018 by speechles

[DamnedUndies 17]

Thanks for the info.  It sounds like you have some good knowledge of the root-cause of the issue I reported.

 

This sounds like a miscommunication between the Emby developers and Roku - basically a bug that needs to be fixed.

 

As a paying Emby Premiere user, I'm left shrugging my shoulders.

[speechles 1917]

Thanks for the info.  It sounds like you have some good knowledge of the root-cause of the issue I reported.

 

This sounds like a miscommunication between the Emby developers and Roku - basically a bug that needs to be fixed.

 

As a paying Emby Premiere user, I'm left shrugging my shoulders.

 

Bug? Sir.. quite the opposite.. it is a limitation of your rokuTV when fed mpeg2 inside a TS container.

 

To fix it, emby would simply transcode the video into h264 instead. Now it is feeding the roku an m3u8 composed of TS slices which are encoded with h264. The rokuTV will not mistake this for live. It will now let the internal buffer of the roku cache, rather than that of the TV which requires the USB dongle of ram.

 

You see the issue?

 

The TV tuner isn't actually able to be parsed by the roku. It can display things, but it can't really do much to the signal but stamp overlays on it. The TV cannot talk to the roku to control this. The TV has to have a way to keep TV so you can rewind. How would the TV do that? Well the manufacturer of the TV adds RAM, or you use external RAM. It has nothing to do with roku or emby. It has everything to do with laws and how roku is limited in how it can interact with OTA live TV broadcasts. Those limits are what factor in your 90 minutes max. The TV manufacturer could raise this, but they have to pay the consortium that regulates television for the right. And the more space you dedicate the greater your cost. So you can see what gets done, to get a 4k TV with a built-in roku to a low price point.

 

Now what emby can do, is transcode to h264 and immediately the problem is solved, but a new one is introduced. When you transcode to h264, you have to buffer to change posititions always. The problem would be when you get to the "real time" point of the recording. If you fast-forward right to it, and attempt to play, the video will end, you reached the end. But.. if you fast-forward right to the edge of real time, a few seconds, maybe 20 before it and play from there. It will play on into real time and act just like a DVR. The only problem you will have doing it this way is the buffering every time you change the progress pointer to a different place. Every rewind, fast-fwd will rely on ts slices of the m3u8 being created. If you rewind, they are.. it will be quick.. but fast-fowarding they aren't and there will be waits..

 

I think ebr needs to make an option in the app when it detects a rokuTV. Have that option be called "Transcode LiveTV". Default it to NO. When set to yes, do not allow mpeg2 in ts to direct stream.

Edited August 29, 2018 by speechles

[DamnedUndies 17]

Thanks again for all the detailed information explaining the issue and proposing a workaround/feature enhancement.

 

When a piece of software that I pay for doesn't work as advertised, I call it a bug.

 

Feel free to call it what you want - maybe something like a "feature enhancement" - perhaps we're splitting hairs here on semantics.

 

What's the recommended next step?

 

Should I file some sort of request to the Emby development/support team?

 

Again, I'm fairly new so please forgive my ignorance of the process here.

[speechles 1917]

Thanks again for all the detailed information explaining the issue and proposing a workaround/feature enhancement.

 

When a piece of software that I pay for doesn't work as advertised, I call it a bug.

 

Feel free to call it what you want - maybe something like a "feature enhancement" - perhaps we're splitting hairs here on semantics.

 

What's the recommended next step?

 

Should I file some sort of request to the Emby development/support team?

 

Again, I'm fairly new so please forgive my ignorance of the process here.

 

The software you paid for is working as advertised and so is your roku.

 

The part that isn't: Your TV

 

Your TV manufacturer controls mpeg2 in TS. When the roku sees it, it goes oh crap, this is that stuff I can get in trouble for pirating, lets just throw this at the TV tuner. So the roku gives up control, and the internal TV components take over. Part of this is the way the buffering happens. When the internal TV tuner has control the buffering takes place inside the USB which you don't have so pausing/rewind can only restart the broadcast. This is where you are now.

 

To give emby back control, you need to give the roku back control of the TV. To do that emby can instead convert the in-progress recording from its native broadcast of mpeg2 in TS into the h264 codec inside the TS. When this is done, the roku now believes it is seeing something akin to a bluray. A video you have rights to control. The roku then allows emby to do whatever it wants. The only caveat like I said is the "bump into real-time to close and it stops the player" issue. You can always resume and it picks up right where it left off.. but you can bump into real time again with a fast forward and the player exits when run this way with transcoding.

