Just curious what other users experience is with the LiveTV feature. Not complaining at all, just wondering.
From the time I choose to start watching a program, it takes about 15 seconds. After the click, around 10 seconds later I get the picture , then it continues to buffer while the picture freezes for another 5 seconds or so, then all is good after that. My setup is a Windows 10 server with the latest i5 processor, Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD tuner.
And what client are you using?
It’s about this same time no matter the client… Rokus, web, and FireTV.
All those clients require transcoding. Shield and Android phones tablets etc take me just under 10 seconds
same here on Shield but frankly anything more than a couple of seconds is too long.
@tachtevrenidis that IMO is likely an unrealistic expectation. you are not playing directly to the device. channel tuning in general takes that long. If I use the HDHomerun app which tunes directly to the device I will get that response. In Plex so that tv is available outside of your home network the server tunes that channel directly and then has to begin to collect enough data to then in turn stream out to your device. There has to be some type of buffer. It is the trade off of instant access on internal network only direct to device streaming from tuner vs streaming to a server that can then send to any device inside or outside the network. I would like to see it a little quicker but there will always need to be some buffer to the server for delivery to other devices. To me if they hit 5 seconds they are getting the 2 second tune form the tuner and then only buffering 3 seconds worth of video before delivering to clients.
Most clients take around 10-15 seconds to start playback for me, with a mixture of that being pure starting time and some then being buffering. I wouldn’t mind 5 seconds for example, but 15+ seconds in some circumstances makes the whole experience feel sluggish, especially if you’re channel surfing, trying to find something to watch. The worst offender I find is the web player.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to speed up the starting, especially when I’m already using an amd 8350 and an SSD for the transcode directory.
(I’m using a new hdhomerun Quadro in the UK)
Yeah, I have been using the web client mostly, and it does seem to take a couple seconds longer then the Roku. One day I’ll get one of those fancy nVidia Shield clients!
One of my PMS is also my main client. It takes roughly 10 seconds to tune on HDHR primes. Same machine also runs WMC also using a HDHR (separate from the 2 plex has), and it takes under 2 seconds. If the 10 seconds is solely due to buffering, then that somehow needs to be removed on internal when not needed. I am keeping my machine Windows 7 for WMC purely for channel surfing at this point as it is near instantaneous. I don’t mind it on other devices or outside of network. But it seems like the buffering is being forced when not required.
You often see on the web client that it’s buffered a decent amount before it starts playback, (you’ll see it’s buffered ahead and still continuing to buffer). I have the hdhomerun app installed on all my devices for when I can’t deal with the Plex live TV implementation
There seems to be around a 5 second difference between clients that need transcoding and those that do not. I see around 10 seconds for direct streaming and 15+ for transcoded. Mostly down to the buffering is my guess then. Just especially annoying when transcoding normal media takes only 3 seconds for playback to start and then when you try to use live tv it takes around 15 seconds.
@BRBMan said:
@tachtevrenidis that IMO is likely an unrealistic expectation. you are not playing directly to the device. channel tuning in general takes that long. If I use the HDHomerun app which tunes directly to the device I will get that response. In Plex so that tv is available outside of your home network the server tunes that channel directly and then has to begin to collect enough data to then in turn stream out to your device. There has to be some type of buffer. It is the trade off of instant access on internal network only direct to device streaming from tuner vs streaming to a server that can then send to any device inside or outside the network. I would like to see it a little quicker but there will always need to be some buffer to the server for delivery to other devices. To me if they hit 5 seconds they are getting the 2 second tune form the tuner and then only buffering 3 seconds worth of video before delivering to clients.
@BRBMan, no I get it. BUT! Have you seen for example on file sync clients, when you have like 10GB of stuff synced from the cloud to your desktop and then you install the sync client to your laptop and that 10GB get synced within 30 seconds (where it should take 5 mins on fast cable internet). The trick here being that the server repoints the client to the other place INSIDE the same LAN where the same content exists and then instead of downloading from the cloud, it copies them over from your desktop through a direct connection? Plex needs something similar to this. If you are firing live tv from inside the same network as your tuner, then it should hand you off to your tuner directly so live TV starts near instantly. Of course that comes with drawbacks, like you can’t record that show (because the buffer is local to the client, not on the PMS) but hey it can’t do that today anyway. There is a way to get this done!
An update here. The android tv update that dropped yesterday made it so tuning into any channel on live tv, happens within 3 secs! The improvement is dramatic.
@tachtevrenidis said:
An update here. The android tv update that dropped yesterday made it so tuning into any channel on live tv, happens within 3 secs! The improvement is dramatic.
Nice. I can’t wait until I save up enough to get me a nVidia Shield TV !!
@tachtevrenidis said:
An update here. The android tv update that dropped yesterday made it so tuning into any channel on live tv, happens within 3 secs! The improvement is dramatic.
definitely faster but I am not seeing 3 seconds more like 6 . Once I got 4. Definitely an improvement. Server and Shield Direct cable connected to gigabit router
Ive noticed it is much quicker now on my shield. It still needs to be faster, i imagine this is why the grid EPG is taking so long as when people are channel surfing the tuning speed needs to fast.
I also noticed it is quicker on the FireStick but not as dramatic as the Shield plus the FireStick has its own issues like for me, no matter how good your connection is, playing live TV (DirectPlay, MPEG2VIDEO, 1080) always freezes every 5 seconds or so. 720 MPEG2VIDEO does not do that. I usually have to ask for a transcode of the 1080 and bring it down to 720. I just don’t think that the FireStick can keep up with that.
Depending on the channel it takes me about 10 seconds to tune a channel to Nvidia Shield from my 8th gen i7 Windows Box running a hauppauge quadhd. Far too long unfortunately.
@user02010 are you sure you have the latest plex app on the Shield? Also I assume that using any other software on the same capture card, playback starts within a sec or two? I would make sure that when LiveTV start, it is DirectPlaying and not transcoding…
Can the Shield direct play recorded ATSC content? I assume it’s MPEG2 or something like that.
