Live TV chops when Synology Volume is at 100%

[simonselmer 21]

Hi

I have from time to time been reporting, and discussing with @Luke , on this issue I have been having since I started using Emby Server on my Synology DS918+. Before when running Emby Server on a windows desktop, I had no issues.

My issue in short, what I often experience is that when a start recording a TV show, and then my family starts watching that recording from beginning, while still recording, it chops/freezes, and skipping forward is slow or very slow. 

I have not found the root cause of why it happens, but I have now seen the  "connection" or the pattern of when I have the issue.

The issue occours every time I record a TV show/program, and then after some minutes starts watching that recording, while recording. I feel the more that has been recorded when I start watching the recorded, the worse of an experince I get.

The connection I have found is that, when I experince these issues of chops/freezes and slow skipping forward, the Volume utilization in Synology Resorucemonitoring is close to or is 100%.
And again, this "almost" only happens when I start a "Direct stream" of watching a ongoing recording. Allthough I do also see it oon "just" a Live TV watching, which is also a "Direct stream".

So I think the next step is to solve, WHY is my "Direct Stream" of watching a ongoing recording, causing the Volume Utilization to be close to 100%?

-Shouldn't the Synology be able to handle that?
-Do I need to tweak some Emby server settings? Running 5.4.0.21 beta
-Do I need to tweak some Emby client settings? Android Shield TV
-Do I need to do something about my Synology settings or setup? I running 4 discs in a SHR in one big Volume, with filesystem Btrfs. I have 2x256GB SSD as Cache drive.

I have put screensumps of my observations in the attached file.

I really hope for some good inputs to fixing this, so my TV watching can become stabile.

Thank you very much in advance.
Best Regards Simon

Emby Live TV test.pdf

[Carlo 4330]

Hi,

This is a problem that a few people experience and it's not limited to the NAS as it happens on windows as well.  I personally experience this as well and agree it gets worse the longer the recording.  4 hour racing or NFL games show these symtoms.

Short of moving your recording and transcoding to an SSD there is not a lot you can do about this right now.

The new Live TV project in development should fix this as it uses a new recording pipeline and should be much better handling recording and viewing.

[simonselmer 21]

Thanks for the feedback, even though I had hoped for some ideas that could tweak this away.

I have filled my 4 bays in the NAS with discs, but IF I were to replace one with an SSD, and create a new Volume just to put transcoding and recording to, WOULD it help? What are the chances it would help?

I would guess the NAS have plenty of internal MB/s transfer speeds, so are the speeds of the discs really the issue?

This new Live TV project, how far in development is it and when is a beta or final version scheduled to be released?
Can I be a beta-tester if one is needed?

Regards Simon

[Carlo 4330]

SSDs can make a lot of difference in speed as well a queue length since it can process data faster.

Sorry, can't give an ETA on the new Live TV but it's pretty far a long.

 

[Luke 37057]

We are looking into improving it.