Pixelation and Glitching in Recorded TV using Emby DVR

[EmbyKiwi 14]

Sorry I wasn't clear.

I've been running Mediaportal since 2007 so the entire back end is definitely working including all the EPG data.

I've installed MPExtended  and the Emby plugin and configured them as far as I can tell. So now ... from inside Emby... I can play Live TV channels via MediaPortal, see recorded programs from MP, see the MP scheduled recordings and the MP series etc. The only thing was that the EPG was not coming across from MediaPortal into Emby. I can see the channels listed in the guide but no program listings, even though the MP EPG is complete. My question was whether I should be expecting this to work or whether, in your experience, this was not how the plug in worked and you needed to run MP Client to set up recordings etc and just view the results in Emby?

Thanks

[Spaceboy 2565]

Sorry I wasn't clear.
I've been running Mediaportal since 2007 so the entire back end is definitely working including all the EPG data. [emoji846]
I've installed MPExtended  and the Emby plugin and configured them as far as I can tell. So now ... from inside Emby... I can play Live TV channels via MediaPortal, see recorded programs from MP, see the MP scheduled recordings and the MP series etc. The only thing was that the EPG was not coming across from MediaPortal into Emby. I can see the channels listed in the guide but no program listings, even though the MP EPG is complete. My question was whether I should be expecting this to work or whether, in your experience, this was not how the plug in worked and you needed to run MP Client to set up recordings etc and just view the results in Emby?
Thanks

Ah ok, then no you should see everything in emby exactly as if it were using native tuner/m3u support. So something is wrong somewhere. Best person to tell you what is wrong would be [mention]pünktchen [/mention] . He maintains the MP plugin

[EmbyKiwi 14]

11 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

Ah ok, then no you should see everything in emby exactly as if it were using native tuner/m3u support. So something is wrong somewhere. Best person to tell you what is wrong would be [mention]pünktchen [/mention] . He maintains the MP plugin

Thanks!

Didn't want to spend too much time on it if it was working as expected. I'll dig further into the MPExtended logs and see if I can see something.

Cheers

[dougward 1]

So the latest native Windows stable version of Emby 4.3.3.0 installed on my new system is exhibiting the same pixelation issues as before while watching an active recording.  I still only have DVR and LiveTV enabled, no other libraries or additional plugins other than what is in the default install.  I am certain when I first set it up and tested, it was working properly.  I initially thought the pixelation issues were due to poor OTA reception since that is what it looks like and I thought the recording issues were behind me, however I went back and re-watched the recording the next day, and there were no pixelation issues.  I'm pretty sure I have had issues where the actual file gets corrupted and exhibits the pixelation problem while watching an active recording and re-watching it later, and the scenario where there are pixelation issues while watching an active recording but the video (file) is fine when replaying it after the recording is finished. This particular TV show was a 720p recording as opposed to 1080, not sure if that has any bearing.  I'm going to try the 2.2.0.5 version of Docker as suggested by @reneboulard with the latest stable version of Emby.  Frustrating!

[Q-Droid 880]

This thread is pretty long and maybe this has been discussed before, if so then please ignore.

When you record Live TV, OTA MPEG2 in my case, the recording file is created in the DVR destination folder AND the transcoding temp folder. Two files for the same program are created concurrently. When I begin watching the recording in progress Emby will then create the *.ts segments, *.ts.tmp and *.m3u8 files in the transcoding temp folder. I'm assuming the segments and m3u8 for playback are produced from the file in the temp folder, not the one in DVR.

Is is possible there is a problem with the file in the temp path for those who are having playback and pixelation issues during the recording?  Or their systems are having some problem with this temp file and/or location? May also explain why the finished recording in DVR does not have the pixelation.

I do not have the playback problems others are describing.

 

[dougward 1]

This may be unrelated, but see my second post in 

 

[EmbyKiwi 14]

Thanks @Dougward

I'll have a look and see if my receiver has any similar settings. I have an Onkyo TR-NX474 so quite possibly!

I have to say that my experiments with Channels DVR were also very reliable for Live TV. I ran it for a month and it never missed a beat.... on exactly the same hardware so definitely an option if that is a big part of your viewing. 

 

[GregW 5]

So there have been several beta versions of the server released since this was first reported and so far I see no improvement or any mention of a fix in the release notes. Is this still being looked at?

[Luke 40068]

13 minutes ago, GregW said:

So there have been several beta versions of the server released since this was first reported and so far I see no improvement or any mention of a fix in the release notes. Is this still being looked at?

