My setup: OTA HD Antenna (comes in crystal clear, strong signals) going to an HDHomeRun Connect Quatro, gigabit ethernet back to new Dell T130 server running Windows 10 Pro fully patched with latest version of Plex Media Server installed, version 1.13.0.5003. This server has a single E3-1270 v6 processor and 32GB of ECC RAM. Has 4 4TB Toshiba NAS SATA drives ,7200 RPM, configured in RAID 10 connected to an H730 hardware RAID card w/ 2GB cache.
Do have Malwarebytes installed but have set exclusions on folder (libraries) where recordings are saved into.
I am not pushing this server hard at all…yet always have problems with playback of recorded shows such as stuttering, scrambled image and garbled audio, etc. It does it to my recordings every few seconds…sort of randomly. Sometimes the audio pops. Basically, every show is unwatchable. Movies I’ve ripped from my DVD’s plays back perfectly fine. I tried playing the DVR recorded shows back from an Xbox One X (full 1Gbps wired ethernet to PMS server), an Amazon Fire TV (wireless), a computer next to PMS, and even on the PMS itself. All DVR’d shows exhibit exact same issues, even when viewing the local file on the PMS server itself so it has nothing to do with streaming…seems like the issue is somewhere when it records.
I’m not recording multiple shows…it happens even when there is only one show and no one is watching anything or doing anything else on the server, no maintenance tasks are running. Basically, there is no way this server is even breaking a sweat when recording.
I’ve tried changing DVR device settings, switching convert video while recording from off to transcode and back again after confirming it did nothing to help.
I know there are a million variables to consider but any ideas? Others having similar issues?
Here is an example video of a recording w/ issues…
I’m having the same issue with AMD phenom ii 1045t, 8GB Ram, 2 4tb HDD storage, 128SSD OS/recording, Win 10Pro, 2 HDhomerun Connect DUO (Record 4 channels at the same time), 1GBps ehternet network.
I have the same issue. I dont remember having this issue until the last few days. Maybe a bad update? Running an FX-6300, 8GB DDR3, 512GB SSD (for the main Plex install) 3 - 3TB HDD for the media, windows 10 pro, Home Run Prime. I Don’t recall having this issue prior to my upgrade last weekend. I swapped out my old 120GB ssd to the 512 and performed a fresh install of windows 10 Pro 1803. Seems hit or miss though. Yesterdays recordings were fine, todays were bad, unless its happening during the commercials that are removed.
I’m experiencing the same issues as well. I haven’t been able to determine what is happening yet. I’m not sure if it is a software update issue or if the weather changes are affecting the OTA signal.
A few bites for helping, but to no avail. I have tried updating the firmware for the HDHomeRun tuners. Do not yet know if there’s been an improvement. I’ve also turned off the commercial skipping, which does not seem to help. It seems to be hitting CBS and the CW mostly for me.
I have changed settings with no luck. Now it seems to happen on everything I record. I Tried to watch stuff from CW, Syfy, and usa. All had the issues only 1 of the 4 shows was somewhat watchable. Funny part is this issue is why I switched to cable and the prime. I figured my ota signal was the culprit but that’s not the case. I am trying out an SSD to record too. Figured it’s worth a shot maybe my hdd is failing or too slow to keep up. I will report back in a couple weeks if that fixes it for me or not.
Did use of an SSD help? Right now, I have my OS and Data on one large RAID10 disk set, C drive is OS and D drive is media files. Was thinking that buying an SSD and moving my OS to that would help but I really struggle with thinking this is even a disk performance issue as the RAID10 isn’t even close to breaking a sweat when recording a show (and in our case we are lightweight users so it’s rarely doing anymore than one thing at a time).
Something I have noticed is that when using the HDHomerun app itself to watch live tv there is slight scrambling (very nonintrusive but noticeable) and I’m wondering if when that happens, the Plex server picks up on it and it results in the major appearance of scrambling and skipping that we see when playing that recording back. Just a guess but it does seem suspect.
Anyway, would still love to hear from others on their overall experience.
I was hopeful for a few short moments. I haven’t really used it since I made the SSD change as I had a lot of Hulu and Netflix to catch up on. I finally sat down to watch some episodes the first couple played great but the last two had rough spots. Certainly not unwatchable like some of the ones prior but only time will tell if SSD improved anything. I also recently upgraded my gaming PC to a ryzen so I moved my old gaming parts into the Plex server. It now has an amd fx-8350 with 16GB ddr3 ram with the 512GB SSD and a small 2GB GeForce gpu.
I was using a 5400rpm wd green drive previously. Given your raid setup I doubt it would help your situation and I may just be lucky at the moment with my recordings not being complete junk. Again I have only watched a few. I have alot more to get through.
I’m leaning towards your theory with it being a small hiccup with the HD homerun and Plex magnifies it as it has no clue what happened. I have never use the app to watch live TV but its a good theory you have. I haven’t checked for any firmware updates on the tuner since I installed it. Maybe there is something out. Anyone else have more to add?
I wonder if plex will get support to DVR hdhomerun new streaming service. If so and it records better I will cancel the cable. https://www.silicondust.com/premium-tv/
I think i might be on to something. It will get a good test during the next two weeks as everything starts back up. I Picked up 2 Intel Nics that with some tweaking allows for Nic Teaming in Windows 10. I have a 3Gbps connection now to my plex server via the 3 adapters set up in load balancing. So far the first few Episodes look way better then before. I haven’t watched any yet but i skim through them to rip out the commercials with MCE Buddy. Just skimming through was a massive improvement. I have been fooled before though where it runs good for a few days and then hit bad recordings. I will update in a couple weeks if things stay good. Along with the parts i brought and how to configure it all.
After the first week and a half of the fall season i think i have the problem mostly solved. It still pixelates a few times an episode but extremely brief and it doesn’t create choppy audio anymore. I do not miss important scenes like before where between the pixalation and the choppy audio i could miss upwards of 5+mins of episodes which would render them unwatchable if during a key scene.
This is about as bad as it gets and i had to rewind it about half a dozen times in order to pause in on the specific moment it happened. Again it clears up within a second or 2 and it doesn’t impact the audio at all. If you want to know how i did it feel free to reply and i will take the time to document all the steps i took.
I’ve got exactly the same issue with HDHomerun and Plex on Synology DS415+. Recordings are bad when played by any method e.g. VLC on Windows 7, Ubuntu, iPad, etc. Recordings made with HDHomerun DVR and another DVR app I had installed were fine. I got a lifetime 'script because of Comskip integration. Is nobody going to fix this?
Live TV via HDHomerun apps are fine as of this moment. It’s only Plex recordings that are bad.
I’m interested in this thread. We use HDHomerun to schedule and record and PLEX for remote viewing, but I’ve noticed lately many recordings start out fine, but become scrambled and unwatchable (as described in the thread title). I live about 40 miles from the broadcast towers, so there’s always the possibility of OTA issues. I always get the feeling that the recording engines (HD or PLEX) have a hard time recovering from any OTA hiccups. Do you know what I mean?
Going with the idea that available bandwidth may have been causing the problem I hooked up the second NIC port on my Intel NUC and set up the Intel Advanced Network Service for Adaptive Load Balancing. I was already on a Gb network so this should presumably get me 2Gb of throughput.
Recording the same 3 shows last night that failed last week finally succeeded. I’m cautiously optimistic this has fixed the problem. My only concern is how can the system really be cranking through > 1Gb/s of data on the network?
Is it still working good for you? I ended up having to move my Plex to another room and still working on getting it set back up. Before I moved the server I also subscribed to hdhomerun’s DVR service to give it a shot and see if it runs better.