 

@@ebr you following the conversation. I am sure you are... lol.

Edited August 29, 2018 by speechles

[DamnedUndies 17]

Sorry, I completely disagree that this is working as advertised (I may have missed it).

 

Please point me to the documentation that says pause/rewind/fast-forwarding an in-progress recording results in having to re-start the recording from the beginning.

 

I apologize if that's how it is supposed to work - I completely missed it.

[speechles 1917]

https://support.roku.com/article/115005649508-how-to-pause-live-television-on-your-roku-tv-

 

The emby app needs to transcode mpeg2 inside TS into something else. My bet (notice I said bet, I don't have a rokuTV just tons of roku experience..read some of my posts) is that the rokuTV is becoming confused. Since the roku is embedded into the television certain things can work differently. Noticeably, the tuner can be used as the decoder rather than the decoder in the roku. The roku can pass the stream to the tuner. When it does this, the tuner needs you to give it RAM via the usb. It appears 90 minutes and 16GB is where they put their limit. Maybe its 64GB? 128GB? Won't know until you try..

 

Who knows? Testing things is how you find out what is really going on. Plug in a 16GB usb thumb into the rokuTV. Run your same video, do a test, does it now work correctly and isn't restarting? Did it make any difference? Thats where we need you to start. If adding the usb thumb proves no difference we know that the roku still has control. Then we can go from there.

Edited August 29, 2018 by speechles

[Luke 37057]

You're right, that's obviously not expected behavior.

[Luke 37057]

As a test, try lowering the in-app quality setting to force it to transcode and see if that resolves it. If it does, then we can bake this into the app automatically. thanks.

[DamnedUndies 17]

speechles:  I hate to nitpick here - first line I have a problem with:
 

"When using an antenna or connecting cable TV..."

 

I'm using neither.  I'm using the Emby app.  I guess I need to take a leap here and connect the dots between my HD antenna and the Emby app?

 

Luke:

 

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

Just so I'm clear here - is the "in-app quality setting to force it to transcode" a setting in my Emby Roku TV app, or a setting I need to tweak on my Emby server?

 

Thanks again.

Edited August 29, 2018 by DamnedUndies

[Luke 37057]

Yes in the Roku app.

[speechles 1917]

speechles:  I hate to nitpick here - first line I have a problem with:

 

"When using an antenna or connecting cable TV..."

 

I'm using neither.  I'm using the Emby app.  I guess I need to take a leap here and connect the dots between my HD antenna and the Emby app?

 

Luke:

 

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

Just so I'm clear here - is the "in-app quality setting to force it to transcode" a setting in my Emby Roku TV app, or a setting I need to tweak on my Emby server?

 

Thanks again.

 

Disregard that its just for the OTA tuner.. since its the ATSC tuner controlling mpeg2 playback when doing it direct. It is the tuner here at fault.

 

The issue is, as I have stated, to play direct you must use a USB thumb to give your TV tuner the RAM to store. Playing TS container in mpeg2 is passed through from the roku to the tuner for decoding. The playback engine of the roku is limited in what can happen. Since the emby app can't tell the tuner where to go when the tuner isn't storing a cache. So you get the effect you get.

 

https://forums.plex.tv/t/timeline-rewind-ff-issues-when-using-direct-play/226347

 

Sound familiar... sure does.. no resolution.. nope, because transcoding is the answer.. forcing direct results in the tuner decoding and issues..

 

@@Luke of course transcoding the mpeg2 into h264 will solve it... lol.. nobody does tests anymore. They just fall back on the laurels.. jeez

[Luke 37057]

This is obviously a hard one because i think more people will complain about transcoding then they will about seeking the live stream, therefore I think we are doing the right thing out of box. We may want to consider a setting to force the transcode in order to allow for seeking.

[ebr 14910]

Yes, we will probably have to do what we've done in Android and have a "Live seek mode".  

[Noah0504 4]

Disregard that its just for the OTA tuner.. since its the ATSC tuner controlling mpeg2 playback when doing it direct. It is the tuner here at fault.

 

The issue is, as I have stated, to play direct you must use a USB thumb to give your TV tuner the RAM to store. Playing TS container in mpeg2 is passed through from the roku to the tuner for decoding. The playback engine of the roku is limited in what can happen. Since the emby app can't tell the tuner where to go when the tuner isn't storing a cache. So you get the effect you get.

 

https://forums.plex.tv/t/timeline-rewind-ff-issues-when-using-direct-play/226347

 

Sound familiar... sure does.. no resolution.. nope, because transcoding is the answer.. forcing direct results in the tuner decoding and issues..

