@Allerun said:
I’ve updated to the latest version (6.3.4.1485) and there is still massive lag on live tv. Recordings are fine. Guess I’m switching to a Shield or ATV.
FYI, I’m using a shield tv with a Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD TV Tuner and experience audio lag only when watching live tv.
That’s interesting. I figured it was the low powered components in my Bravia that was causing the issue, but if it’s happening on a much more powerful Shield TV then it may be the app itself. But this release was actually supposed to address the lag issues on Bravia TVs running Android 6. Anyone else having this problem still?
I think the 1.9.0.x server update may have finally gone a long way to resolving this for us.
Since the update this afternoon, I have had two recordings on my problem channel play back flawlessly. Seriously, this has been the first DVR playback session that’s actually felt like we were watching DVR from cable.
Just tuned into Colbert on the same channel for 25 minutes, and it seemed spot-on as well. Let me know if you have good results with the 1.9.x server update and latest public release from Google Play, because I feel like it’s finally headed in the right direction.
This update also addressed my issue with multiple HDHomeRun Extends, so one day in, I’m feeling like they’re finally starting to get things in order with DVR/Live TV.
Edit: Two days in, and I’m not feeling quite as optimistic. CBS, PBS, NBC, and ABC seem good, but I recorded MasterChef on Fox tonight, since a friend who also bought a Bravia is thinking about making the switch as well and cited Hulu dropping MasterChef as one of his motivations. The sync problems returned both for the Live TV session and the resulting recording.
So, I still have sync issues with ATV, even with DVRed shows and that wasn’t really happening before, but web, iOS and FireTV all seem to be okay. I’m chalking this up to awful Bravia processing hardware and/or the ATV app itself, neither of which I can do anything about.
You know, I was playing around with this today and I came upon something interesting.
I decided to remux a problem DVR recording, and picking through the ffmpeg output, I notice what is either a bug in ffmpeg/libavcodec, or it’s the anticipated consequence of a source audio dropout:
...
frame=14628 fps=550 q=-1.0 size= 141404kB time=00:09:52.74
[ac3 @ 0x55a891825b00] exponent -1 is out-of-range
[ac3 @ 0x55a891825b00] error decoding the audio block
[ac3 @ 0x55a891825b00] exponent -2 is out-of-range
[ac3 @ 0x55a891825b00] error decoding the audio block
frame=14829 fps=548 q=-1.0 size= 142839kB time=00:10:03.30
...
So I decided to compare the way that Plex/the Bravia handles that section of video, both in the original .ts and the remuxed .mkv:
Notice that the original .ts falls out of sync right in the middle of the 10-second stretch where ffmpeg fails to decode the audio block? When you force a remux or trancode, ffmpeg appears to drop the bad section of the block and preserves sync. It’s starting to make sense why rewinding and fast-forwarding beyond the corrupted block resyncs the audio. Perhaps this is an issue with the Android TV’s default player not maintaining sync when crossing a bad block and not an issue with Plex at all (iOS doesn’t appear to support the .ts container at all, so you get a remux/transcode automatically). Or perhaps it should be the server’s responsibility to drop bad audio blocks during capture, and it’s simply not doing so. Maybe the best case scenario would be that this is a bug in PMS that occurs from time-to-time when PMS splits/joins/transitions between .ts segments during a Live TV session or assembles them before adding the recording to the Library for DVR. It doesn’t occur when using the HDHomeRun Viewer, so that leads me to believe it’s on Plex handling/processing the incoming stream.
That doesn’t explain why this issue is so-often reported for the Bravias and so-seldom reported for the Shield TVs, but the sync loss is entirely consistent with ffmpeg’s output during remux, and it does explain why forcing a transcode/remux prevents the problem from occurring, and also why skipping forward and back restores sync.
@OttoKerner, any thoughts about a relevant Plex team member I could tag who might be inclined to weigh in on this?
For now, I’ll just re-enable my post-process remux, since it will at least sidestep the sync issues for DVR playback. Man, I wish we could get back the remux to .mkv option. Live TV/DVR CC/subtitles don’t work on Android TV anyway.
Yeah, I see what you mean. But why would the shield be able to recover sync on the .ts and the Bravias can’t? The sync should be controlled by timestamps in the file like other video formats, which seem to do okay (as evidenced by the transcoded streams doing okay).
That’s a fair question, and I assume this does have something to do with poor support for the container or AC3 audio on our hardware, but the ultimate source of the problem is in the captured media. I’m not exactly defending the Bravia, but I’m inclined to blame it less now than I was previously. I’m now extracting and backing up the relevant sections of the ffmpeg logs along with the original .ts files when AC3 errors are identified in the ffmpeg output, and let me tell you, they’re quite frequent. I’m feeling very confident that if I were to remux an mkv (bad blocks corrected) back to ts, the audio would remain in sync throughout playback on the Bravia. As I think we’ve already established, the whole situation sucks, but it is resolvable, either by Plex re-implementing the re-mux option, or better yet, addressing the issue at the point of capture.
@Allerun, are you still on Android 6.x? The 2017 Bravia (already on 7.0 for months and still experiencing the issue) just received a system update BRAVIA_ATV2_UC-user 7.0 NRD91N.S86 1.6.0.26.69.1.00. Includes kernel version 3.10.79 from September 11th, 2017.
I was watching the morning news and had experienced a number of sync issues immediately prior to the system update; after the update, sync seems perfect. I’ve watched it through two small video breakups over 30 minutes and sync has been maintained beautifully throughout playback. I’m about to revisit the beginning of the corresponding DVR recording, but I’m hoping your Bravia is finally on the 7.x update channel to see whether things are any better on your end when you receive the latest system update.
Now watching Fox, which has always produced this issue regularly, and it maintained perfect sync for as long as I could tolerate Judge Mathis (15 minutes).
Nope, I’m still waiting for Sony to release 7 for the 810c series. I think the e and d series have it now, but not the c.
@fecaleagle I no longer use the Android TV. I sold it and bought a Samsung TV. I got very frustrated with Android…
@Boron78 said:
@fecaleagle I no longer use the Android TV. I sold it and bought a Samsung TV. I got very frustrated with Android…
Smart man. 
I should have done the same thing… Live TV is doing really well for me again today. May just be hitting a lucky stretch, but things are getting quite tolerable all the sudden. The home screen and UI generally seem snappier after the update, which was my other big frustration with the Sony Android TV implementation.
