Roku unable to Direct Play Interlaced 1080i Channels (HDHomerun)

[speechles 2055]

9 hours ago, troyhough said:

I understand completely, however are the settings/options for Live TV playback different on the beta release compared to stable? If so I am on it!

 

It isn't the setting that is different. It is how we implement playback recovery when handling errors that will differ between the store and the beta. The beta has special handling during playback to ensure that it will not get stuck or hang. If you are playing a playlist or large queue of episodes with the store version it might hang. The beta also has Live TV fixes to improve the experience. The beta will also be getting more Live TV fixes soon to make it even more solid.

The beta has more work done to improve your experience than the store version. The beta is not broken, buggy, or bad. It is meant for users who visit the forum and wish to help when new features are designed, implemented, and improved. If you want to be part of that and have your say on what gets implemented you would use the beta. The beta entitles you to new features before everyone else.

Edited January 8, 2021 by speechles

[speechles 2055]

Also your question "Can the Roku deinterlace?" the answer is yes. But only certain models can do this. We have found that the Roku express cannot properly render anamorphic video correctly or deinterlace video correctly. The other models can. You do not have to keep track of this. The device detection we do in the application that builds the capabilities profile handles all this. You just press play. You can use the stats for nerds inside the Roku app. When video is playing press down and open the OSD. Find the cog/gear at the bottom and click it. This will open the playback menu. On that menu will be "Stats for Nerds" you just need to enable it.

If you are using the Beta you can hold down the OK button while video is playing. If you hold it down for 1 full second stats for nerds will open. When it is opened holding OK down for a full second again will close it. This is the quick way of getting stats for nerds on or off the screen.

Edited January 8, 2021 by speechles

[BillOatman 596]

15 hours ago, speechles said:

Were you possibly recording the channel that would not direct play? Make sure the above option says YES.

Hi.  Should this also be set when using m3u to get streams?

[speechles 2055]

I do not think it matters either way with m3u unless it is recording. When recording you may not be able to seek with this enabled. That is why it comes NO by default.

[troyhough 61]

12 hours ago, cayars said:

VLC can deinterlace right in the client automatically, so I'm not sure what info is gained by that test.
With that said I don't know for a fact it is interlaced related.  Was just something to check is all.

I understand that, but it's telling us what the stations are pumping out to us...... 1080i or 720p, right?

My reason for the test was to see if the CBS stations were the only ones doing 1080i which they are not.

Edited January 8, 2021 by troyhough

[Carlo 4560]

51 minutes ago, troyhough said:

My reason for the test was to see if the CBS stations were actually the ones doing 1080i which they are not.

Got ya.  You can do this right in Emby as well using the Stats for Nerds function built into the client.  What speechles just mentioned.

[troyhough 61]

3 minutes ago, cayars said:

Got ya.  You can do this right in Emby as well using the Stats for Nerds function built into the client.  What speechles just mentioned.

I checked Stats for Nerds first. Didn't see anything about incoming resolution so then went to VLC.

[Carlo 4560]

Makes perfect sense.

@speechles Any chance you could fit/add Interlaced to SFN? But if the app can deinterlace on it's own, it may not be needed.

[ebr 16169]

1 minute ago, cayars said:

Makes perfect sense.

@speechles Any chance you could fit/add Interlaced to SFN? But if the app can deinterlace on it's own, it may not be needed.

Those screen shots look to be from android mobile, not Roku...

[troyhough 61]

1 minute ago, cayars said:

Makes perfect sense.

@speechles Any chance you could fit/add Interlaced to SFN? But if the app can deinterlace on it's own, it may not be needed.

Just to clarify, not that it matters, the screenshots were from my phone, Pixel 4 XL.

[Carlo 4560]

1 minute ago, ebr said:

Those screen shots look to be from android mobile, not Roku...

Then can we get that added to Android platforms?  It's useful info to have for us Nerds.

[troyhough 61]

4 hours ago, speechles said:

We have found that the Roku express cannot properly render anamorphic video correctly or deinterlace video correctly.

Is the Express what is used for the TCL and ONN TV's? My version said 4.0.4

[speechles 2055]

20 minutes ago, troyhough said:

Is the Express what is used for the TCL and ONN TV's? My version said 4.0.4

You have closer to an Roku Ultra or 4K Streaming Stick than an Express with the Roku TV. The TCL 4K Roku TV is my main development device. I LOVE those televisions. You should too. That is why you bought them.

[troyhough 61]

13 minutes ago, speechles said:

You have closer to an Roku Ultra or 4K Streaming Stick than an Express with the Roku TV. The TCL 4K Roku TV is my main development device. I LOVE those televisions. You should too. That is why you bought them.

I don't have a Roku TV but I do have 2 of the TCL w/ Roku built-in and 2 onn (Wal-Mart cheapo) w/ Roku built-in, as well as some various other brands.

https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/3944_7838866_3004279_2376133_1901258

Edited January 8, 2021 by troyhough

[speechles 2055]

15 minutes ago, troyhough said:

I don't have a Roku TV but I do have 2 of the TCL and 2 onn (Wal-Mart cheapo)

https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/3944_7838866_3004279_2376133_1901258

Those are Roku TV. The ONN might have slightly less RAM (meaning more garbage collection) but the way we conserve texture memory inside the application we can manage ourselves in a rather small footprint quite nicely.