Yes it is.

[EmbyKiwi 14]

Hi Luke

Glad to hear that this is still on the list. Have you actually been able to replicate the problem or are you trying to sort it out from logs only?

 

[aja07 20]

Just now, EmbyKiwi said:

Hi Luke

Glad to hear that this is still on the list. Have you actually been able to replicate the problem or are you trying to sort it out from logs only?

 

I believe it will be sorted with the re-write of the live TV module that is undergo at the minute, eta undisclosed

[EmbyKiwi 14]

6 minutes ago, aja07 said:

I believe it will be sorted with the re-write of the live TV module that is undergo at the minute, eta undisclosed

That sounds major!  

I hope it goes well and we look forward to seeing/testing the results!

[x0lliex 0]

23 minutes ago, aja07 said:

I believe it will be sorted with the re-write of the live TV module that is undergo at the minute, eta undisclosed

That's great news, I have been using Plex in the meantime and want to come back when this problem is gone.

[Dublus 1]

Wow, this is such an annoying problem. I don't watch anything live, ever. I always plan it so the game ends right about when I catch up to live. For a while I was blaming my IPTV provider then discovered their streams are impeccable.

This has got to get fixed. Did anyone find what the most recent release without this problem is?

[Luke 40068]

We are working on improving this. Thanks for the feedback.

[Dublus 1]

40 minutes ago, Luke said:

We are working on improving this. Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the attention to this.
For those of us with this problem it would be helpful to know how high a priority this is.

In my case I could tough it out for a month or so more if I knew this was being addressed. But if this was more of a long term fix I would have to migrate my stuff back to TVH or something and come back after the fix has been made. I very much prefer Emby but not in its current state.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Dublus

[bobdob 4]

I had this problem awhile back running emby server on windows 10 pc. If you ff or rw a recording stream it gets all pixelated so stopped using pc and loaded emby server on my shield cause of this. After awhile running emby on the shield didnt work out for me so i went back to pc forgetting about the pixelation issue. Sure enough pixelation that let me to this thread.

User Frostbach posted this about going back to 4.3.1.0 

 

This is working perfectly now on my windows 10

I had 3 recordings going at once and going back and forth between them all ff rw and nothing

 

PERFECT

make sure your 4.3.1.0 doesnt auto update

 

Thanks Frostbach

 

 

 

 

[Dublus 1]

5 hours ago, bobdob said:

I had this problem awhile back running emby server on windows 10 pc. If you ff or rw a recording stream it gets all pixelated so stopped using pc and loaded emby server on my shield cause of this. After awhile running emby on the shield didnt work out for me so i went back to pc forgetting about the pixelation issue. Sure enough pixelation that let me to this thread.

User Frostbach posted this about going back to 4.3.1.0 

 

This is working perfectly now on my windows 10

I had 3 recordings going at once and going back and forth between them all ff rw and nothing

 

PERFECT

make sure your 4.3.1.0 doesnt auto update

 

Thanks Frostbach

 

 

 

 

Did you simply copy over the exiting install or did you do a complete re-install?

[bobdob 4]

I just copied it over current install. Disable the auto update though or it will quickly update to current version

[Dublus 1]

9 hours ago, bobdob said:

I just copied it over current install. Disable the auto update though or it will quickly update to current version

OK, I'm giving it a try. 

Thanks! 

EDIT: So far it's working. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Dublus

[GregW 5]

Unfortunately, due to this issue I have decided to drop Emby and I haved moved to Channels Plus. I like the Emby user interface better but the pixelation and playback glitching issues are a game stopper for me. 

[reneboulard 33]

20 hours ago, GregW said:

Unfortunately, due to this issue I have decided to drop Emby and I haved moved to Channels Plus. I like the Emby user interface better but the pixelation and playback glitching issues are a game stopper for me. 

I had the same issue on windows 10, however I found the Linux implementaion of Emby did not have this problem.  So I converted my Windows server to a Linux server, installed Emby on it and everthing been working like a charm since.

[bobdob 4]

4.3.1.0 worked perfectly.

Updated to 4.5.0.50 no glitching during recording so far.

 

[Carlo 4552]

One thing I've found to help with this in general is to try and make sure you transcoding drive and DVR recordings are on different drives. That helps to split up the IO.

[EmbyKiwi 14]

Hey @Luke

Just wondering how the re-write of the Live TV module was going and whether there was any ETA?

Thanks