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Direct Play Issue with Live TV using HD Homerun (Emby Issue Only)


mirdragon

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mirdragon
2 hours ago, ebr said:

UK guys - please test with the beta of the TV app that just went up (2.0.44).

Thanks.

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

Also just checked recording each channel - all good.  They all Direct Stream when playing back as expected due to the TS container. 👍

I'll test with the Shield and other clients (web) shortly.

edit - Blimey - DVB Subs also work ! 

Just tested on both my Shield TV's 2015 Pro and 2019 Pro and all good, plays direct play - on ITV HD had to change the audio but that was it as initially no sound, but found it had defaulted to the audio description - actually even tested some of the other HD channels and all worked.

7 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

stick up a satellite dish. none of these problems on freesat 😉

You can't stream to multiple devices in different rooms with freesat, recordings are only available on source box and unlike Sky you will need to cable every TV in every room with a box or all see the same broadcast from the main unit using a video sender.

Using Emby with the HDHR allows you to watch the broadcasts on laptops. mobiles, tablets, pcs, game consoles, apple tv, shield tv, firestick tv, your recordings can be centralised and can go into your media collection unlike freesat.

I already have Sky Q plus miniboxes but switching fully to HDHR for Freeview TV when contract ends, and when have 8 tuners available overall with HDHR and no ability to hardwire TV aerial or Sat cable to multiple rooms, this is the best solution.

And some people can't have satellite dishes due to planning regulations within their areas

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mirdragon
4 hours ago, ebr said:

UK guys - please test with the beta of the TV app that just went up (2.0.44).

Thanks.

Forgot to ask, what was the cause of all the issues preventing direct play?

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rbjtech

From the beta release notes -

  • Update Exo with workaround for unorthodox TV streams

Not sure what was unorthodox about them, as they are standard European DVB signals ?

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3 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

From the beta release notes -

  • Update Exo with workaround for unorthodox TV streams

Not sure what was unorthodox about them, as they are standard European DVB signals ?

The metadata of the stream contains a list of tracks, however there are cases where one or more of the tracks isn't actually present, so we have to be able to handle that.

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rbjtech
1 minute ago, Luke said:

The metadata of the stream contains a list of tracks, however there are cases where one or more of the tracks isn't actually present, so we have to be able to handle that.

Thanks Luke - understood, we came across that during the testing so hopefully the TS samples helped to track that down.

So the Android clients (FireTV & Shield/AndroidTV) appear to be working well with Direct Play. 

Would it be possible to add the 'fix' to the Web and Android clients as well down the line do you think ?

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22 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Thanks Luke - understood, we came across that during the testing so hopefully the TS samples helped to track that down.

So the Android clients (FireTV & Shield/AndroidTV) appear to be working well with Direct Play. 

Would it be possible to add the 'fix' to the Web and Android clients as well down the line do you think ?

It's going in both android apps. The web app is a bit trickier because we're relying on the browser video player.

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3 hours ago, pwhodges said:

And Roku, iOS?

Paul

Roku is just like the web app and would have to rely on server transcoding to fix something like this if the player can't handle it. iOS is using mpv.

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mirdragon

@ebr, @cayars, @Luke, @rbjtech

 

I think found a bug in the beta version, @rbjtechare you able to test the following to see if get the same as me on the shield tv

Set emby to go to last channel used on live tv when startup.

If do this it, it does transcoding, this is shown both on the info bar and also when show nerds stats, exit live tv, wait a second and go back in and it will direct play fine

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8 minutes ago, mirdragon said:

@ebr, @cayars, @Luke, @rbjtech

 

I think found a bug in the beta version, @rbjtechare you able to test the following to see if get the same as me on the shield tv

Set emby to go to last channel used on live tv when startup.

If do this it, it does transcoding, this is shown both on the info bar and also when show nerds stats, exit live tv, wait a second and go back in and it will direct play fine

Transcode log?

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rbjtech
1 hour ago, mirdragon said:

@ebr, @cayars, @Luke, @rbjtech

 

I think found a bug in the beta version, @rbjtechare you able to test the following to see if get the same as me on the shield tv

Set emby to go to last channel used on live tv when startup.

If do this it, it does transcoding, this is shown both on the info bar and also when show nerds stats, exit live tv, wait a second and go back in and it will direct play fine

I haven't tested any of this on the Shield yet tbh (I wouldn't ever use Live TV on the Shield) but trying to replicate your Start Up issue on the FireTV appears to Direct Play just fine.   I tried a couple of HD channels and it jumps straight in and Direct Plays - same as it would if I selected it in Live TV.

I'll try and find some time to test on the Shield, but I'm ultra busy on lots of other stuff atm .. sorry !

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mirdragon
2 hours ago, ebr said:

Transcode log?