The advantage of more RAM on your device with Roku is the screen stack. As you navigate into screens and dig into things this develops a screen stack. On each screen are your nodes (cards). Inside each node are the elements (text/images). Each of those images consumes texture memory to hold whatever goes into the spot. It is then scaled up to the size the image is supposed to be. 99.5% of the time we load images into texture memory at the exact same size as they render on the screen so you lose no quality. But a few things are scaled up because they are repeated very often like the green watched circles and those hearts and check marks.

Once you manage each screen effectively you want to manage the entire screen stack effectively. So the more RAM users have on their device the faster it is for them to go back. Press back on your remote and the previous screen is immediately just there POP! It doesn't have to reload anything it immediately appears. That is the benefit of clever texture management and the RAM capacity of the device.

We have texture management down to a science. You should not suffer any ill effects using the weakest Roku device on up to the best they make today. Emby will work on everything Roku. Lower end Roku that do not support 4K will use a 720P UI. Those that support 4K will gain an advantage of an 1080P UI. Those are the differences. This is why the Roku you choose is not really important. Just that it works for you and the purpose you bought it.

Edited January 8, 2021 by speechles

[troyhough 61]

2 minutes ago, speechles said:

 

Thanks for all your information and insight, it's greatly appreciated and useful.

My primary mission tonight will be to get the 2 TCL's to Direct Play my HDHR CBS stations. From what you are saying, I will have to possibly jump on to the beta Emby app to do it (to access the Live TV Direct Play options), which I am fine with as long as everything just works!

[speechles 2055]

12 minutes ago, troyhough said:

Thanks for all your information and insight, it's greatly appreciated and useful.

My primary mission tonight will be to get the 2 TCL's to Direct Play my HDHR CBS stations. From what you are saying, I will have to possibly jump on to the beta Emby app to do it (to access the Live TV Direct Play options), which I am fine with as long as everything just works!

Let us know if it does not work. The reason you use Emby is so you can just press play and we figure everything out. If that isn't the case come back and yell at us.

[troyhough 61]

3 hours ago, speechles said:

Let us know if it does not work. The reason you use Emby is so you can just press play and we figure everything out. If that isn't the case come back and yell at us.

Well I ran the beta and CBS still transcodes while the others Direct Play

 

[Carlo 4560]

1 hour ago, troyhough said:

Well I ran the beta and CBS still transcodes while the others Direct Play

 

On what specific client?

[ebr 16169]

14 hours ago, troyhough said:

Well I ran the beta and CBS still transcodes while the others Direct Play

 

Can we please see the ffmpeg log from that exact playback?

[troyhough 61]

On 1/9/2021 at 7:21 AM, ebr said:

Can we please see the ffmpeg log from that exact playback?

Sorry for the delay! I don't use these 2 TCL TV's a ton but here is the ffmpeg log from tonight. Note that it is NBC channel 6.1 that was transcoding tonight.

 

NBC 6-1.txt

[Carlo 4560]

From the ffmpeg log this looked like it played back ok but was ended early?

Was there a problem playing this channel?

[ebr 16169]

As mentioned before this is because the channel is interlaced:

18:50:05.423   Program 3 
18:50:05.423     Stream #0:0[0x31]: Video: mpeg2video (Main) ([2][0][0][0] / 0x0002), yuv420p(tv, top first), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], Closed Captions, Level 4, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc, Start-Time 67266.684s
18:50:05.423     Stream #0:1[0x34](eng): Audio: ac3 ([129][0][0][0] / 0x0081), 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 384 kb/s, Start-Time 67265.919s
18:50:05.423     Stream #0:2[0x35](spa): Audio: ac3 ([129][0][0][0] / 0x0081), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s, Start-Time 67266.143s (visual impaired) (descriptions)
18:50:05.425 Stream mapping:
18:50:05.425   Stream #0:0 (mpeg2video) -> yadif
18:50:05.425   yadif -> Stream #0:0 (libx264)

 

[troyhough 61]

6 hours ago, ebr said:

As mentioned before this is because the channel is interlaced:

18:50:05.423   Program 3 
18:50:05.423     Stream #0:0[0x31]: Video: mpeg2video (Main) ([2][0][0][0] / 0x0002), yuv420p(tv, top first), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], Closed Captions, Level 4, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc, Start-Time 67266.684s
18:50:05.423     Stream #0:1[0x34](eng): Audio: ac3 ([129][0][0][0] / 0x0081), 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 384 kb/s, Start-Time 67265.919s
18:50:05.423     Stream #0:2[0x35](spa): Audio: ac3 ([129][0][0][0] / 0x0081), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s, Start-Time 67266.143s (visual impaired) (descriptions)
18:50:05.425 Stream mapping:
18:50:05.425   Stream #0:0 (mpeg2video) -> yadif
18:50:05.425   yadif -> Stream #0:0 (libx264)

 

That was a theory, yes. I will try the other 1080i channels and report back.

So some TV's possibly just don't have the horsepower to Direct Play/Stream 1080i? I was under the impression that the TCL could but let me check the others....

[troyhough 61]

Ok @speechles and others, I went through all my HDHR channels and as @cayars suggested, the 720P channels "Direct Streamed" while the 1080i channels Transcoded.

I only had time to test the stable Emby release. I didn't try the Beta Emby app but will try that one the next time I am over there.

What is interesting is that the same TV will Direct Play a 4K 22.44Mb bitrate file with ease.

Any chance that the 1080i HDHR TV content will Direct Stream at some point? If not I'll have to look at moving to Android TV OS TV's going forward. I don't like transcoding if at all possible.