Good morning. I have a new Plex (1.10.0.4523) server installed onto a Mac Mini (Late 2014) as well as have a new HDHomeRun EXTEND (Hardware model HDTC-2US with Firmware Version 20170930).
Plex will not play live TV from any device (Windows with IE, Mac with Safari or Chrome, iPad, or iPhone). When I play live TV, I can hear audio, but see blocking and a blank screen.
I can, however, play live TV using either the HDHomeRun EXTEND app on my Mac or by using VLC and opening a network stream for the particular channel (e.g., http://IP_ADDRESS:5004/auto/v2.1 )
Here is what I see when streaming live TV from Plex:
My current HDHomeRun Transcode Settings:
When I play live TV, the HDHomeRun EXTEND logs the stream:
Thank you. The Mac Mini has an Intel 2.5 GHz Core i5 which can support transcoding with no problem. The HDHomeRun EXTEND has hardware transcoding build in.
SD or HD live TV channels does not make a difference. Still no video on any device (Windows with IE, iOS, Apple TV 4K, Mac with Chrome or Safari). The resulting picture is the same or similar to what I posted. I get audio for any channel.
Hardware transcoder on the Extend is on. I do not know how to disable CPU hardware accelerated transcoding. I disabled “Use hardware acceleration when available” in the Transcoder.
Same issue: sound but no video.
Log files attached. I noted many of these errors in the Plex Media Server.log:
Dec 12, 2017 19:13:32.980 [0x115278000] ERROR - [Transcoder] [h264 @ 0x7ff3618efc00] error while decoding MB 12 0, bytestream 52659 Dec 12, 2017 19:13:32.987 [0x114cab000] ERROR - [Transcoder] [h264 @ 0x7ff3618e6400] top block unavailable for requested intra mode -1
@jreiter1975 said:
Your Extend settings look good. I have one too. Turn off the “Use Hardware Acceleration when Available” on the transcoder page. Save changes. Reboot.
On the DVR device setting in Plex, set the Transcoder Quality to Original format. Reboot.
How’s your network between the Extend and Plex? Gigabit? Full duplex or set to Auto? How’s the memory on MAC?
Thank you for your response. The HDHomeRun EXTEND and Mac are plugged into same 48-port managed GbE switch. The Mac and HDHomeRun EXTEND are at 100Mbps Full-Duplex. Mac Mini has 8 GB RAM.
So I changed the settings as advised and rebooted the Mac and voila. Plex is playing live TV from all devices. I will tinker with the settings, ensuring to reboot after changing each.
Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Original format
Does not matter if this setting is enabled or disabled
_Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available
Makes me wonder. Since the HDHomeRun EXTEND has hardware transcoding, is it necessary to enable Settings -> Transcoder -> Use hardware acceleration when available ?
Here are some other tests, all of which failed:
TEST 1
Settings:
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Enabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Highest quality
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
TEST 2
Settings:
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Disabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Highest quality
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
TEST 3
Settings:
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Enabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → High quality (30fps limit)
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
TEST 4
Settings:
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Disabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → High quality (30fps limit)
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
TEST 5
Settings:
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Enabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Medium quality (540p)
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
TEST 6
Settings:
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Disabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Medium quality (540p)
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
Have you contacted Silicon Dust with the test results above? Makes me think that your Extend has a problem. I suppose you should also test with their software to see if it gets the same results when the Extend’s transcoding is enabled.
@ChrisAWallace said:
Have you contacted Silicon Dust with the test results above? Makes me think that your Extend has a problem. I suppose you should also test with their software to see if it gets the same results when the Extend’s transcoding is enabled.
I did a channel scan and Silicon Dust has the logs and said that the unit appeared to be working correctly. I just seems odd that I cannot change the transcode quality from the Plex settings.
From my perspective, the transcode setting in Settings -> Live TV & DVR -> Device Settings -> TRANSCODER QUALITY -> Original format is a Plex software setting (“The quality of the transcoding used when recording. Selecting original format may result in very large files.”).
That is, I think the HdHomeRun EXTEND sends the same quality and that you cannot change the transcode output of the unit. This would seem to make sense since I was always able to play live TV from VLC or from the HDHomeRun application.
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Enabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Highest quality
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
FYI, this is the settings set that I use, and everything works fine for me. I believe logged into the Extend, I also have that set one notch below the equivalent of “Original Quality” which enables the transcoder in the Extend. However, If I’m not mistaken, whatever you set in Plex is not complimentary, but rather overrides what is set in the Extend. (I may get corrected there)
Long story short, there has to be something else going on, because this works for me.
Settings → Transcoder → Use hardware acceleration when available → Enabled Settings → Live TV & DVR → Device Settings → TRANSCODER QUALITY → Highest quality
Result: Plex does not play video (reference screen shots above). Audio only.
FYI, this is the settings set that I use, and everything works fine for me. I believe logged into the Extend, I also have that set one notch below the equivalent of “Original Quality” which enables the transcoder in the Extend. However, If I’m not mistaken, whatever you set in Plex is not complimentary, but rather overrides what is set in the Extend. (I may get corrected there)
Long story short, there has to be something else going on, because this works for me.
Thanks. Would you mind sharing your EXTEND and Plex settings? My assumption is that the EXTEND settings should be set to the same or equivalent in the Plex settings. One thing to keep in mind is that from my understanding, the options at Settings -> Live TV & DVR -> Device Settings -> TRANSCODER QUALITY -> only apply to recording, not to viewing. I am basing this off of the caption in Plex itself:
Here are the options for the EXTEND:
Here are the options for Plex transcoding (for recording, not for viewing):
The Extend’s internal transcoder is also used to watch LiveTV. Most devices don’t support the native mpegts container and mpeg2 video codec used so it needs to be transcoded to h264. It you set the Extend to original, then Plex’s transcoder will do that job, if you have anything else, then the Extend’s transcoder will do it. From what you describe, either your Extend has a flaw and the transcoder isn’t working correctly, or the Extend’s transcoder cannot handle your TV signal for some reason.
Have you tried scheduling a recording and seeing if that works?
Also, if you can recreate the problem, then provide me the Plex server logs, we can check which transcoder is being used and if any errors are being reported.
@“MovieFan.Plex” said:
Also, if you can recreate the problem, then provide me the Plex server logs, we can check which transcoder is being used and if any errors are being reported.
Thank you. The logs when the Plex will not play live tv are attached in my previous post, above. Please read the entire thread.
Please note, Plex will not play live TV on either HD or SD unless Plex is set to the following (HDHomeRun Default Transcode Profile setting does not matter):
