MikeTech 0 Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 (edited) Issue: Since recent app update, live TV HD broadcast sources play with serious video lag and/or stutter that worsens over time, sometimes channel will not even load. Audio is OK, only video affected. SD live TV broadcasts are perfect. This occurs ONLY with the iOS app on iPad. HD channels play fine on the same iPad in Safari browser using web interface, and also play fine on iPhone XR with Emby app 2.0.1. The only way I can get the live TV streams to play with video in sync with audio in Emby iPad app is to reduce resolution to 360. I have sample screen recordings of each, will post links shortly. Will also be looking into logs further to see if any clues appear, but am not seeing anything obvious as yet. So far, what has been tried is to delete/reinstall iPad app, reboot iPad, restart Emby server and restart tuner, but no joy. As HD live broadcast stream is fine on all other platforms including the Roku app, I have concluded that there may be some bug in the code in the iPad implementation of the iOS app that is causing the issue. I thought that it might be due to play method (DirectPlay on app, vs transcode on browser), but DirectPlay works perfectly on iPhone. System Configs- App: Emby for iOS 2.0.1 Platform: iPad gen 6 iOS 14.3 Server: 4.5.4 on MacOS Mojave Tuner: HDHomerun Model: HDHR4-2US Firmware: 20200907 Link to screen-recorded clip from Emby App Link to screen-recorded clip from web interface (Safari on same iPad as above) Edited December 20, 2020 by MikeTech Links added Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 Hi there, please try lowering the in app quality setting and seeing if that helps. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 23, 2020 Author Share Posted December 23, 2020 Thanks for the reply. As mentioned in the original post I did that: “The only way I can get the live TV streams to play with video in sync with audio in Emby iPad app is to reduce resolution (quality) to 360”. Note that this is only HD streams. SD works ok. Doesn’t make sense to me that even reducing the HD stream quality to 480p - 420 kbps doesn’t work, when SD channels play fine in Auto or 480p - 4Mbps. And, only on the iPad, not the iPhone XR. Very mysterious. So for now I have given up on using the iPad app with any HD broadcast streams and have reverted to using the web interface with Safari, which works perfectly with no issues, as demonstrated in the clips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 Are you trying to play from inside or outside of your server's local network? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 25, 2020 Author Share Posted December 25, 2020 Internal network at all times. Both app and browser are accessing local server directly at the same private IP address. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 What you could do is try lowering the in-app quality setting and see if that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 26, 2020 Author Share Posted December 26, 2020 Sorry, I am confused by this reply. You did suggest this earlier, and I believe I explained that I had already done that in the iPad iOS app, and had taken it to down to 360 before seeing any improvement in sound sync for HD channels. Is there some other setting for in-app quality on the server side that you are referring to here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 26, 2020 Author Share Posted December 26, 2020 (edited) More info: Looks like it may boil down to a client hardware issue. Seems that the iPad Gen 6/ iOS 14.3 with 128 GB is not up to handling the DirectPlay stream for whatever reason, and I have to reduce in-app quality such that transcoding kicks in, at anything below 4 Mbps.Then all is more or less OK. Not the case on the iPhone XR (also 128 GB/ iOS 14.2, which is perfectly happy to play the DirectPlay stream all day at 20.4 Mbps. It is not a question of network bandwidth, the wifi connection with the iPad is 400/400 (on 802.11AC) as measured by the realtime wifi management console. What I don't understand is why this HD stream behavior is a relatively new development within the last couple of months, but since both iOS client app and server software have been updated several times during that period, there is no accurate way to know which variable changed the performance parameters. Edited December 26, 2020 by MikeTech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 That's interesting, thanks for the info. You may also want to try the Emby for iOS 2.0.2 update that just went out yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 27, 2020 Author Share Posted December 27, 2020 Thanks. Tried updated app, sorry to report I still need to dial back to 1080p - 4Mbps to force transcoding and avoid laggy DirectPlay for HD live broadcast streams. Still flawless DirectPlay performance on iPhone XR (hexacore A12 processor) vs choking on iPad Gen 6 (dual core A10). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 OK this sounds like the data just isn't getting to the device quickly enough and that's why you have to lower the quality setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 31, 2020 Author Share Posted December 31, 2020 Thanks. Well, I would totally agree with the logic that it was a network issue or even a server-side problem if the behavior was the same with the iPhone XR on the same WiFi network (although 400/400 Mbps as measured at the device should be far more than enough, and the server itself is on the gigabit network backbone), but the iPhone app has no such problem, and neither does the Roku app. Both play without transcoding, it is only the iPad with the issue, and it has only manifested itself within the last couple of months; a while back it played HD streaming channels without any issue using the auto quality setting, but I never checked at the time to see whether it was transcoding automatically or using DirectPlay. It continues to be a mystery. When I get more time (and more motivation to work on it after a long day doing IT for a living), I am going to run more experiments and get into the specifics in the log to see if there are any clues there when I compare between platforms using the same stream. If I see anything suspicious or unusual, I will post the log results here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTech 0 Posted December 31, 2020 Author Share Posted December 31, 2020 (edited) UPDATE: OK, I think I now have the solution to the mystery, it is in fact a question of the processor, as I theorized earlier. The A10 dual core on the Gen 6 is simply not able to handle the HD DirectPlay, AND the app has no trap in the auto quality setting to set the quality lower for transcoding. Perhaps it did in a previous version, and I was actually watching transcoded HD all that time without realizing it. How do I know? On a hunch, I just ran a test on wife’s iPad Pro which has the A10X processor, which is hexacore (as is the