Live TV starts to skip or drop frames after 10 or so minutes on Shield TV

General Discussions Plex Features
1

Watching 1080i channels (CBS and NBC) I noticed this morning that after 10 minutes or so the smoothness is gone and frame skipping or dropping is evident. Something that messes with the cadence, that’s all I know. In Plex this is with resolution switching on or off.

I’ve also noticed this with live channels using via the TVIRL app which uses my dvblink backend. So, this is with two different backends (Plex and dvblink) but both apparently use the Shield TV’'s built in video player.

I’m using the 5.2 experience preview. Could this be a bug in the 5.2 preview?

Of note, SPMC using mediacodec surface with the dvblink backend does NOT have this problem.

Logs attached.

2

Can we get client logs for this?

Go into Settings and enable ‘Network Logging’ then you’ll see a URL on the bottom. Open that url in a browser, copy the contents to http://gist.github.com or pastebin.com and link the file?

Thanks!

3

@keithah said:
Can we get client logs for this?

Go into Settings and enable ‘Network Logging’ then you’ll see a URL on the bottom. Open that url in a browser, copy the contents to http://gist.github.com or pastebin.com and link the file?

Thanks!

I sent you a message with the link to the log on github

4

Same issue here. Also the Live Channels app do have this issue on the Shield and exoplayer. VLC works fine with 1080i.

Only interlaced streams are affected. 720p channles are fine. This issue exists since the release of the Shield when you use the exoplayer and interlaced streams.

5

@plexip said:
Same issue here. Also the Live Channels app do have this issue on the Shield and exoplayer. VLC works fine with 1080i.

Only interlaced streams are affected. 720p channles are fine. This issue exists since the release of the Shield when you use the exoplayer and interlaced streams.

Thanks for that info. I’ve never extensively watched using exoplayer/live channels. It’s always been a Kodi variant until now.

6

The Live Channels projects are using a workaroud (resetting codecs every 13 minutes):

https://github.com/pipelka/roboTV/blob/master/app/src/main/java/org/xvdr/player/video/ShieldVideoRenderer.java

But resolving this long outstanding issue would be amazing.

7

@plexip said:
The Live Channels projects are using a workaroud (resetting codecs every 13 minutes):

https://github.com/kiall/android-tvheadend/blob/master/app/src/main/java/ie/macinnes/tvheadend/player/ShieldVideoRenderer.java

https://github.com/pipelka/roboTV/blob/master/app/src/main/java/org/xvdr/player/video/ShieldVideoRenderer.java

But resolving this long outstanding issue would be amazing.

But it sounds like here is the wrong place to bring it up? I have mentioned it in the experience 5.2 preview hidden thread. Any idea why Nvidia have not fixed it already?

8

Bring it up here is a good place. Plex is working together with NVIDIA. Hopefully they can open a ticket at NVIDIA with this issue.

All Shield TV users with interlaced (e.g. 1080i) streams are affected. The Live TV experience is very bad after ~15 minutes. I would say, it is not usable. That is the reason why our household is not using Plex Live TV and we are still using Live Channels (with the workaround in the apps).

The Live Channels apps (Tvheadend & RoboTV) workaround -as the name says- is only a workaround and not a solution. Every 13 minutes you still have a short stutter for 1 second when the renderer would be restarted. On live sports it is acceptable but not really beautiful.

This big issue needs to be fixed by NVIDIA or ExoPlayer itself.

To reproduce it. Get a 1080i stream/file and wait ~15 minutes :wink:

9

I can provide client logs later after work. If you need a 25min example stream, I can also record a sample file.

10

I was told in a message to provide feedback to Nvidia through the shield tv interface. I did so.

But, for now I’ve gone back to using dvblink backend with MrMC or SPMC frontend (via add-on). No problem there and I like the grid guide much better.

11

Or Plex creates their own Shield TV workaround for this player issues until it get fixed upstream.

For Europe Transcode the stream:
1080i50 to 1080p50
576i50 to 576p50

12

@keithah
Here you will find my Plex SHIELD TV client log if I play the attached recorded 1080i show:
https://pastebin.com/1ndHQmK1

No indicator in the logs if the stuttering starts.

Inside of the example record file, there is a clock which starts at:
13:26

The stuttering starts at around (during second commercial):
13:57

Used example 1080i file to reproduce the issue (1,8GB):
<deleted>

Note: Do not use the player controls (backward, forward) because this will reset something and the counter starts from zero (stuttering stops).

13

@keithah any update on this issue? thx

14

Any updates?