Shield TV user
Live TV is played for 20 minutes and is discontinued.
What was the most stable on the shield tv was 1.12.3.4973.
Why do I get nervous as the version goes up?
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I have the same problem. Any help here? My plex stops every 10-15 minutes if playing live tv. If I pause a live tv show, it stops sooner (after 2 or 3 minutes). This is on Shield client and Windows 10 server. Does not happen on my other clients (windows 10 pc’s). Wife is pretty upset…
are you on a WiFi connection with your Shield TV? I’d constantly get the “Weak Signal” message over WiFi, even though I have full coverage and bars throughout my house. I ran an ethernet cable to my Shield and haven’t had a problem since, and it’s been a few months. I wonder if there’s an issue with the WiFi/Plex App on the Shield TV?
My Plex server is run from a WD MyCloud PR2100.
I’m also having bad stuttering (pauses for a few seconds every minute or so) but only on Live TV with Shield via wifi. Several other use cases and endpoints connected via wifi work just fine (and the Shield is the one right next to the wifi router!). These scenarios are all pretty much flawless:
PMS > 802.11ac > Shield TV: DVR recording
PMS > 802.11n > Fire TV: DVR recording
PMS > 802.11n > Fire TV: Live TV
PMS > 802.11n > Roku: DVR recording
PMS > 802.11n > Roku: Live TV
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the Shield TV is perfect for DVR recordings but terrible for Live TV. I know it’s DirectPlay (DVR) vs. transcoding (Live TV) in my case, but the Live TV transcoding is working fine on the other endpoints.
It’s also true that if I wire the Shield TV to the wireless router, Live TV works fine.
HDHomerun Extends for the tuners, by the way
What do you have the Extends set to in Plex DVR for transcoding? My Shield TV works perfect for Live TV but I do have it wired not wireless. What version is the Plex app on the Shield and what are your settings for Video/Audio in the Plex app for the Shield?
Extends are set to “Highest quality” for Transcoder Quality. Also not sure if the general Plex Transcoder settings could be playing into it (see the attached).
On the Shield side, version 6.17.0.4824. Video quality… adjust auto: off, home streaming: max, H.264 max level: 5.1.
I did think of one other difference for DVR recordings. After recording I run a post-processing script to remux the Extend files to convert the audio to AAC and change the container to MKV. That change allows DirectPlay to work on the Shield. So unlike the DVR recordings, the Live TV side is more pure.
You have the same settings and Plex version as I do on my Shield. The trancoder setting in PMS I have set the Trancoder quality to Automatic instead of the Prefer higher quality encoding that you have. I can watch any Live TV with Direct Play from my HDHR Connects which are not doing any transcoding so I get the straight mpeg2 video delivered. Have you looked at the Now Playing section on your PMS while watching a Live TV Session?
Is your Shield connected to an A/V receiver? If so the A/V receiver might be forcing Plex to do some trancoding. My Shield is connected directly to my TV.
First, thanks so much for the responses and the help!
Ah… the Connects use MPEG2 w/ AC3 natively which can DirectPlay on the Shield, right? I believe the Extend outputs a H.264 with AC3 audio… which is not DirectPlay:
Shield is connected to the TV directly. I also have a Connect that I can test with, believe it or not. I’ll mess around with that as well as some other transcode settings and report back.
From your screenshot the Extend is outputting a H264 Video stream with AC3 Audio. Interesting that it is transcoding the video. What type of TV is the Shield connected to? I assume it can handle a 1080 video. Have you tried using the High Quality setting on the Extend? High Quality reduces the video from 1080 to 720 and removes any interlacing that the Highest Quality does not alter. So from the Extend you would get a 720p video.
I get the same results when using my Shield TV with Shield PMS Server connected with my Extend also set to Highest Quality.
Direct Play with no buffering.
Can you press the down on the navigation button on the Shield remote to get the on screen display of current session?
Oh my god, you just made my week, @johnm_ColaSC! With your help in this thread and in your DM, I was able to pinpoint and resolve the issue.
So I added the Connect for testing purposes and found that Live TV was not Direct Play on the Shield either:
The second screenshot is why I originally thought the Shield didn’t support AC3 and then jumped through hoops to convert the audio (and container) with the post-processing script to get Direct Play to work.
But you were on the right track with the endpoint settings. As it turns out, I had Surround Sound set to “never” in the Shield settings. I turned that off since I have a soundbar attached, and much of the time I get a pop/hiss when I start playback on Plex (I can live with that!). After setting Surround Sound back to “auto” (the default), I’m now getting Direct Play for Live TV using both the Connect and the Extend!
I guess disabling surround sound on my Shield (and not allowing Plex to do AC3 passthrough) led to AC3 not being supported on Plex and transcoding was forced.
I can also report that I can now remove the post-processing script since my DVR recordings Direct Play with no modification. Actually my whole library is working better (Direct Play) since many of the movies also had AC3 (so it had to transcode).
Thanks so much for the assistance!
Glad you figured it out. As you discovers pretty much everything dealing with transcoding has to do with the client (endpoint) capabilities it is reporting to Plex.
is shield the only endpoint that can go direct? i have apple tv 4k, and samsung tv, and both applications transcode. I thought that plex wouldn’t pass mpeg2 direct from hdhomerun? i’d love to stream live tv from plex but it buffers so much due to transcoding. channels app on apple tv direct plays the hdhomerun, so i know its capable.
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I know very little about the Apple TV, but I think Direct Play is possible on many different Plex endpoints. From my experience (especially with the Shield and FireTV), it requires delivering the video codec, audio codec, and container that can be natively decoded by the endpoint. As an example, recordings from a HDHomerun Connect tuner (MPEG2 & AC3 in a TS container) can Direct Play on the Shield TV (and I think the newer Fire TVs).
