Update: Disabling HW Acceleration fixed my Live TV issues (Win 10, i3-4030U w/ QuickSync)

Live TV & DVR
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Update: See my post further below for a workaround on how I resolved my Live TV issues.

Original Post:
Server Version#: 1.40.4.8679 down to 1.30 (on Windows 10)
Player Version#: 10.18.0.968 for Android TV
Tuner Make/Model: Hauppauge WinTV-soloHD model 01589 (European DVB-T2 model)

I set up a new PMS specifically for remotely streaming of German free OTA channels (DVB-T2) using a newly purchased Hauppauge WinTV-soloHD stick. When I started with the latest 1.40.4 PMS I had lots of issues with getting channels to play on a remote Android TV device using the latest player version. Lots of spinning progress circles, black screens and occasionally working streams. No rhyme or reason, sometimes the same program would work, more often it wouldn’t. And oftentimes I would see that the server is treating the stream as a recording with nothing being played, or the server would not release the tuner when switching channels.

I then came across this post here from a fellow user who describes that they had issues from PMS version 1.30 onwards.

I downgraded successively from 1.40.4 to 1.40.3 to 1.40.2 … all the way down to 1.29.2. That last version was the sweet spot. Switching channels is much quicker now, no more endless spinning circles and so far no black screens or error messages anymore.

My conclusion: There was a breaking change from 1.30 onwards that negatively impacts some tuners.

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Live TV transcoding not working on Roku/Android, but works in webplayer
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I’ve been using the old PMS 1.29 for several hours now and Live TV has been working flawlessly in conjunction with my WinTV-soloHD. It’s a difference like day and night compared to any newer version I have tried. I’d like to continue using this version indefinitely, but am concerned that newer clients may at some point require a more updated PMS.

My hope is that whatever issue was introduced in newer PMS versions will get remedied.

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I was wrong. The main culprit was that I had enabled hardware acceleration. And when I downgraded all the way down to 1.29, the hardware acceleration checkbox became unchecked by itself and that is what fooled me into believing that 1.29 works, whereas all newer versions didn’t. Once I realized that, I upgraded back to the latest 1.40.4, disabled both hardware acceleration checkmarks, and now Live TV works fine.

Note: My CPU does support Quick Sync hardware acceleration (older Intel i3-4030U). So I don’t know why enabling that feature would break Live TV. So this may still be a bug in PMS. But the workaround to disable hardware acceleration seems to work for me.

EDIT: Hardware acceleration needs to be turned off for OTA (DVB-T2) only. It works fine for cable (DVB-C). Curious.

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