On another whim, I purchased an ATV4, to arrive later this week. Given that Rokus buffer, and Amazons interlace, what can I expect with the Apple TV? BTW, the ATV4 will be hard-wired, no wifi is not an issue.
Actually if you have good AC wifi where your ATV will be put that may be better. The nic interface on the ATV is 10/100mb and I would hit only about 60-70mb download. If I connect to my AC router wifi i hit about 320mb download speed of my 350mb download speed. The ATV is actually the only tv device i use wifi on. As opposed to the Nvidia shield which has gigabit Ethernet. In reference to you original question the ATV is my second favorite player behind the Shield TV but I would also add even my old Roku doesn’t buffer so not sure what you have going on there. I agree never been a big fan of the amazon TV and it was short lived in my home.
@BRBMan – Ok. I have a slightly better feeling that I didn’t waste yet more money. The Rokus that buffer - one, a Roku 3 is ethernet; the Premiere+ is AC wifi. Both buffer constantly. The wired one buffers then resets. And, yes, I have a good AC router mounted on the ceiling not far from the TV. So, as long as there’s no (severe) buffering or interlace artifacts, I’ll feel I made a good purchase, and out goes the Fire TV (ebay). Thanks for your input.
@lmolter I would actually say the ATV is probably the go to for the wife and children from and ease of use stance. I prefer the Shield simply because of the power and vast codec support. If I am watching bluray rip with DTS-HD or Truehd I am using Shield. What are you using for your plex server, transcoding on a weak server could be your biggest issue if you are comfortable with your network.
@BRBMan Well… I’ve got Plex running on a Synology NAS. Not a lot of horsepower, but… the HDHR Extend transcodes on the fly (right?), so do I really have an issue? So far, everything has been acceptable except the newest Plex PMS and the HDHR firmware seem to be working against me.
@lmolter thats a good question. It all really depends on how you set it up. I assume you have set the Extend to transcode in the DVR settings. The thing i wonder is if you capture the straight stream meaning no postprocessing. Do you see it as an mp4 format. it sounds to me like when you play it back something about the codecs captured are not natively played on the Roku so you get transcoding and low power = buffering. Of course just speculating without seeing how you have things set. I use a windows 10 pc as my server so transcoding is not usual. the easiest way to tell if it is having to transcode is when you play it back open the plex web interface in your browser, on the top right click status and then now playing. When you hover over the show playing back on the roku does it show direct or transcoding?
@BRBMan I will check later tonight after I get home. When I use the Plex app on the Samsung TV (and it’s a nicer app than the other devices and… no buffering or other anomalies), is says ‘Direct Play’ along the bottom of the screen. Never noticed on the other apps. Will check. It’s a good point and thanks for thinking of it. To be continued…
BEWARE! Have a read through the Apple TV forum here to see how poorly he Plex ATV client works. There are long standing (over a year) issues that hadn’t been addressed. It seems the ATV Plex developers don’t update the app frequently with anything more than a couple of fixes.
I’ve had so much trouble with playing back 1080p DVR recordings on my ATV4 that I’m about to either quit Plex or buy an android TV device to try out. And the issues aren’t on my end as I have asked friends to check on their systems witht the same issues.
Sadly no assistance from anyone at Plex…
I love my ATV4 but Plex’s app on it is frankly very poor and among the worse ones out there (except Plex Media Player which is well an abomination)
@jayz78 – Fudge. What about Channels for the ATV? Do I really need Plex?
@BRBMan – The Plex on the wifi Roku said that direct play was disabled. Transcode reason: mpegts container not supported. So I go to Plex settings and what? What do I choose? Here’s what I want: I want Plex support (or someone trustworthy) to publish a list of Plex settings for each streaming device. Daunting task? No. And… for each of the HDHR tuners. An X by Y grid of settings. How many variations can there be? Well, maybe a lot.
So, I’ve got 2 HDHR Extends. What transcode settings on them? What settings for Plex client on Roku? What settings for Plex client on Amazon devices? For all I know now, I’ve got them all mixed up. I told my wife that if things don’t stabilize by the fall season, I’m back to cable. I’ve got a nice ChannelMaster antenna, 2 HDHR EXtends, a 4-port distribution amp, 3 FireSticks, one Fire TV, and 2 Rokus available when that happens. Maybe I’ll keep the ATV4 and the Rokus.
@lmolter said:
@jayz78 – Fudge. What about Channels for the ATV? Do I really need Plex?
I use Channels app on the ATV and it’s excellent. Unfortunately no DVR functionality only live TV where I am (Australia). The developers of the app are also extremely good at following up on issues and providing excellent service.
@jayz78 - I thought the Channels app now has a public beta DVR? I was counting on it. Actually, we shouldn’t be discussing other apps here. And what time is it there?
@lmolter said:
@jayz78 - I thought the Channels app now has a public beta DVR? I was counting on it. Actually, we shouldn’t be discussing other apps here. And what time is it there?
Oh yeah they have DVR, it’s just that the Guide service isn’t available in Australia yet so the DVR isn’t active here yet…may be later this year. I hear their DVR service works REALLY well even though it’s beta…,just a bit expensive though
It’s 10am here.
@lmolter yes channels does have a dvr. All i can say is i have not experienced any issue with ATV and I play anything from straight Bluray rips to DVR recordings. In regards to your questions it seems it is transcoding because you are playing straight OTA mpeg ts captures. There are several places to set your transcoding on the extend. By default it is not turned on. you have to turn it on. You can set it as the default on http: http://my.hdhomerun.com/ Select your tuner then transcode configuration and try either “heavy” or “Mobile” out of curiosity take notice as to what these were before you change them. it should look like this.
You can also open plex web and chose Server, Settings, DVR and then device configuration. There you can also set the transcode profile. Should look like this.
I would try heavy or mobile at both places, then record something short and see what the file format is then and if you get the same transcoding on the roku.
This setting should work on most all the devices. The lower you go down the smaller it is and the worse the quality but the easier to play. I probably wouldnt go below “high” or “mobile” that way you still get HD
I made the changes and did some recording the other night. I’ll watch now and see if the interlacing and buffering have decreased.
@BRBMan – Well… I think I can live with slightly less quality. Interlace and buffering annoyances have been sharply reduced. And… I decided to return the ATV4 when it arrives. I think I’ll stick this out and try to make the best of what I’ve got. It’ll cost too much to keep the ATV4, buy the Channels app and whatever subscription is needed, and buy another ATV4 for the second TV because all my recordings will be on Channels and not Plex. Let’s see how this plays out.
I monitored the Plex server while shows were playing and Plex used Direct for audio and video for all devices. Oops, no. Converted the audio for the Roku.
Still have to test the TV in the bedroom with the Roku Premier+ and a FireStick. See if Plex transcodes anything. Why both? DirecTv Now looks better on the Roku, but I have to watch the Plex DVR on the Fire devices due to excessive buffering. And, yes, the family is able to keep up with the shenanigans. It can only get better.
@lmolter did you use heavy or mobile.
Also I came across this which you might find helpful/
@BRBMan – Great article. Thanks for passing that along. I did make the same changes to Plex and the tuners last night and… one of the shows that I record every night was stuck at 100% with the orange circle but not watchable. Another show I recorded earlier with different but similar settings played back much better. I’m hoping tonight’s recordings go well.
@lmolter the spinning circle stuck recording seems to be a bug in the latest release, I am having problems with that and it’s all over the board with no real solution. Hopefully fixed in future releases
