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Pixelation and Glitching in Recorded TV using Emby DVR


EmbyKiwi
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dranderson402

No but I just checked and all my channels are showing 98 to 100%. I checked while watching live in the emby android tv app.

 

Also, if i don't watch while the show is currently being recorded I don't have this problem. So I'm 100% sure ota reception isn't a problem.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

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EmbyKiwi

Hi Luke

 

Is there an easy way to check the signal strength inside Emby itself or do we have to use the tools from HD Homerun?? 

 

I looked under 'Stats for Nerds' on the client and also on the server but couldn't see anything there.

 

Cheers

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kpkimmel1983

So is this a well known issue for Emby?   Thinking of switching to EMby from plex full time but having a hard time walking away from commercial skip and a few glitches here and there.

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Hi Luke

 

Is there an easy way to check the signal strength inside Emby itself or do we have to use the tools from HD Homerun?? 

 

Not at the moment but i think it's something we should add.

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Spaceboy

So is this a well known issue for Emby? Thinking of switching to EMby from plex full time but having a hard time walking away from commercial skip and a few glitches here and there.

not from my experience and I use the dvr heavily
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Spaceboy

@@Spaceboy - What spec is your Emby server that is doing the recording? If you don't see this problem then perhaps my spec is under in some area?

its an i7 4790k 32Gb ram. Tv comes from an m3u which leverages both a local tv card and an iptv sub. Records directly to a drive pool of various size mechanical disks
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EmbyKiwi

Thanks. I might try upping the RAM on my server and see if that helps.  That is the only area where my server seems way off yours in terms of spec.

 

Every time I've checked the RAM usage it has looked fine but it's a bit of a fiddle to tell as that PC's only screen is the TV that is running the Emby Android TV client so you end up stopping one to see the other!

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dranderson402

I just wanted to add that the bad drive in my raid 5 doesn't seem to have been the problem. With my recordings folder now in the external usb 3.0 WD Mybook, I was watching Station 19 while the recording was in progress. I started watching when the show was 42 minutes in to the recording. When I started the show I immediately skipped forward twice to skip the 1 minute start early buffer. The next skip was about 7 minutes later. When I reached 42 minutes in to watching the show I had the pixelation. I had it again at about 50 minutes in to watching the show.

 

So unless the usb 3.0 or wd mybook was the bottleneck, the only other thing I can think of causing this problem is network. It's possible there might be packet corruption happening during the receiving of the hdhr packets and the sending of packets to my shield tv causing collisions. Going back to my days of mythtv and also having this problem, I was told the linux hdhr drivers did not have error correction for the packets. So if the packet from the hdhr got dropped or got corrupted there wasn't a request to send again which led to pixelation. The way I fixed that was to run a separate physical network just for the hdhr. My mythtv server had 2 nic's.

 

I assume the windows hdhr driver does have error correction for the packets. I'm not that knowledgeable about this aspect, it's pure speculation on my part. Guess I could test my theory by using the emby server to watch the recording in progress. My server is connected to my tv. That way the network is only receiving packets from the hdhr and not sending out to the shield tv at the same time.

 

Also, I checked the ota signal while the show was recording and I was 100% signal strength, 98% snr quality and 100% sym quality. I use the hdhr signal meter android app on my phone.

 

My apologizes to @@EmbyKiwi for taking over your thread. I just felt the info was relevant to your problem.

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EmbyKiwi

@@dranderson402 - Certainly no apology necessary!! :-)

 

I'm very glad that someone else is experiencing the same symptoms and you have got me testing in a direction that seems to be fairly consistent. Hopefully Luke and the team can find some time to look into this and see what is going on but ... in the mean time... less skipping forwards while any programs are recording seems to result in less glitching.  The bugger is having to sit through the ads again! :-)

 

Cheers.... and keep posting! 

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SHSPVR

I just wanted to add that the bad drive in my raid 5 doesn't seem to have been the problem. With my recordings folder now in the external usb 3.0 WD Mybook, I was watching Station 19 while the recording was in progress. I started watching when the show was 42 minutes in to the recording. When I started the show I immediately skipped forward twice to skip the 1 minute start early buffer. The next skip was about 7 minutes later. When I reached 42 minutes in to watching the show I had the pixelation. I had it again at about 50 minutes in to watching the show.

