Live TV Tuning Times - Target times, best hardware

[Armageus 67]

Just wondering if anyone has done any recent comparisons for tuning times with different hardware/clients/settings.

I'm looking to revisit this again (as in the process of cancelling my SkyQ satellite tv service), so will have the option of both DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 (although I'd likely need to change the LNB to a non-wideband or hybrid).

Currently my Emby server is an i3-4160 with SSD for Emby install and a dedicated SSD for transcoding. My clients are currently Roku's (a 2018 Express, and a 2019 Premiere).

Previously I'd tried TVHeadend with some DVB-T tuners, and imported the channels into Emby via m3u but was seriously disappointed with the channel changing performance (albeit on previous occasions it was with a RaspberryPi3 as a TVHeadend server, or with TVHeadend in a VM)

Would a faster TVHeadend server box make a difference?  Would getting TVHeadend to transcode the stream into a different format help?

 

I'm reluctant to buy a HDHomerun, as from what I can gather channel changing times are still relatively slow, and it's ~£150 to "try" (and wouldn't help with a DVB-S2 option), similarly the only other consideration is to change the Client, but the only Client that offers every other streaming app I want is the AppleTV (and that's again expensive to "try")

 

Is 2 second channel changing a reality or a pipe dream?

[Luke 37187]

Hi there, we recommend HD Homerun network tuners for best performance.

[Sammy 738]

Tuning times depend on your use case and hardware.

If you want the ability to pause RWD or FFWD LiveTV you'll need to set it to develop the buffer which, unfortunately at this time, takes anywhere from 8 to 12 seconds. If you don't care about doing this tune times of 2 to 5 seconds are possible with "good" hardware.

[Armageus 67]

19 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi there, we recommend HD Homerun network tuners for best performance.

Appreciate that, however they don't offer Satellite based options, and as already stated are an expensive experiment if they don't still offer a better experience

 

11 minutes ago, Sammy said:

Tuning times depend on your use case and hardware.

If you want the ability to pause RWD or FFWD LiveTV you'll need to set it to develop the buffer which, unfortunately at this time, takes anywhere from 8 to 12 seconds. If you don't care about doing this tune times of 2 to 5 seconds are possible with "good" hardware.

That's interesting to know, and tbh even with SkyQ I could probably count the times I've actually used the pause/rwd/ffwd functionality.

Where do you change the buffer setting - if I get a chance I'll set things back up and give it a go

Edited June 24, 2020 by Armageus

[Sammy 738]

That's interesting to know, and tbh even with SkyQ I could probably count the times I've actually used the pause/rwd/ffwd functionality.

Where do you change the buffer setting - if I get a chance I'll set things back up and give it a go

In the AndroidTV app it is under Settings > LiveTV > Direct Stream.

 

 

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Spaceboy 2500]

i get less than 2 second tuning. also using DVBS. I've optimised the hardware at every step of the way however so this won't necessarily be cheap. i don't think your tv tuner card brand will make much difference. i use TBS cards, currently have a TBS6984 but i'll be upgrading to a 8 feed one shortly.

i would use any of the backends to produce a m3u which you can feed to emby. after using all of them i found dvbviewer to be slightly quicker but its paid (£30 i think). others are similar but all build their own buffers before passing them to emby

then i have an intel optane OS disk which makes the whole system a lot more snappy

and finally a decent nvme drive as a transcoding disk.

and you're right. forget hd homerun. it might be the simplest but its way slower than a pcie tuner card, either dvbs of dvbt

oh, and client. android tv on nvidia shield.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Spaceboy

[Armageus 67]

Thanks @Sammy @Spaceboy sadly Android TV is out of the question as ideally I need a supported client for NowTV app as well (so basically only Roku or AppleTV - and AppleTV is unlikely as I would like 3-4 client devices)

 

@ebr don't suppose there any options on the Roku Client to "Direct stream live tv"?

Or if not is there a format I can get TVHeadend to transcode the live streams to, that the Roku will accept directly with as little intervention from Emby as possible?

Edited June 24, 2020 by Armageus

[Sammy 738]

https://apkpure.com/now-tv/com.bskyb.nowtv.beta

[arrbee99 1561]

Just a thought, but if you use NextPVR to feed Emby that app has a 'Keep digital tuners primed' setting which might help. So if you tuned to one transponder, which might take 6 or 7 seconds, the next time you tune to something on the same transponder it might only take 2 seconds. If you tune to another transponder its going to be slower again though.

Don't have a Roku (or an AppleTV) though.

[Armageus 67]

9 hours ago, Sammy said:

https://apkpure.com/now-tv/com.bskyb.nowtv.beta

Ah I didn't know there even was a beta - might pick up a mi box or similar then

 

8 hours ago, arrbee99 said:

Just a thought, but if you use NextPVR to feed Emby that app has a 'Keep digital tuners primed' setting which might help. So if you tuned to one transponder, which might take 6 or 7 seconds, the next time you tune to something on the same transponder it might only take 2 seconds. If you tune to another transponder its going to be slower again though.

Don't have a Roku (or an AppleTV) though.

I tried NextPVR a couple of years ago and couldn't get it to work for whatever reason, however I've got some different Tuners so will certainly give it a revisit.

[arrbee99 1561]

Well, if interested, make sure if you install the new v5 NextPVR you also get the v5 version of the NextPVR plugin. Hopefully this one -