Channel streaming problem

[walktheway]

I'm still beating on the VLC channel project.

 

I'm trying to resolve a couple streaming issues.

See:  https://github.com/wtw2/VLC_Channel/blob/master/Problem%20Logs/Plex%20Media%20Server%20AAC.log

 

1) When VLC is streaming out H264 and AAC I have both success and failure.

In the first 2 cases I'm using the Plex/Web integrated interface.

At line 1118 PMS finds input audio and video content.  However, it only outputs the audio.  The web player shows a black screen and plays the audio.

If I simply try again (back arrow out and run the VCO again) see line 1711, it outputs both audio and video.  There do seem to be some issues/errors reported in the log.  Both the audio and video are displayed in the web player and it looks fine.

I can then stop it and play it again and it works the same.

 

However, if I try to view the same source through Roku, it always gets no video (audio only), see line 3000.

 

I don't know if this is a problem with the VLC output stream encoding, with PMS, or just with the fact that PMS is catching the stream on the fly (i.e. not at the beginning).

 

**** (UPDATE) I tried to make sure the players (web and Roku) started before VLC started streaming its output.  Now, Roku displays both the video and the audio (AAC).  I guess that PMS has an issue dealing with a stream when starting from mid-stream, not from the beginning.

Is PMS supposed to be able to attach mid-stream?

 

2) If I use H264 and MP2 encoding, it works reliably, even for mid-stream, on both players (web and Roku).  Plex transcodes and repackages the VLC stream into an HLS format putting 7 seconds of content in each file (same as for issue (1) above).  On the web player, the player starts playing the content pretty much as soon as the first file is finished.  However, on the Roku, Plex accumulates about 50 of the 7 second files before Roku starts to play any of them.

 

**** (UPDATE) When using AAC, and the Roku gets the stream from the beginning, it still waited until about 50 of the 7 second files were generated before it started playing the stream. But it did play both video and audio reliably. See: https://raw.github.com/wtw2/VLC_Channel/master/Problem%20Logs/Plex%20Media%20Server%20AAC%20Roku%20not-mid-stream.log

at about line 811.  Some errors at line 827

 

Can anyone provide some insight on these issues and how I might be able to resolve them?

Issue (1) should PMS be able to attach mid-stream?

Issue (2) why does PMS seem to be less able or unable to attach when AAC audio encoding is included rather than MP2?

Issue (3) why is Roku or PMS waiting so long and accumulating so many HLS files before Roku starts playing the content?

Issue (4) should PMS be keeping all the HLS files until the end of the video is reached?

   This is a nice feature for reviewing what was already played.  It does use some disk space though.  I thought that it would delete a file after it was played.  Maybe not.

 

Thanks.

 

[walktheway]

It appears that the VLC AAC codec is not ready for prime time.  It is listed as experimental.  So I guess that it is not a surprise that Plex and/or Roku find it is missing information.  If I identify the audio codec as AAC, the stream stops on the first HLS file.  If the wrong identifier is passed, the transcoder is invoked and it cleans up the stream, so it works.  When I use mp2, all works fine.  No errors.

It appears that Plex can deal well with a mid-stream source.  The problem was the AAC issue.  I only started using AAC because Roku seems to request it as Plex always seems to transcode to AAC for Roku.

The only remaining problem is the excessive delay on Roku.  Why is Roku waiting for 50  7-second HLS files to accumulate before it starts playing the stream?

The Plex integrated web player starts as soon as the first file is completed.

Thanks.

[walktheway]

This thread is closed.

I have sufficiently resolved these issues.

Thanks.