Buffering while direct play on LG Smart TV

[elvetemedve 0]

Hi all,

I experience an issue with playback movies via Emby Theatre on LG Smart TV. It starts buffering randomly. Sometimes continuous play of 30 minutes, other times it buffers between few minutes. First I thought it must be a networking problem, but the same movie plays flawlessly connecting to the same WiFi in the same room on an Android phone using the Emby Android app.

Environment

Emby Theatre version 1.0.24

Emby on Linux version 4.5.4.0

Movie information provided by Emby Theatre

Video quality 4K - 40 MBps. I've tested the connection speed on the TV via dslreports.com, it was 60 / 10 Mbps. TV is connected to the network via 5G WiFi.

The Emby server is reached over the Internet. The network download/upload speed is 300/20 MBps on the TV end, and 1000/200 MBps on the server side. No bandwidth limiting or QoS is enabled on the routers in my possession.

There was no concurrent users using Emby.

Server log is attached. I couldn't find the Debug Options menu in Emby Theatre, so log from the TV is not included.

I've run out of ideas what can be wrong. To me it looks like a bug in Emby Theatre or in LG's TB firmware. But it's likely that I'm just missing something.

Does anyone else experienced similar with LG TVs?

 

 

embyserver-63745919999.txt

Edited January 11, 2021 by elvetemedve

[Abobader 3464]

Hello elvetemedve,

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, You first notion is probably correct.  Each device will handle WIFI differently and if you've used other devices over WIFI in the same room and they playback fine that goes to show the issue is on the LG setup.

If possible try as a test connecting the TV via Ethernet even if you have to pick it up and move it to a location that has Ethernet. If it works over Ethernet you have your answer.
If you have the same problem over Ethernet we'll need to explore things more.

[elvetemedve 0]

Hi @cayars

Thank you for the quick reply. I will try your suggestion and come back.

[Carlo 4561]

If if ends up playing fine with Ethernet but not WIFI you have the option of running Ethernet to the TV location or you could try a MOCA (coax) or Powerline (plugs into electrical outlet) setup.  I use Powerline for one of my TVs our in the garage 50 yards away.  Building is metal so WIFI from the house doesn't work.  That was much easier than trenching and running Ethernet to the garage.

But lets see if this works over Ethernet or if you have the same problem.

[elvetemedve 0]

Well, it's not the WIFI. The problem is still there with Ethernet connection. I also tried to play 4K content from Youtube few times, so far without any problem.

Quote

If if ends up playing fine with Ethernet but not WIFI you have the option of running Ethernet to the TV location or you could try a MOCA (coax) or Powerline (plugs into electrical outlet) setup.  I use Powerline for one of my TVs our in the garage 50 yards away.  Building is metal so WIFI from the house doesn't work.  That was much easier than trenching and running Ethernet to the garage.

Powerline can very useful indeed. I already thought about it if I needed wired connection, but so far WIFI serves me well.

Maybe the problem is related the video codec (e.g. a bug in the decoder software). Next I will download the whole movie to an external HDD and plug it to the TV via USB port. That should reveal if the issue is in the TV's firmware or not.  Let me know if you have other suggestion, @cayars.

 

[Happy2Play 9782]

51 minutes ago, elvetemedve said:

I also tried to play 4K content from Youtube few times, so far without any problem.

But this is controversial as codecs and bitrate will be different.

The log only show two big hiccups that I can see.

2021-01-10 14:21:09.376 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 206 to x.xxx.xxx.xxx. Time: 27185ms. http://


2021-01-10 14:21:19.164 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 206 to x.xxx.xxx.xxx. Time: 33054ms. http://

 

[elvetemedve 0]

Quote

But this is controversial as codecs and bitrate will be different.

That's true. Just wanted to check if there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the TV.

 

Quote

The log only show two big hiccups that I can see.

