Time for an update . . . (repost)
Okay, I have no real new news here . . . the :03 hangs (and sometimes the :33 hangs) continue to plague my setup. For those that have speed-read the last dozen or so posts above, I can summarize the issue as follows:
This seems to mainly affect Nvidia Shield TV devices, when streaming Live TV via a local Plex Media Server via HDHomerun tuner. Although I personally feel the issue is mainly with the Plex Player app running on Shield device.
The 10,000ft view : Plex Player never actually plays “live” TV, because technically there is always a second or two lag/delay by the time the OTA tuner stream is temporarily encoded onto the local PMS, where then the Player fetches the encoded stream in 1-second batches in a first-in first-out (FIFO) stream “buffering” technique. Therefore, if one were to “pause” or “rewind” (aka time-shift) Live TV, you would be widening this FIFO delay respectively. Catching back up to the front, Live TV, would put the Player yet again at that 1 to 2 seconds just behind the OTA’s live broadcast once again (smallest buffer gap).
The problem - how we interpret it - is that when the buffer is at it’s smallest (aka streaming nearly real-time TV), and the current broadcast program eventually concludes (transitions to the next), say on the hour (or half-hour), the Player app somehow mishandles, hiccups, otherwise losses a timing resource check metric with the server. However, instead of crashing at that moment, the Player still continues to play the active stream for roughly another 3 minutes, which is now into the new TV broadcast program. Yet by this time, PMS (or the Player) eventually notices something isn’t quite right, and the PMS proceeds to tear-down the stream in progress, out from under the Player, resulting in the frozen stream we all witness. So while is it the PMS stopping the stream, it is really the Player’s fault (3 minutes prior) which sets up the situation to ultimately fail. I would almost say that the Player & PMS are acting as if one is in DVR record mode (where there is to be a stop planned), while the other is in Live TV mode (where it is supposed to just keep streaming).
Work-around : We have observed that increasing the FIFO buffer (aka deliberately time-shifting live TV) back several minutes or so has helped to avoid the so called “hiccup”. Yet who really wants to watch live TV in that great of a time delay.
The fix : None so far. That’s up to Plex developers at this point. Again, I’d recommend Plex developers focus on the engineering approach at TV Guide as implemented in Live TV -vs- DVR client/server handshake protocols, possibly widening the default FIFO buffering/delay, and specific nuances with the Player app on the Nvidia Shield device platforms.
Please feel free to post-up if you are seeing the consistent :03 freezing – the more confirmations we have, perhaps Plex will take note.