 

So unless the usb 3.0 or wd mybook was the bottleneck, the only other thing I can think of causing this problem is network. It's possible there might be packet corruption happening during the receiving of the hdhr packets and the sending of packets to my shield tv causing collisions. Going back to my days of mythtv and also having this problem, I was told the linux hdhr drivers did not have error correction for the packets. So if the packet from the hdhr got dropped or got corrupted there wasn't a request to send again which led to pixelation. The way I fixed that was to run a separate physical network just for the hdhr. My mythtv server had 2 nic's.

 

I assume the windows hdhr driver does have error correction for the packets. I'm not that knowledgeable about this aspect, it's pure speculation on my part. Guess I could test my theory by using the emby server to watch the recording in progress. My server is connected to my tv. That way the network is only receiving packets from the hdhr and not sending out to the shield tv at the same time.

 

Also, I checked the ota signal while the show was recording and I was 100% signal strength, 98% snr quality and 100% sym quality. I use the hdhr signal meter android app on my phone.

 

My apologizes to @@EmbyKiwi for taking over your thread. I just felt the info was relevant to your problem.

 

I agree my guest is Emby codec can't deal with bad packet very well as I see this ever now then that was the one thing I love about SageTV it can especially HD100, 200 and 300 Media extender

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  • 3 weeks later...
EmbyKiwi

I've been avoiding going anywhere near recorded TV shows while any show is recording for the last month or so and have had a pretty good run with no glitches in the playback ... suggesting @@dranderson402 may be right about what is causing them and that my aerial signal is fine.  

 

Based on @@Spaceboy's server spec, I've upgraded the RAM in my server from 8GB to 16GB and will try fast forwarding during a recording again and see if it is any better.

 

Will let you know the results...

 

Cheers

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dranderson402

I just recently moved my emby server from an old i5-4460 running Win10pro to a docker container on an Unraid server with an i7-4790k and 16Gb ram. I've been ironing out a few kinks but plan to test the problem again. I will post back with results when I test it.

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I'm having this same issue too. Anytime I watch a recording while it is still recording I get pixelation/skipping/breakup in the playback at the same time I was skipping through a recording (example, recording a show at 10pm, start watching 10 minutes later, watch 20 minutes then skip through commercials, I'll get errors in the recording at 10:30pm). The errors get worse and worse the further you get into the recording that eventually it just stops playback. If I break the recordings up, then I don't get any issues, by that I mean when going to start watching something that is currently recording, I stop it recording then start a new one right away, but it is a bit of a pain to do this everytime. I had no issues with the same HD homerun tuner for years of usage in WMC and can watch live TV or recorded shows (that are not currently recording) in emby with no issues. It is only watching something currently recorded that does this. My server is a running on a clean windows machine recording to an NVMe drive and is connected to the same switch as the HD homerun. For storage I have tried a local HDD, NAS RAID array and now NVMe drive, with no luck. I am using an Nvidia Shield as my playback device.

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I'm having this same issue too. Anytime I watch a recording while it is still recording I get pixelation/skipping/breakup in the playback at the same time I was skipping through a recording (example, recording a show at 10pm, start watching 10 minutes later, watch 20 minutes then skip through commercials, I'll get errors in the recording at 10:30pm). The errors get worse and worse the further you get into the recording that eventually it just stops playback. If I break the recordings up, then I don't get any issues, by that I mean when going to start watching something that is currently recording, I stop it recording then start a new one right away, but it is a bit of a pain to do this everytime. I had no issues with the same HD homerun tuner for years of usage in WMC and can watch live TV or recorded shows (that are not currently recording) in emby with no issues. It is only watching something currently recorded that does this. My server is a running on a clean windows machine recording to an NVMe drive and is connected to the same switch as the HD homerun. For storage I have tried a local HDD, NAS RAID array and now NVMe drive, with no luck. I am using an Nvidia Shield as my playback device.

Hi there, how does the web app compare?

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EmbyKiwi

Hi Luke

 

Probably not what you are wanting to hear...  but for me, I only really use the web interface to manage the server.