 

@@Luke of course transcoding the mpeg2 into h264 will solve it... lol.. nobody does tests anymore. They just fall back on the laurels.. jeez

I'm pretty sure the tuner is not decoding the MPEG2 stream if you were to play direct.  Several other Roku devices support (even if it's unofficial) MPEG2 and they don't have ATSC tuners built in.

 

If you install the Roku Media Player channel on the Roku devices that support MPEG2, you'll find you're able to play the DNLA streams from a HDHomeRun.

 

Anyway, I don't really want to stir up a debate, but you sure were coming off pretty hostile about this.

 

EDIT: Also, when playing OTA streams my Roku devices, Emby is transcoding by default.  Is it supposed to be able to direct stream?

Edited September 3, 2018 by Noah0504

[speechles 1917]

I'm pretty sure the tuner is not decoding the MPEG2 stream if you were to play direct.  Several other Roku devices support (even if it's unofficial) MPEG2 and they don't have ATSC tuners built in.

 

If you install the Roku Media Player channel on the Roku devices that support MPEG2, you'll find you're able to play the DNLA streams from a HDHomeRun.

 

 

Name one of these "roku devices" ... 

 

https://support.roku.com/article/208754908-how-to-use-roku-media-player-to-play-your-videos-music-and-photos

 

The following media formats are supported on Roku TVs

• Video – H.262 (.MKV)

 

 

Not hostile. It was authoritative.. facts are interesting, rumors are not.

 

https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=114433

https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=116527

 

I see two topics, and both only mention rokuTV. Believe me, I am curious if other roku devices can decode mpeg2 that are not strapped with tuners. So curious, but the proof is in the eating of the pudding. Pudding itself is not proof. If you find that there is indeed other roku models not based on TV screens, but stand alone set top boxes, lets come back around to this place in time and reinvestigate. But at the present, nothing you have presented would alter the perception. You need more proof.

 

 

Also, keep very much in mind, the blue neon night roku app allows forcing direct. It still does today, still works today. No need to involve Roku Media Player at all. All tests can be done within emby itself. Users over time, have used their roku devices with the blue neon night app to test mpeg2 direct play. In all these tests, the only users who complained why the official app was transcoding when blue neon can force direct, were rokuTV users.

 

 

If you can give some compelling argument to this, please continue. Don't start with generalizations, start with which roku (model display name/model number/model firmware version) and that RMP or blue neon will direct play the mpeg2 and it isnt any sort of rokuTV model. This will start the correct dialogue that isn't based on rumors.

Edited September 3, 2018 by speechles

[Noah0504 4]

Name one of these "roku devices" ... 

 

https://support.roku.com/article/208754908-how-to-use-roku-media-player-to-play-your-videos-music-and-photos

 

The following media formats are supported on Roku TVs

• Video – H.262 (.MKV)

 

 

Not hostile. It was authoritative.. facts are interesting, rumors are not.

 

https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=114433

https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=116527

 

I see two topics, and both only mention rokuTV. Believe me, I am curious if other roku devices can decode mpeg2 that are not strapped with tuners. So curious, but the proof is in the eating of the pudding. Pudding itself is not proof. If you find that there is indeed other roku models not based on TV screens, but stand alone set top boxes, lets come back around to this place in time and reinvestigate. But at the present, nothing you have presented would alter the perception. You need more proof.

 

 

Also, keep very much in mind, the blue neon night roku app allows forcing direct. It still does today, still works today. No need to involve Roku Media Player at all. All tests can be done within emby itself. Users over time, have used their roku devices with the blue neon night app to test mpeg2 direct play. In all these tests, the only users who complained why the official app was transcoding when blue neon can force direct, were rokuTV users.

 

 

If you can give some compelling argument to this, please continue. Don't start with generalizations, start with which roku (model display name/model number/model firmware version) and that RMP or blue neon will direct play the mpeg2 and it isnt any sort of rokuTV model. This will start the correct dialogue that isn't based on rumors.

 

I know for a fact that the Streaming Stick+ can handle MPEG2 as I've successfully been able to play OTA streams from a HDHomeRun with DLNA via the Roku Media Player channel.  The channel is not adding any additional functionality as this does not work on a Roku Express.

 

Other users have mentioned that their Roku Ultras and Premiers can do the above as well.  This isn't a big secret.  There are plenty of forum posts, especially over on the Silicon Dust forums discussing exactly this.

 

If you want me to film my Streaming Stick+ in action, let me know.