Mini Client issue

[crarbo1]

I have the new 16GB ShieldTV and want to use the mini client as my main client instead of my HD300 due to the other capabilities of AndroidTV.

I'm having playback issues however, which is bugging me but more importantly my wife.

When using the included remote and fast forwarding through recordings, the video playback gets choppy but the audio playback is normal, which means it will get ahead of the video. It does eventually catch up but is annoying. Along those same lines, I record all of my shows with 4 minute padding on both sides of the scheduled times. If I need to go to the padding before the schedule start time because the start time is off a little, it always gets messed up the same way I described above.

I checked the same recording on my HD300 and none of the problems exist. Both the ShieldTV and HD300 are on a dedicated switch that the server is on, so that shouldn't be an issue.

My mini client settings are as follows:
Streaming Mode: Dynamic (Not sure what the other options do or if they would help)
Use ExoPlayer: Unchecked
Exo: Disable audio passthrough: Unchecked
IJK: Show message when using software decoders: Unchecked
IJK: Allow native software decoders: Unchecked
IJK: Configure hardware decoders: Left as default
Long pres select of OSD: Checked
Use stateful remote: Checked
Use native resolution: Checked
Exit to home screen: Checked
If enabled, then the leanback launcher will be used on a phone/tablet: Unchecked
Memory image cache: 192mb
Disk cache for images: 1024mb
Auto connect: Checked
Auto connect delay: 10 seconds
Terminate on pause: Checked (Not sure what this does if unchecked)
Show unmapped keypresses: Checked
Debug aspect ratios: Unchecked
Log to file: Unchecked
Logging level: Debug
Send Log: Says I don't have an app for that when selected
Version: 1.2.6
Cliend ID: I guess that is a typo as it does say "Cliend"
Device IP address:
Native UI resolution: 1920x1080
Application available memory: 512.0mb

Is there anything there set wrong or that I could try? Is there a properties file I need to change?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Chuck

[panteragstk]

I've seen that, but it is only with mpeg2 recordings that are less than optimal. Wouldn't see it on the client or extender (apparently), but since it is OTA I'm guessing my signal strength changed and caused the recording to change enough that the android client had the video slow down.

Having said that, this issue doesn't happen often at all.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I've seen that, but it is only with mpeg2 recordings that are less than optimal. Wouldn't see it on the client or extender (apparently), but since it is OTA I'm guessing my signal strength changed and caused the recording to change enough that the android client had the video slow down.

Having said that, this issue doesn't happen often at all.

Thank you for your input. I'm not what type of recordings they are. The are cable TV shows and recording using OpenDCT with a Ceton InfiniTV 4 with a cable card. I think my server is just basically using the default settings otherwise.

For me, this problem happens at least once during every recording and all the time when trying to play pack the padding part of the recording before the show is scheduled to start.

If there are settings that I need to check on my server, please let me know and I can report them. However, I don't know what I need to check.

Thanks,
Chuck

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by crarbo1

Thank you for your input. I'm not what type of recordings they are. The are cable TV shows and recording using OpenDCT with a Ceton InfiniTV 4 with a cable card. I think my server is just basically using the default settings otherwise.

For me, this problem happens at least once during every recording and all the time when trying to play pack the padding part of the recording before the show is scheduled to start.

If there are settings that I need to check on my server, please let me know and I can report them. However, I don't know what I need to check.

Thanks,
Chuck

Do you have Comcast? I had all sorts of issues with Comcast recordings. I've recently starting transcoding everything and playback in Android seems much more stable so far. Even if you don't have Comcast, I'd try transcoding a problem recording and see if that sorts things out.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

Do you have Comcast? I had all sorts of issues with Comcast recordings. I've recently starting transcoding everything and playback in Android seems much more stable so far. Even if you don't have Comcast, I'd try transcoding a problem recording and see if that sorts things out.

I do have comcast but why should that be a problem when all is well with the HD300's.

