LiveTV tuning Slow and Timeshift always Transcodes

[mediaGuy 8]

HDHomerun, Shield 1.8.54g, Server 4.5.4.0.

Two questions:

1. It takes about 5s for a channel to play, 7s when "Direct Play Live TV" is unchecked.  Kodi (with TVheadend) used to tune in about 0.5s.  Should I be expecting something faster than 5s from Emby?  It's plays native, no transcoding.  It's a 1GB wired network and Emby runs on an i5.
2. When I uncheck "Direct Play Live TV" the channels are always transcoded.  Why does Emby need to store the timeshift file as H264 instead of the native format?  I don't really want to lose picture quality (and system resources) for the ability to pause live TV.

 

[vdatanet 1549]

Take a look at this:

Interlaced live TV always transcoding now - Android TV / Fire TV - Emby Community

[mediaGuy 8]

1 hour ago, vdatanet said:

Take a look at this:

Interlaced live TV always transcoding now - Android TV / Fire TV - Emby Community

I'm on 4.5 stable, your issue appears to be only with 4.6.0.6?

[ebr 14944]

1 hour ago, mediaGuy said:

I'm on 4.5 stable, your issue appears to be only with 4.6.0.6?

It was also introduced in 4.5.3.

As for tuning speed.  What is your Live TV source.  With the direct play option, I get channels tuned in about a second.

[jrwalte 17]

One thing you can do is under transcode settings on the server, change the setting H264 encoding CRF from the default of 21 down to around 16. The default is horrible quality I find and makes an OTA channel transcode at about 3mbps or less. By lowering to 16, my transcode bitrate stays about equal to that of the original and looks much better.

[mediaGuy 8]

@ebr

OK good to know about 4.5.3, thanks.

It's an HDHomerun with ATSC.  If I use TVheadend or the HDHR run it's about 0.5s.  Emby is around 5s and when I check the dashboard it says direct streaming.  Here's a log piece:

In this example the video took about 8 seconds to start so I'm guessing it correlates to around the end at 2020-12-17 19:07:16.