iPhone XR A12), and voila, HD plays flawlessly on DirectPlay using version 2.0.2 of the app. Three times the processing power makes all the difference in this case. So, guess I’ll just manually set the quality lower on the Gen6 iPad and call it a day. OR, maybe it’s time to upgrade the iPad again. Say... I could use that stimulus check that’s coming any minute now! PS: The Roku app is actually transcoding also, I checked on the server side while streaming the same HD channel. It is running on a fairly old box, a 4200X Roku 3, which also has a dual core ARM processor (A9), so transcoding makes sense here as well. Edited December 31, 2020 by MikeTech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 Right OK yes this is a good point. Currently we always allow the direct play of mpeg2 because the video player we're embedding can software decode it. We may have to add some fine tuning for devices that can't do it smoothly. Thanks for the investigation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackDub 21 Posted June 1, 2021 Share Posted June 1, 2021 On 12/20/2020 at 8:27 PM, MikeTech said: Issue: Since recent app update, live TV HD broadcast sources play with serious video lag and/or stutter that worsens over time, sometimes channel will not even load. Audio is OK, only video affected. SD live TV broadcasts are perfect. This occurs ONLY with the iOS app on iPad. HD channels play fine on the same iPad in Safari browser using web interface, and also play fine on iPhone XR with Emby app 2.0.1. The only way I can get the live TV streams to play with video in sync with audio in Emby iPad app is to reduce resolution to 360. I have sample screen recordings of each, will post links shortly. Will also be looking into logs further to see if any clues appear, but am not seeing anything obvious as yet. So far, what has been tried is to delete/reinstall iPad app, reboot iPad, restart Emby server and restart tuner, but no joy. As HD live broadcast stream is fine on all other platforms including the Roku app, I have concluded that there may be some bug in the code in the iPad implementation of the iOS app that is causing the issue. I thought that it might be due to play method (DirectPlay on app, vs transcode on browser), but DirectPlay works perfectly on iPhone. System Configs- App: Emby for iOS 2.0.1 Platform: iPad gen 6 iOS 14.3 Server: 4.5.4 on MacOS Mojave Tuner: HDHomerun Model: HDHR4-2US Firmware: 20200907 Link to screen-recorded clip from Emby App Link to screen-recorded clip from web interface (Safari on same iPad as above) I have exact the same problem that you mention, with my ipad and iphone 11. I need dowgrade to 480p 4mbps for see live tv with no lags. I think the problem is ios devices cant deinterlace live tv, @Luke can be a option in setting that you can on/off deinterlace on server side?? I think android tv version have this option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackDub 21 Posted June 2, 2021 Share Posted June 2, 2021 11 hours ago, BlackDub said: I have exact the same problem that you mention, with my ipad and iphone 11. I need dowgrade to 480p 4mbps for see live tv with no lags. I think the problem is ios devices cant deinterlace live tv, @Luke can be a option in setting that you can on/off deinterlace on server side?? I think android tv version have this option. I was tryng today with some options, when i put a direct stream on emby (interlace streaming), exist lag on iOS. When i put a transcode stream on emby (only deinterlace, same container, same resolution, same codec, some mbps) the lag dont exist. Some iOS device cant deinterlace with update ios 14 + or - . Can any developer add an option that force deinterlace on iOS configuration client? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 On 6/1/2021 at 5:12 PM, BlackDub said: I have exact the same problem that you mention, with my ipad and iphone 11. I need dowgrade to 480p 4mbps for see live tv with no lags. I think the problem is ios devices cant deinterlace live tv, @Luke can be a option in setting that you can on/off deinterlace on server side?? I think android tv version have this option. hi @BlackDub, yes that kind of option is something we can look at. thanks for the feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackDub 21 Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 15 hours ago, Luke said: hi @BlackDub, yes that kind of option is something we can look at. thanks for the feedback. Thanks for your answer. I hope it can be solved soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enqbcvqw 2 Posted June 23, 2021 Share Posted June 23, 2021 (edited) This happens to me on my (admittedly old) iPad Mini 3. However, what I'm noticing is that if I play a channel back on Safari by using the Emby Web App it seems to work but if I play the same channel via the Emby app it's noticeably laggy to the point of being unwatchable. Looking at the Emby Dashboard, I can see the channel is direct streaming in both cases so I don't really understand why it works properly in Safari. Edited June 23, 2021 by enqbcvqw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted June 23, 2021 Share Posted June 23, 2021 53 minutes ago, enqbcvqw said: This happens to me on my (admittedly old) iPad Mini 3. However, what I'm noticing is that if I play a channel back on Safari by using the Emby Web App it seems to work but if I play the same channel via the Emby app it's noticeably laggy to the point of being unwatchable. Looking at the Emby Dashboard, I can see the channel is direct streaming in both cases so I don't really understand why it works properly in Safari. Hi, what version of iOS does that run? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackDub 21 Posted September 2, 2021 Share Posted September 2, 2021 On 6/15/2021 at 11:21 PM, Luke said: hi @BlackDub, yes that kind of option is something we can look at. thanks for the feedback. Any updates? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 On 9/2/2021 at 11:48 AM, BlackDub said: Any updates? HI, not yet, sorry, but it's on our list for review. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackDub 21 Posted March 7, 2022 Share Posted March 7, 2022 On 9/6/2021 at 2:58 AM, Luke said: HI, not yet, sorry, but it's on our list for review. Thanks. Still dont working Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackDub 21 Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 On 9/6/2021 at 2:58 AM, Luke said: HI, not yet, sorry, but it's on our list for review. Thanks. Can you add an option in ios devices to "transcode/deinterlace" live tv on server? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37065 Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 On 4/20/2022 at 12:19 PM, BlackDub said: Can you add an option in ios devices to "transcode/deinterlace" live tv on server? Thanks Yes, options to control that are always possible. Thanks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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