Until today, I’ve been playing live TV from my HDConnect Quatro through Plex and my Vizio TV’s Plex app. That worked fine with all the work that’s gone into the Vizio app lately!
Today I acquired and set up a new Chromecast with Google TV. Setup went fine, and media all plays back as expected. However, when I tune into a Live channel and attempt to stream at original quality, the video and audio stutters slightly (but constantly). I noticed that if I pause the video – even for just a second or two – and continue watching, the stutter vanishes completely even though the quality settings haven’t changed.
Is there a way to force the Live TV playback to buffer a second or two ahead of the broadcast automatically? I’m glad it’s easy to fix manually, but it is kind of annoying.
Interesting! I have a Chromecast with Google TV as well, but I’m getting an entirely different issue! Mine plays fine for 5 minutes, but after that it drops the tuning session and seems to pause, but any attempt to do anything doesn’t work, with nothing working after that. I’ve yet to figure out what it’s exactly related to, but I do have a few logs.
I’m have the issues that both of you have described, jackpot! I’m sure they’ll get it resolved, it’s a brand new device so it probably needs some optimization. I have noticed that if you disable the new video player it seems to perform better… but I’d rather pause/resume than use that old player.
I’ve had the same issues as well. Both stuttering and stopping playback.
I noticed that the streams are playing direct from my hdhomerun and if I drop the quality from Original to 1080 8MP then it clears up, but plex still shows the stream as direct.
I am having an issue when something is recording and I want to watch it at the same time I cannot seek or fast forward at all. Also sometimes it will stop playing and will get the bufferering icon indenfinatly.
I have the playback freezing issue encountered here as well with the new Chromecast/Google TV. I’m sure these are things that’ll get ironed out soon. Fingers crossed!
Freezing issue:
First time I used this device with Plex, it worked great. Every other time it would freeze after about 3-5 minutes of playback. Netflix and other streaming apps work great. Plex works great on Apple TV and Roku in my house… so this problem is specific to Plex on the Chromecast with Google TV.
Stuttering audio issue:
Audio skips (drops out) often unless I switch the stream to 8Mbps (HD). Then the audio is not a problem.
I recently purchased the Google Chromecast with Google TV and mine stutters quite a bit with some visual artifacts. I’m not playing Live TV but rather 1080 videos I have on my server. It’s pretty bad, especially when my Vizio tvs Plex app runs the video smoother than a brand new device which has a ton more processing power. Please fix…
Adding my hat to the pile. I have only a couple times experienced the issue where it buffers and then drops. I always experience the stuttering when watching live TV. Pausing for a couple seconds and then resuming fixes the stutter. All of my DVR recordings fail right now after latest server update. Previous version they would start, but I couldn’t start watching if the recording was in progress or the recording would instantly fail. Server is on my Linux Mint 20 box, version 1.20.3.3483. The server seems very averse to using the second tuner on my HDHomeRun Connect Duo. The only time it uses it is if I tune to live TV on two different clients.
I was having the stuttering issue until today. I swapped the stock charger for a 17w USB C PD adapter and cable plugged into a USB C PD hub with ethernet built in.
No more stuttering.
My WiFi in my house is amazing, so it has to be the WiFi in the Chromecast that just can’t keep up with Plex. Hopefully Plex can do something because not everyone will have the bits laying around to fix this issue.
Edit: scratch that. I watched a 1 o’clock football game without a single stutter. I just went to turn the world series game on and it is stuttering like crazy. No solution in wired ethernet.
I was also having stuttering issues on a Home hub display. When casting from my laptop, I lowered the quality to 720p (which looks fine on the small display) and all of the stuttering issues disappeared. So a similar experience to @arrowrand, it suggests the Chromecast/Home display wifi isn’t up the ~20mps stream at full quality.
Well, not willing to settle, I went back to the stock power adapter and WiFi. Switching from the new video player to the old has made the issue go away again.
Maybe the stuttering will return again after I turn the thing off and walk away for a few hours, maybe it won’t.
I’m also having issues with the new Chromecast and live tv. It either freezes completely or buffers every few seconds if I initiate playback from the native android tv app. If I cast the live tv channel via my android phone everything plays fine, though.
I’m having the same stuttering issues on this device. Recorded shows work perfectly, the issue seems to be from live tv (using an HD home run prime). Live TV streams perfectly across all other devices.
I also have this issue with the new ChromeCast, though I perceive it as audio dropouts rather than stuttering. At first setting the “enable new video player” to off got rid of the problem. But the last few days the issue has returned even on the “old” video player. Thanks for the tip about hitting the pause button, nice workaround until the issue is actually fixed.
I have this same issue. My phone can stream Live TV from Plex on the same WiFi network with no issues. It can be literally right next to the Chromecast, yet Chromecast can’t even play Live TV half of the time. The other half of the time, Live TV stutters like crazy. I just don’t get it.
Same issues here, my Chromecast is brand new and replaced an old Roku. After trying to stream live TV through Plex and then also the Fox app to watch a football game and had continuing issues also through the Fox app I gave up and went back to Roku. Plex is having no problem streaming full quality resolution and audio direct to the old Roku device
I hear ya. I’ve been really wanting to ditch my TiVo setup and switch to a complete system run by Plex. But Google’s new Chromecast is killing that idea right now.
I have the same issues reported here by many people. I can tell you it’s not limited or specific to the new Chromecast with Google TV. I get the same problems with Chromecast 2nd gen and Ultra. Plex plays live TV on my NVidia Shield TV perfectly through HDMI but playing live TV over the LAN/WiFi to other TVs or the Plex web app in Chrome or Firefox (Win 10) results in continual stuttering, pausing, buffering and complete drop outs. Recorded TV casts from Plex without stuttering but I find it always drops out after about 10 to 20 minutes. Casting in general has been a total disaster. When I use the native HDHomeRun app to watch live TV that works perfectly.
Edit: I just launched the Windows 10 Plex app and it plays flawlessly. Direct 1080p live TV stream over WiFi. Not a stutter or hitch. I hadn’t tried it before so I don’t know if this had an impact but the app ran an update when I first launched it.
Seems like the PLEX developers have some major issues here, they really need to get them resolved ASAP. It’s a mess through a web browser or Chromecast.
