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Can't Direct Play and Transcode the Same Channel (HDHomerun)?!?!?!


troyhough

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troyhough

I was direct playing some football to my living room TV. Ran an errand and tried to stream it on my phone away from the house. Phone is set to 1.5Mbps via Internet. It was sputtering and freezing real bad so I checked into it a little further. Emby was trying to Direct Play the channel, even though it's set to Transcode @ 1.5Mbps in the settings.

 
I tested it out a few times throughout the day, and sure enough, if the channel was being Direct Played on another device, I could not watch that same channel on a different device via Transcode. It would only attempt to Direct Play, no matter what the setting was set to.
 
All other channels tested that were not being Direct Played on another device appeared to Transcode flawlessly.
 
My tuner is a HDHomerun Quatro (4-tuner).
 
5c3b77ff9229f_Screenshot_20190112171653.
 
5c3b780c137fa_Screenshot_20190112171642.
 
5c3b782314af6_Screenshot_20190112213033.
 
5c3b783bc90d8_Screenshot_20190112213043.
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troyhough

Server, ffmpeg logs?

 

Just sent you a PM. Did you get what you need in the Logs?

 

Thanks

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troyhough

I checked this again today. If I tune a channel (HDHomerun Quatro), first by transcode, it works perfect. Grab a 2nd device and tune the same channel, via Direct Play, it plays perfect as it should.

 

However, like before, if I do it in reverse order, tune via Direct Play on the 1st device, works perfect. Grab the 2nd device and tune the same channel, via Transcode, it will not Transcode, just Direct Play!

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All you've shown me was a single transcode log, but we open the stream, probe it to determine media info. since the bitrate is at a nice even 20 mbps it looks like the probe did not produce a bitrate and so we estimated it. that estimation turned out to be higher than the quality setting on the second device and that's why it transcoded.

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troyhough

All you've shown me was a single transcode log, but we open the stream, probe it to determine media info. since the bitrate is at a nice even 20 mbps it looks like the probe did not produce a bitrate and so we estimated it. that estimation turned out to be higher than the quality setting on the second device and that's why it transcoded.

 

Can you translate this please? I am going to run a few more tests now and will send you the logs for those. This is a pretty bad bug for me, as I am not able to watch any live TV channels outside of my home if someone is watching them IN my home. In the home I Direct Play. While out and about, my mobile internet connection is not nearly stable enough to keep up with the speed demand of Direct Play. I am pretty sure 99% of Emby users would agree with me.

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troyhough

All you've shown me was a single transcode log, but we open the stream, probe it to determine media info. since the bitrate is at a nice even 20 mbps it looks like the probe did not produce a bitrate and so we estimated it. that estimation turned out to be higher than the quality setting on the second device and that's why it transcoded.

 

@@Luke,

 

Ok now that I've had time to figure out a little more about the logs, ffmpeg, etc here's some additional info....

 

After all of my recent testing, there are no new ffmpeg logs, since yesterday. Well, that's because there's no transcoding going on (bug!)

 

This time I used 3 different Android devices: 1) Nexus 7 2013, 2) Nexus 7 2013, 3) Pixel 2 XL

 

Set device 1 for Direct Play. Device 2 & 3 were set to 2Mbps and 1.5Mbps. When I tune the 1st to Direct Play, the 2nd and 3rd devices will only Direct Play, not Transcode to 1.5 or 2Mbps like they are set to do. I tried this 4 times, 4 different channels.

 

I am going to PM you the current embyserver.txt log now.

 

Thanks

 

5c3e3397dc7da_Screenshot_20190115121611.

 

5c3e33ac6447c_Screenshot_20190115123514.

 

5c3e33b678883_Screenshot_20190115124819.

Edited by troyhough
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  • 6 months later...
troyhough

Can't simultaneously Direct Play HDHomerun channel on one device and transcode that same channel on another device (Server/HDHomerun) (BUG!)


 


If you first Direct Play something using your HDHomerun tuner then try to tune that same channel on another device simultaneously, it will only Direct Play it, even if that 2nd device is set to Transcode!


 


@@Luke any chance a fix is coming?


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Sorry can you please refresh my memory because last i looked at this I was not convinced there was a problem. Thanks.

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I've merged the discussions that are on the same topic, this will make it easier for everyone. Thanks.

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troyhough

Is a fix incoming @@Luke? This has been going on 7 months+.

 

Thanks

Edited by troyhough
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The server is designed to pick the quality automatically but it currently prioritizes tuner sharing first. So whenever there is an open stream on a channel it will prefer that.

 

We will be adding an option to let you pick the quality rather than having it be automatic.

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troyhough

The server is designed to pick the quality automatically but it currently prioritizes tuner sharing first. So whenever there is an open stream on a channel it will prefer that.

 

We will be adding an option to let you pick the quality rather than having it be automatic.

 

@@Luke

 

Why didn't you mention this to me when I opened this thread in January?

 

So if someone has 4 or 8 tuners and 1 person starts watching the football game on ABC on the LAN at full quality (Direct Play), then a 2nd, 3rd person try to watch the game in the car or airport with their phone set to transcode at 1.5 or 2 mpbs, Emby will only Direct Play it by default even though the phone is set to 1.5 or 2mbps? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

Is there an option to disable this "tuner share" so if 2 or 3 or more people want to watch the game on ABC it will direct play or transcode based on the setting that is set on the device requesting ABC????

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There is currently no option but that's possible for the future. We will be adding an option to pick your own preset for all cases because there have been multiple requests for that.

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troyhough

There is currently no option but that's possible for the future. We will be adding an option to pick your own preset for all cases because there have been multiple requests for that.

 

What do you mean by "pick your own preset" specifically? Doesn't each device you are using to connect to the server, whether it's Android TV, Android App, Web App, Samsung TV app, etc have a Playback option for quality setting, for both LAN and remote quality already???

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So for example if you want the HDHR to always transcode, you can pick an HDHR profile and all streams will use it.

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troyhough

So for example if you want the HDHR to always transcode, you can pick an HDHR profile and all streams will use it.

 

What if you want the HDHR to follow the rules of the device connecting to it. Meaning if there are 4 devices all requesting 4 different playback options below. Shouldn't that be the default action?

 

Device 1: Direct Play

Device 2: 1.5 mbps transcode

Device 3: 2 mbps transcode

Device 4: 3 mbps transcode

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troyhough

Yes more options are possible for the future. Thanks.

 

Thanks. Do all tuners do this now or just the HDHR?

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Well it's inapplicable for other tuners because the other tuners don't have their own quality choices.

 

But yes in general, sharing the streams will happen whenever possible.

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troyhough

Well it's inapplicable for other tuners because the other tuners don't have their own quality choices.

 

But yes in general, sharing the streams will happen whenever possible.

 

Are you saying that HDHR's have quality choices in the HDHR settings within the HDHR itself?

 

To clarify, you are saying that in the future, you are going to have an option in Emby server to disable sharing streams so that devices requesting a transcode in it's playback settings can actually receive a transcoded stream instead of it Direct Playing even though it is Direct Streaming to a different device at that moment?

 

This would fix the problem I am having. The way it is now kinda defeats the purpose of having multiple tuners but not being able to utilize them when needed/requested.

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Are you saying that HDHR's have quality choices in the HDHR settings within the HDHR itself?

The ones that support transcoding directly on the HDHR do, yes.

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troyhough

The ones that support transcoding directly on the HDHR do, yes.

 

Well if you can make it so the server doesn't force a Direct Stream to clients that are asking for a transcoded stream in it's playback settings (when additional tuners are available) that would fix the issue.

 

Thanks and keep up the great work!

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