I have both a 2015 & 2017 Fire TV Stick with HDHome Run Prime and both Fire TV sticks seem to freeze randomly for 2-5 seconds while watching Live TV channels. I tried the 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks in my house and same results. When I tried Live TV on my iPhone 7 it worked fine for 10 minutes straight. Meanwhile the during the same 10 minute test (same Handel) theFire TV had about 12 studders while searching. Any thoughts? I’m thinking of getting an Apple TV just to get the Plex holy grail of Live TV and my movie library… Any thoughts?
I have not been impressed with the Fire Sticks. I have had both models and they are both under powered, especially compared to the Apple TV and now with the Plex Live TV on it, it is amazing, It is a match made in heaven. I am waiting for Tuesday to see when the new Apple TV ships. I need two more to complete the house.
@chapindad same plan. I am waiting for Live TV and DVR nirvana before replacing my tried and true Windows Media center setup. I though I had the holy grail, I just need to fix this studderung issue and I will go buy a device for each TV
I tried the web app for plex and it works fine for Live tv. so it seems like it is the FireTV app
More info: the same issue occurs on either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz bands of wifi.
So, I decided to reboot my router and check which control channel it was picking for 5GHz (Asus RT-AC68P) and it chose channel 153 again, same as before. Low and behold, everything works without me doing anything special, which is concerning because when it didn’t work, both web app and iPhone worked fine. Not sure where to go next
For me, this happens on Fire Stick, Fire TV and the latest Shield TV. MUCH worse on Stick, yes, but still happens elsewhere. It does NOT happen when streaming directly from the HDHomeRun to Live Channels (on Shield), HDHomeRun app (on any of the above) or InstaTV (which is two years dead but is BUTTERY smooth…spent $10 last night to stream a live football game since Plex was unwatchable). Happens whether wired on GigE or using a very solid Wi-Fi connection.
I don’t have a problem with DVR recordings. Only Live TV streaming.
Also have the problem (from another thread or two) with the app reporting unrecoverable errors every time I change channels. Also see the same behavior when I “resume” the app after switching to something else.
Something is very wrong with this solution at the moment.
Details
Server: Shield TV (2017 version…wired ethernet)
Tuner: HDHomeRun Prime CONNECT (wired ethernet…same switch as Shield)
Client: Shield TV -or- FireTV (latest version via Wi-Fi) -or- FireStick (latest version via Wi-Fi)
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Live TV doesn’t even load me for me on my FireTV Gen 1 and Stick Gen 2. When I try to load a live channel the Plex app crashes.
Second thread about deinterlacing for Live TV on Android (Shield TV and Fire TV). Maybe an option on PMS like “Deinterlace server side (Note: Channel changes takes longer…)”. This would be a great option for such devices.
I am using the HDHomerun Extend and it seems to do better with the LiveTV streaming. I also believe that the some of the issues is the hardware some people are using for the plex server software. I am using an older Dell T110 server, I bought off eBay, with FreeNAS and Plex is the only application(Jail) running on it. A friend is using Synology and a HD Homerun Connect and is having issues with it not being smooth all the time. I easily justify all the hardware because I have not had a cable bill in six years, which is around $60 a month savings at best but because I am rural and do not have access to cable, I have to use Satellite which makes it closer to $100 a month in savings. That makes for an easy ROI, when buying hardware.
I spent hours on my PMS, HDHomerun and multiple endpoints today. Suffice to say, it appears to me that Plex Live TV is transcoding everything.
My PMS is an older QNAP with an intel processor. It is capable of transcoding but when transcoding an MPEG2 stream the cpu is through the roof (live or from a recorded show).
Since I have the HDHomerun Extend, I have also tried selecting the highest quality setting which is passed to the QNAP in h264 (instead of none which would be the native MPEG2 stream). With it set to highest, watching recorded shows most of my endpoints are happy as it streams direct for video. If I try Live TV it shows it is transcoding the h264 to h264 and send the cpu through the roof again. This would seem to be a bug of some type to me since the endpoint being transcoded to for the live stream is the same endpoint that streams direct when it was recorded and then played.
I don’t have the ability to do Live TV with the MPEG2 stream unless the endpoint can do it direct as I can’t transcode it with my PMS.
I can use the HDHomerun app on my endpoints (Android, iOS, Fire TV stick) all without any transcoding on the Extend.
It’s back to happening again. Not sure if there is a setting causing it. I’m going to try hard coding the channel width of the wifi.
I get the one second pause on live tv using the tablo dual tuner usb stick (made by hauppauge WinTV). Apple TV, SHIELD plays fine. FireStick (not the latest generation) stutters/pauses every few seconds.
Just tried playing live tv on two separate fire tv sticks and i get 2-3 second pauses with an error at the bottom that says the server is not powerful enough to process the feed. I switch over to a movie or tv show i have, no issues. It seems to only be with live tv. Live tv works fine from my web browser on my PC and laptop. Using the HD Homerun quatro
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Same issue, Dedicated Windows with Plex. HDHomerun connect. Fire stick 2. Everything hardwired, zero Wireless. I also have HDHomerun Prime channels. Watching live tv any channel on Plex I get 1-3 second pause and the Weak signal message. Using the HDHomerun app on Firestick, zero issues at all.
Seems like the latest version of plex or firestick fixed my issue with remote streaming. Never had an issue with local.