 

I have found generally that trying to play recorded TV or watch live TV in the web interface results in the spinning circle running forever and it never seems to get to play the show. I use Emby Theatre quite successfully to watch TV from my PCs or I use the Android TV application from my smart TV in the lounge (most often of all). They both work very reliably (apart from the issue that this whole thread is about) so I haven't bothered worrying about the web interface any further. Interestingly, the Dashboard management interface doesn't even show that the user is trying to play the recorded TV when the circle is spinning away. 

 

Not sure if others have found the same or if it is something specific for me but, as I said, other options work fine so I haven't worried about it too much. Don't really want to sidetrack this thread with web interface issues unless they are related?? :-)

 

Cheers

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Hi there, how does the web app compare?

 

Just tried watching a currently recording show (1 hr length, just like those giving me errors on the shield) using the web app. No playback issues at all, used the 10 second skip forward to catch up to live and there was no pixelation or glitching. Seems like it is something specific to the shield.

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maegibbons

@@EmbyKiwi @@x0lliex

 

Hi

 

What is the audio codec of your OTA recordings?

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

Sent from my SM-N976B using Tapatalk

Edited by maegibbons
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maegibbons

@@maegibbons

 

Most audio codecs are defaulting to AAC_LATM Stereo from what I can see... with the option for Dolby Digital 5.1 on some.

Ok so in .86 there is a significant improvement that fully recorded AAC_LATM recordings will now play direct.

 

There is still an issue with playing in progress recordings. Especially when resuming in progress recordings with this codec as currently it is remuxed. @@ebr is trying to rectify this but it needs a server change which is down to @@Luke.

 

I am hopeful that once that change is made that playing in progress recordings will be much improved.

 

In the meantimebi would concentrate trying to isolate issues with dolby 5.1 option.

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

Sent from my SM-N976B using Tapatalk

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Just tried watching a currently recording show (1 hr length, just like those giving me errors on the shield) using the web app. No playback issues at all, used the 10 second skip forward to catch up to live and there was no pixelation or glitching. Seems like it is something specific to the shield.

 

That is not the same issue reported here as I understand it - which may be inconsistent.

 

What has been reported here is that, if you watch a recording *while it is recording* AND skip around a lot while watching it, then, later, when the recording is finished, you can see artifacts in the recording itself that were created while you were skipping around.

 

That sounds like the system simply getting too bogged down to write the file at the necessary speed due to the additional processing of seeking in the currently being recorded item as well.

 

The only factor any given app would have here would be how much processing is needed in order to watch the in-progress recording (like is it transcoding, remuxing, etc.).  It also could be very dependent on other things happening on the server at the same time (multiple recordings or multiple people watching etc.).

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I think we are talking about the same issue, watching something that is currently recording and using the skip functionality causing artifacts at the times that you were skipping (which are later in the recording). Here I was saying using the web app and skipping forward during an in progress recording caused no errors at a later time in the recording, unlike what happens on the shield. For the web app, it was being transcoded from mpeg 2 to x264, on the shield it was direct streaming. Original audio on the recordings is 5.1 Dolby.

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I think we are talking about the same issue, watching something that is currently recording and using the skip functionality causing artifacts at the times that you were skipping (which are later in the recording). Here I was saying using the web app and skipping forward during an in progress recording caused no errors at a later time in the recording, unlike what happens on the shield. For the web app, it was being transcoded from mpeg 2 to x264, on the shield it was direct streaming. Original audio on the recordings is 5.1 Dolby.

 

Exactly the opposite of what I would have expected but, perhaps, it is the direct stream that causes the issue.

 

If you use the "Playback Correction" option in the Android TV app until stats for nerds says that the item is transcoding, can you then also not cause the problem?

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EmbyKiwi

Update following upgrading memory in server (Win 10) from 8GB to 16GB: 

 

I started watching a rugby game the other night about 15 minutes after the game had started recording. I skipped forward the initial 3 or 4 minutes pre-recording buffer and settled in to watch the game. Sure enough, at around the 15 minute (recording time) mark i got some pixelation/glitching again. However.... the pixelation didn't 'seem' to be as bad as I had experienced previously. The trend continued through the recording though I didn't track the exact time of every skip forward vs glitch after the initial one.

 

I will keep testing and see if this seems consistent. Perhaps server RAM is more important than with other DVRs due to transcoding loads and that is why @@Spaceboy with 32GB of RAM is not seeing these issues? 

 

Will be interesting to see how @@dranderson402 goes with their new server with 16GB RAM also.

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