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

[shdwkeeper 15]

1 hour ago, mirdragon said:

When the stream comes in from the tuner you get it switching to direct stream and remuxing the audio, when it switches it pauses for a few seconds then continues, but the problem is the audio does not always stay in sync.

this was from the interface on pc

 

Audio is out of sync a lot of times.

[mirdragon 15]

3 hours ago, shdwkeeper said:

Audio is out of sync a lot of times.

yeh, some channels are extremely bad for it

[mirdragon 15]

also Apple TV version is a lot faster to switch channel that Android TV version but has still some issues with audio sync

[Luke 37057]

Hi, can you try side loading our standard Android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

[shdwkeeper 15]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, can you try side loading our standard Android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

I have android for emby installed on the Shield and there isn't a way to pause or rewind (timeshift) Live TV.  No idea why you can't do that, any ideas?

Edited September 10, 2021 by shdwkeeper

[rbjtech 4257]

I've been watching this thread with interest - as I have to agree with the OP - HD (H264) Live TV on a UK HDHR is very unreliable in Emby.  SD (MPEG2) seems to be generally ok.   Also to note - Recording seems to be perfectly fine for both SD & HD.

I've looked into this briefly before, but as I'm not a big Live TV user (if at all), I lost interest very quickly as results were all over the place.

I 'believe' there are two issues with UK Broadcasting that you maybe do not have/see in the US.

a. AAC_LATM on HD Broadcasts - Normally a Stereo Sream, but more recently a 5.1 Stream as well.

b. Changing Interlaced / non-interlaced broadcasts on the same channel/stream.  So one programme may be Interlaced and works with Direct Play, whilst the next Programme in non-interlaced and Fails.

I'm happy to provide logs and recordings of the streams if that helps.  How's best to start ?  What sort of logs do you want to see ?

Edited September 10, 2021 by rbjtech

[Carlo 4330]

8 hours ago, shdwkeeper said:

I have android for emby installed on the Shield and there isn't a way to pause or rewind (timeshift) Live TV.  No idea why you can't do that, any ideas?

Not at present no.  It's something that will be added in the future.

[mirdragon 15]

@rbjtechthat's it, you have to keep emby set to remux to reduce the playback failures. it can't handle if the channel you are watching changes the stream

plex and others will automatically switch but for some reason emby can't do that and it uses the exoplayer like plex.

they've had various logs and videos as i've provided them in the past on this thread, but because of the issues with emby and livetv playback being unreliable i've had to switch to a different app to watch tv

Edited September 10, 2021 by mirdragon

[mirdragon 15]

ok, just a further update

I have found that the channels dvr app, does do direct play and does not transcode or remux when playing on home network.

so if that can do it, then surely Emby can do it

 

[Carlo 4330]

What's the spec of the channel you are testing with?
What device/app are you using for playback?

[mirdragon 15]

18 minutes ago, cayars said:

What's the spec of the channel you are testing with?
What device/app are you using for playback?

The ones previously mentioned and provided details on

They are all UK Freeview HD Channels using the HDHomerun Quatro Connect

Playback is mainly on Nvidia Shield TV 2015 Pro and Nvidia Shield TV 2019 Pro

I am using the Emby Client on all devices, which are the same devices I also use Channels DVR, Plex and SD Homerun app on.

Rating for playback off live tv

Joint 1st SD Homerun and Channels DVR

3rd Plex

4th Emby

As stated Emby is the worse for playback and if set to direct play it will not work 97%+ of the time, only way to get it to work is to remux the audio by choosing allow video stream copy.

Emby is fine for playback of my other media, music, converted dvd's and bluray

 

[Carlo 4330]

In Emby on ATV I would turn off Live TV direct play and turn on Stream Copy.

Edited September 10, 2021 by cayars

[mirdragon 15]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

In Emby on ATV I would turn off Live TV direct play and turn on Stream Copy.

But that is what you constantly say, thus you are remuxing which you then get a pause and slowly start getting audio sync issues. The solution provided is a workaround to hide the fact that Emby cannot direct play properly on the nvidia shield tv.

if other apps can do direct play without the need to remux, why can't emby

 

[Carlo 4330]

You can direct play but give up other functionality.

There is nothing wrong with a remux and it's a good thing for Live TV on that platform because it allows timing to be accurate for FF/RW, etc which isn't possible with a transport stream.

A remux is not CPU intensive as it's just reformatting the container to HLS.  It gives the best Live TV media experience being delivered by HLS on that platform so it's nothing to fear.

[rbjtech 4257]

Being honest here - I'm not sure if it's my setup - but 95% of my UK OTA HD Streams don't work whatever setting or Client I use - Direct, Stream Copy/Remux or Full transcode !

HD Channels all work perfectly fine for the likes of the HDHR App, VLC streams etc - it's just Emby and UK HD Channels that seem to have a live playback issue..

I can provide sample .ts from each HD channel if that helps (there are only 5 or 6 as free OTA in the UK), but recorded HD items appear to be ok (presumably it's recording the raw ts?)  - so I'm not sure if that is going to help get to the bottom of this..

Edited September 10, 2021 by rbjtech

[mirdragon 15]

2 hours ago, cayars said:

You can direct play but give up other functionality.

There is nothing wrong with a remux and it's a good thing for Live TV on that platform because it allows timing to be accurate for FF/RW, etc which isn't possible with a transport stream.

A remux is not CPU intensive as it's just reformatting the container to HLS.  It gives the best Live TV media experience being delivered by HLS on that platform so it's nothing to fear.

This is what we keep saying though, you CAN'T direct play with Emby as it fails 97%+ of the time and just shows black screen with spinning circle, you can only get Emby to work with direct strean and then have audio sync problems, so Emby remuxing LiveTV is not providing the best Live TV media experience.