Good observation, but still does not explain everything. As far as I can tell Emby Theatre streams the video by requesting ~5 minutes chunks, based on the timestamps in the log. So it depends on when it will ask for the next chunk. For example if it always buffers the next one while paying the current, a ~33 seconds delay should not have effect, because there is still 4 minutes 27 seconds remaining from the first, when the 2nd becomes available.
Here is the system resource usage below from that day. I haven't spotted any issue that keeps repeating during playback.

[elvetemedve 0]

I tried to play the same movie from a HDD attached to the TV via USB. The playback was flawless.

What else can I try to narrow the source of the problem?

[rbjtech 5284]

"Video quality 4K - 40 MBps. I've tested the connection speed on the TV via dslreports.com, it was 60 / 10 Mbps. TV is connected to the network via 5G WiFi.

The Emby server is reached over the Internet. The network download/upload speed is 300/20 MBps on the TV end, and 1000/200 MBps on the server side. No bandwidth limiting or QoS is enabled on the routers in my possession."

So I'm trying to understand the scenario here - you are trying to play a 40 Mbit/sec 4K file from a REMOTE emby server (connected at 1000/200 Mbit/sec - hosted in Boston US ?) to a local LG TV (connected at 300/20 Mbit/sec) - in Hungary ?

Can you do a speedtest on the remote host to see if you really have 200Mbit upload (their end) available ?

International streaming involves latency and unless you have some form of QoS across the entire end-end connection (highly unlikely) then I believe you are asking a bit much to reliably stream 40 Mbit raw 4K.

Netflix etc all use local CDN's - ie local copies of the media to eliminate international hops/latency.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by rbjtech

[elvetemedve 0]

Quote

So I'm trying to understand the scenario here - you are trying to play a 40 Mbit/sec 4K file from a REMOTE emby server (connected at 1000/200 Mbit/sec - hosted in Boston US ?) to a local LG TV (connected at 300/20 Mbit/sec) - in Hungary ?

Sorry, if I wasn't clear enough. Both the client (TV) and server (Emby) are located in Hungary, but in different cities (~30 km from each other). The client has cable Internet connection, while the server has fiber connection. ISPs are different companies, but both provide residential Internet subscription, so QoS might vary.

 

Quote

International streaming involves latency and unless you have some form of QoS across the entire end-end connection (highly unlikely) then I believe you are asking a bit much to reliably stream 40 Mbit raw 4K.

So it's nothing like that I am expecting, though I can argue with that. We are not talking about streaming a live video, where the picture and sound is unknown ahead in time. It's a recoded movie where the bytes are available in advance.

My expectation is that with cleaver calculation of the buffer size, we should get continuous playback, assuming the movie bitrate is lower than the connection speed.
 

Quote

Can you do a speedtest on the remote host to see if you really have 200Mbit upload (their end) available ?

Sure I can do that over the weekend.

Edited January 14, 2021 by elvetemedve

[rbjtech 5284]

ah yes sorry - I looked up the wrong (emby server) source IP - so same country traffic - that should be a lot lower latency and achievable.  As you correctly say, as long as your upload on the server is greater (I would say it needs to be ~30% more to cover overheads) than the need to download on the client, then you should be good.

[elvetemedve 0]

This is the result of the Internet connection speed test where Emby Server is running. ISP says that the guaranteed minium speeds are 300 Mbps down, 75 Mbps up which should be enough. I still think that the problem is not with the network between client and server, but with Emby Theatre. 

[Luke 42080]

On 1/17/2021 at 3:02 PM, elvetemedve said:

This is the result of the Internet connection speed test where Emby Server is running. ISP says that the guaranteed minium speeds are 300 Mbps down, 75 Mbps up which should be enough. I still think that the problem is not with the network between client and server, but with Emby Theatre. 

@elvetemedve I think what you mean to say is that you think there's a problem with the LG video player because that is what our LG app is using. Even though you think this is your max theoretical connection, there could be ISP throttling at play here and that could be happening on either side of the connection.

One thing you could try is to setup SSL on your server, using a certificate that LG devices trust. In some cases we've seen reports that having an encrypted connection is one way to beat isp throttling.