2020-12-17 19:07:08.513 Info LiveTV: Streaming Channel hdhr_9.1
2020-12-17 19:07:08.513 Info HdHomerunHost: GetChannelStream: channel id: hdhr_9.1. stream id: native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0 profile: native
2020-12-17 19:07:08.513 Info SharedHttpPipelineSource: Opening SharedHttpPipelineSource Live stream from http://192.168.0.xx:5004/auto/v9.1
2020-12-17 19:07:08.513 Info HttpClient: GET http://192.168.0.xx:5004/auto/v9.1
2020-12-17 19:07:08.892 Info HttpClient: Http response 200 from http://192.168.0.xx:5004/auto/v9.1 after 379ms. HeadersServer=HDHomeRun/1.0, Connection=close, Cache-Control=no-cache, transferMode.dlna.org=Streaming, Date=Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:07:09 GMT, X-HDHomeRun-Resource=tuner0
2020-12-17 19:07:08.892 Info SharedHttpPipelineSource: Beginning SharedHttpPipelineSource stream to /var/lib/emby/transcoding-temp/93813c71f91349c79cff16b8f6b9a6d6.ts
2020-12-17 19:07:08.892 Info HdHomerunHost: Live stream opened after 379.0305ms
2020-12-17 19:07:08.892 Info LiveTV: Returning mediasource streamId native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0, mediaSource.Id native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0, mediaSource.LiveStreamId null
2020-12-17 19:07:08.893 Info MediaSourceManager: Live stream opened: {"Protocol":"Http","Id":"native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0","Path":"http://127.0.0.1:8096/LiveTv/LiveStreamFiles/93813c71f91349c79cff16b8f6b9a6d6/stream.ts","Type":"Default","Container":"mpegts","IsRemote":false,"ContainerStartTimeTicks":882411248780,"SupportsTranscoding":true,"SupportsDirectStream":true,"SupportsDirectPlay":false,"IsInfiniteStream":true,"RequiresOpening":true,"RequiresClosing":true,"LiveStreamId":"06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0","RequiresLooping":false,"SupportsProbing":false,"MediaStreams":[{"Codec":"mpeg2video","ColorTransfer":"bt709","ColorPrimaries":"bt709","ColorSpace":"bt709","StreamStartTimeTicks":882413391330,"TimeBase":"1/90000","CodecTimeBase":"1001/30000","VideoRange":"SDR","DisplayTitle":"1080i MPEG2VIDEO","IsInterlaced":true,"BitRate":16999200,"BitDepth":8,"RefFrames":1,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Height":1080,"Width":1920,"AverageFrameRate":29.97003,"RealFrameRate":29.97003,"Profile":"Main","Type":"Video","AspectRatio":"16:9","Index":-1,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Protocol":"File","PixelFormat":"yuv420p","Level":4,"IsAnamorphic":false},{"Codec":"ac3","CodecTag":"AC-3","StreamStartTimeTicks":882411248780,"TimeBase":"1/90000","CodecTimeBase":"1/48000","DisplayTitle":"AC3 5.1","IsInterlaced":false,"ChannelLayout":"5.1","BitRate":384000,"Channels":6,"SampleRate":48000,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Type":"Audio","Index":-1,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Protocol":"File"}],"Formats":[],"Bitrate":17383200,"RequiredHttpHeaders":{},"ReadAtNativeFramerate":false}
2020-12-17 19:07:08.893 Info App: User policy for xxx. EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
2020-12-17 19:07:08.893 Info App: RemoteClientBitrateLimit: 2000000, RemoteIp: 192.168.0.xx, IsInLocalNetwork: True
2020-12-17 19:07:08.893 Info App: RemoteClientBitrateLimit: 2000000, RemoteIp: 192.168.0.xx, IsInLocalNetwork: True
2020-12-17 19:07:08.893 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 382ms. http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Items/123795/PlaybackInfo?format=json
2020-12-17 19:07:08.940 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing. UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; SHIELD Android TV Build/PPR1.180610.011)
2020-12-17 19:07:08.942 Info SessionManager: Playback start reported by app AndroidTv 1.8.54g playing CFTO. Started at 0 ms
2020-12-17 19:07:08.942 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 3ms. http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing
2020-12-17 19:07:09.079 Info Server: http/1.1 GET http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/videos/123795/stream.mpegts?DeviceId=be048b42fc00858d&MediaSourceId=native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0&Static=true&PlaySessionId=aa72d3225fd248c5b64e8a96e47935aa&LiveStreamId=06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0. Connection=Keep-Alive, Accept-Encoding=identity, Host=192.168.0.xx:8096, User-Agent=Emby/1.8.54g (Linux;Android 9) ExoPlayerLib/2.11.8, Icy-MetaData=1
2020-12-17 19:07:09.092 Info Server: http/1.1 GET http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Items/123795/ThumbnailSet?format=json. UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; SHIELD Android TV Build/PPR1.180610.011)
2020-12-17 19:07:09.093 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 3ms. http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Items/123795/ThumbnailSet?format=json
2020-12-17 19:07:16.299 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress. UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; SHIELD Android TV Build/PPR1.180610.011)
2020-12-17 19:07:16.299 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/LiveStreams/MediaInfo?liveStreamId=06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0. UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; SHIELD Android TV Build/PPR1.180610.011)
2020-12-17 19:07:16.299 Info MediaProbeManager: ProcessRun 'ffprobe' Execute: /opt/emby-server/bin/ffprobe -analyzeduration 3000000 -i "http://127.0.0.1:8096/LiveTv/LiveStreamFiles/93813c71f91349c79cff16b8f6b9a6d6/stream.ts" -threads 0 -v info -print_format json -show_streams -show_format -show_data
2020-12-17 19:07:16.300 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 204 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 1ms. http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress
2020-12-17 19:07:16.313 Info Server: http/1.1 GET http://127.0.0.1:8096/LiveTv/LiveStreamFiles/93813c71f91349c79cff16b8f6b9a6d6/stream.ts. UserAgent: Lavf/58.35.100
2020-12-17 19:07:16.330 Info MediaProbeManager: ProcessRun 'ffprobe' Process exited with code 0
2020-12-17 19:07:16.336 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 37ms. http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/LiveStreams/MediaInfo?liveStreamId=06044cf0e6f93cdae5f285c9ecfaaeb4_01413a525b3a9622ce6fdf19f7dde354_native_7e3fb9393fa80fc2d3712f2e873550d2_d355cfc72b3d702e497968b6b42004e0
2020-12-17 19:07:16.352 Info Server: http/1.1 GET http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Items/123795/ThumbnailSet?format=json. UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; SHIELD Android TV Build/PPR1.180610.011)
2020-12-17 19:07:16.352 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 1ms. http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Items/123795/ThumbnailSet?format=json
2020-12-17 19:07:24.776 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 192.168.0.xx. Time: 15697ms. 

 

[ebr 14944]

15 hours ago, mediaGuy said:

2020-12-17 19:07:16.299 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://192.168.0.xx:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress. UserAgent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 9; SHIELD Android TV Build/PPR1.180610.011)

Yes, this call is sent 1.5 seconds after playback actually starts in the app.  So the delay up until then is in getting the stream.

[mediaGuy 8]

@ebr

Any idea how I can improve this?  I thought the stream started here:

2020-12-17 19:07:08.892 Info HdHomerunHost: Live stream opened after 379.0305ms

[ebr 14944]

6 minutes ago, mediaGuy said:

@ebr

Any idea how I can improve this?  I thought the stream started here:

2020-12-17 19:07:08.892 Info HdHomerunHost: Live stream opened after 379.0305ms

Not sure at this point.  That is when the stream was opened on the server but it appears to be taking some time to get it delivered to the player.