Going to give it a bit more testing to see what causes it, as twice it been when not watched TV through Emby for couple of days. If do Live TV then exit and go back later it plays Direct Play

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

I haven't tested any of this on the Shield yet tbh (I wouldn't ever use Live TV on the Shield) but trying to replicate your Start Up issue on the FireTV appears to Direct Play just fine.   I tried a couple of HD channels and it jumps straight in and Direct Plays - same as it would if I selected it in Live TV.

I'll try and find some time to test on the Shield, but I'm ultra busy on lots of other stuff atm .. sorry !

I can only use Shield TV's or Apple TV (have a Roku 3 but it not that perfect) - not really used a Fire TV as when seen reviews, etc it couldn't do audio passthrough for my avr to decode

 

I'm going to retest in couple of days time and see what happens

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  • 2 weeks later...
mirdragon

well after 2 weeks, it all seems to be working fine now, there are a couple of times it fails to play direct play but this is on some of the other channels which we don't watch often, but the main channels seem to all be fine

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11 minutes ago, mirdragon said:

well after 2 weeks, it all seems to be working fine now, there are a couple of times it fails to play direct play but this is on some of the other channels which we don't watch often, but the main channels seem to all be fine

Thanks for the feedback.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/28/2021 at 12:24 PM, rbjtech said:

I haven't tested any of this on the Shield yet tbh (I wouldn't ever use Live TV on the Shield) but trying to replicate your Start Up issue on the FireTV appears to Direct Play just fine. 

Just curious, but can you elaborate on that?
What do you currently use for Live TV?

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rbjtech
1 hour ago, cayars said:

Just curious, but can you elaborate on that?
What do you currently use for Live TV?

In the UK, as all TV's have OTA HD tuners ('freeview') - there is zero point using Emby for Live TV.

For anything else (PC's, laptops, mobiles, tablets etc) then as they don't have tuners, for Live OTA TV,  Emby can now be used instead as it reliably Direct Plays the HD Channels.

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Spaceboy

i use emby for live tv and i watch it on the shield. its great, but i also use freesat, which by all accounts doesnt have the issues identified here on freeview.

Yes it takes a second or two for the channel to tune but i like having everything in one place.

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pwhodges

Lucky you two...

Just for kicks I tried watching BBC1 in Emby web client on my desktop.  It took about 15 secs to start in SD, and paused several times more before becoming smooth.  In HD it took over a minute to start.  In both cases selecting subtitles caused a pause of about half a minute before reporting "No compatible streams".  Of course, these playbacks were transcoding.  The fun thing is that the dashboard reported the playback as being on my Roku!

Using Theatre instead, to get direct play, BBC1 SD started in under 10 seconds, and subtitles could be enabled.  However, HD, while it started as quickly, and was direct playing, had a visible glitch every four seconds for as long as I waited for that to stop.  Selecting subtitles in HD playing in Theatre caused Theatre to crash instantly (the screen went blank, but the control overlay still appeared when I moved the mouse).

Recording and playback continue to be fine, so Emby has what it needs to work properly in it somewhere...

The TV rewrite can't come quickly enough!

Paul

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pwhodges

PS: I should mention that I did each test above only once.  Because if it doesn't work properly first time it is not suitable for domestic use.

Paul

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mirdragon

I use Emby for freeview as we only have one aerial and getting it to all the rooms is a nightmare and not very easy. It would be great if freeview or freesat done a similar thing to Sky Q so only need one box and can have mini boxes around the house to watch through. I was hoping the Humax Aura would do this as I would have bought one, but it doesn't :(

So to watch Freeview on all devices Emby is the answer (and needed to get it fully working before we ditch Sky Q)

It also means I could potentially get rid of my channels dvr subscription as well, if Emby continues to work perfectly for us 

 

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mirdragon
3 hours ago, Spaceboy said:

i use emby for live tv and i watch it on the shield. its great, but i also use freesat, which by all accounts doesnt have the issues identified here on freeview.

Yes it takes a second or two for the channel to tune but i like having everything in one place.

Are you based in UK? Have you set Emby to use direct play and direct play only, which means no pausing of the TV? Which version of the shield are you running? Are you running Emby (Server side)  on a seperate PC or on the Shield itselt

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41 minutes ago, emdubya77 said:

I've been following this thread and have managed to understand some of it, but just really wanted to know if all of the above applies to firesticks too? Should I be expecting direct play from all channels now, or did the 'fix' only apply to HD/AVC services? Recording source is an HDHR4. Many thanks.

The change will also affect the Fire devices but I'm not sure exactly which services are doing the odd thing that was causing the issue here - that being including streams in the header information that don't actually exist.

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mirdragon

I had the issue again yesterday where it started to transcode immediately on startup - I had just been messing with the Live Channels app from Google, so not sure if this was the cause, can't remember if i switched channel to resolve or backed out of the tv area and then went back in

i'll try a few non hd channels again later to see if get the direct play issues on them. I know we constantly get a mixture of formats even on the same channel, which could be the cause of all the problems in the UK

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