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

Being honest here - I'm not sure if it's my setup - but 95% of my UK OTA HD Streams don't work whatever setting or Client I use - Direct, Stream Copy/Remux or Full transcode !

HD Channels all work perfectly fine for the likes of the HDHR App, VLC streams etc - it's just Emby and UK HD Channels that seem to have a live playback issue..

I can provide sample .ts from each HD channel if that helps (there are only 5 or 6 as free OTA in the UK), but recorded HD items appear to be ok (presumably it's recording the raw ts?)  - so I'm not sure if that is going to help get to the bottom of this..

I don't think it is your setup, it's the Emby app, on Android it does not perform as you would expect it to work for Live TV. If you're running Android clients from my experience Emby is not the product to watch Live TV satisfactorily

[shdwkeeper 15]

@cayars just curious why you keep asking the same questions over and over and multiple people are telling you guys it's not working properly?  We are even providing logs, videos etc, from multiple setups and experiencing similar issues.  There is something g not working with LiveTV and Emby like it does with ChannelsDVR and Plex.

[shdwkeeper 15]

7 hours ago, cayars said:

You can direct play but give up other functionality.

There is nothing wrong with a remux and it's a good thing for Live TV on that platform because it allows timing to be accurate for FF/RW, etc which isn't possible with a transport stream.

A remux is not CPU intensive as it's just reformatting the container to HLS.  It gives the best Live TV media experience being delivered by HLS on that platform so it's nothing to fear.

None of my logs ever say remux, I just get under Stats,  Direct Stream and under streaming info it says Transcode Speed and the Reason says Direct Play error.  With a audio pausing and than out of sync all the time.

[mirdragon 15]

well this morning it managed to do direct play on both Shield TVs, channels were BBC 2 HD, ITV HD and Channel 4 HD but took about 60 seconds to show on the screen for some. On BBC Two had to exit and go back in as the audio was out of sync initially.

The other HD channels was waiting 3 minutes for it to switch and gave up, so it is hit and miss on whether emby will work with direct play based on the content being broadcast

[rbjtech 4257]

It would be useful to get a 'poll' on the HDHR OTA UK Users - and how many of them have HD Live TV 'Working' reliably ?

 

[Carlo 4330]

8 hours ago, shdwkeeper said:

@cayars just curious why you keep asking the same questions over and over and multiple people are telling you guys it's not working properly?  We are even providing logs, videos etc, from multiple setups and experiencing similar issues.  There is something g not working with LiveTV and Emby like it does with ChannelsDVR and Plex.

Because far more people including myself have no issue with Live TV.  So it's a matter of finding what's different.  A lot of things can factor in from GEO location to type of tuner, type of broadcast streams, codecs used on those streams, the server environment and of course client & server settings.

For something that seems trivial it's quite complex as streams can switch codecs, captions appear/disappear, can be interlaced or not, etc..

Being in the USA, I personally can't test what you see in the UK for example.

8 hours ago, shdwkeeper said:

None of my logs ever say remux, I just get under Stats,  Direct Stream and under streaming info it says Transcode Speed and the Reason says Direct Play error.  With a audio pausing and than out of sync all the time.

"Remux" would be in the name of the ffmpeg log file.  The name itself tells you if it's a transcode or remux being done.

[ebr 14910]

8 hours ago, shdwkeeper said:

None of my logs ever say remux, I just get under Stats,  Direct Stream and under streaming info it says Transcode Speed and the Reason says Direct Play error.  With a audio pausing and than out of sync all the time.

Can you please play one of these until it starts direct streaming and then send a log from the app directly from the playback OSD?

Thanks.

[rbjtech 4257]

Hi ebr - so I have all the same issues - so thought I would send as well - It's on most HD (only) channels, but lets start with BBC1 HD - Same show.

Logs sent from a FireTV running 2.0.38a / Latest Emby Release Server (not Beta)  - timings below

1. With both Direct Play and Stream Copy off. - @ 15:45 UK Time - Result - Just a spinning Circle

2. With Direct Play turned off, Copy Stream turned on - @@ 15:47 - Result - Spinning Circle

3. With Direct Play and Copy Stream turned on - @15:48 - Result - Spinning Circle

Logs sent from the App each time - Username 'Rich' 

ffmpeg logs attached for these 3 attempted sessions.

I also tried to Record the TS from Emby - and all I got (each time I tried) was a 20K file - I've attached that as well as it may be useful ?

I'll do the same for my only 'working' HD Channel and post that separately to avoid confusion .

thanks !

logs.zip Garden Rescue S05E34 St Albans.ts

Edited September 11, 2021 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 4257]

..and this is my only 'working' HD Channel - Channel 5

Logs sent from same device, same user.

1. 16:07 -  No Direct Play, No Stream Copy - Plays OK

2. 16:09 - Direct Copy, Stream Copy - Spinning Circle

3. 16:11 - Stream Copy Only - Plays OK

Again, ffmpeg logs attached and a successful .TS sample (10 secs) of the show for comparison if required

logs.zip Mirror Mirror (2012).ts

[rbjtech 4257]

To add - all streams work perfectly well directly in VLC as a Network Stream (on both a PC and the VLC FireTV App)

This is the failed stream in Emby

BBC1 HD - http://hdhr.rbjtech.lan:5004/auto/v101

Codec stats from VLC for it - could be useful - it is definitely interlaced.

 

edit - lastly - here is the raw .ts file for the BBC ONE HD stream

wget.exe -O bbc_one_hd_raw.ts http://hdhr.rbjtech.lan:5004/auto/v101

bbc_one_hd_raw.ts

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by rbjtech