I don't want to have to add another step just watch TV. I don't even know how to transcode the shows anyway.

Any more help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Chuck

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by crarbo1

I do have comcast but why should that be a problem when all is well with the HD300's.

I don't want to have to add another step just watch TV. I don't even know how to transcode the shows anyway.

Any more help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Chuck

I think your best hope is the HD300. If the MiniClient doesn't play it well, and you can't transcode... I don't see any other option.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I think your best hope is the HD300. If the MiniClient doesn't play it well, and you can't transcode... I don't see any other option.

Thanks for your reply. So there are nothing in my settings for the miniclient I can change from what I have listed in my first post?

I probably could transcode, but have never done it and don't know how to. Is there software I need. After transcode do I need to put them in an import folder like I do with my ripped movies?

Thanks,
Chuck

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by crarbo1

Thanks for your reply. So there are nothing in my settings for the miniclient I can change from what I have listed in my first post?

I probably could transcode, but have never done it and don't know how to. Is there software I need. After transcode do I need to put them in an import folder like I do with my ripped movies?

Thanks,
Chuck

I understand totally! I did not want to transcode, but I travel a bit and things just kept getting worse and worse trying to watch things on the road. I had pretty much given up on the mini-client (Android and Placeshifter) and just streamed stuff from provider's web sites. But I really wanted SageTV so broke down and tried transcoding. It has made a world of difference. For now I'm still keeping my HD300s at home as they can be fed all sorts of crap and keep working. From what I've read it seems like Comcast puts garbage down the pipe that doesn't phase their STBs (or the HD300), but does confuse things that expect certain rules to be followed.

The good news is that transcoding is a built-in feature of SageTV. Some people handle it outside of STV, but I wanted to keep it simple. Just select a problem show and in the options (you may have to select Advanced Options), select Convert. I chose MPEG4 HDTV, High Quality H.264 MKV and Delete Original When Done. If that fixes things then you can select the same thing in your Favorites to do it automatically after a recording. You can get fancier with defining your own transcoding profile or using external software, (which would probably be more efficient). I'm not a fan of having to transcode, but once all my favorites were set up and existing shows transcoded it has made using Placeshifter and the Android client possible.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

I understand totally! I did not want to transcode, but I travel a bit and things just kept getting worse and worse trying to watch things on the road. I had pretty much given up on the mini-client (Android and Placeshifter) and just streamed stuff from provider's web sites. But I really wanted SageTV so broke down and tried transcoding. It has made a world of difference. For now I'm still keeping my HD300s at home as they can be fed all sorts of crap and keep working. From what I've read it seems like Comcast puts garbage down the pipe that doesn't phase their STBs (or the HD300), but does confuse things that expect certain rules to be followed.

The good news is that transcoding is a built-in feature of SageTV. Some people handle it outside of STV, but I wanted to keep it simple. Just select a problem show and in the options (you may have to select Advanced Options), select Convert. I chose MPEG4 HDTV, High Quality H.264 MKV and Delete Original When Done. If that fixes things then you can select the same thing in your Favorites to do it automatically after a recording. You can get fancier with defining your own transcoding profile or using external software, (which would probably be more efficient). I'm not a fan of having to transcode, but once all my favorites were set up and existing shows transcoded it has made using Placeshifter and the Android client possible.

Thanks alot for the information. I will have to give that a try.
So the only way to automate it is if it is setup in the favorites?
Can you watch the show while it is recording?
Do you have an option to watch the transcoded version while it is process?

Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks again,
Chuck

[mackb]

I would turn on IJK: Allow native software decoders and then play around with turning off certain hardware codecs. I find that using software codecs for h264 and mp4 stuff tends to work much more reliably. I am using a Mi Box but this is at least something you can experiment with.

Cheers,
Mack

[Tiki]

Just so you know, transcoding can take a fair amount of CPU power. If you plan to record multiple shows simultaneously and transcode them all in real time you will need a top of the line processor.

In reality, most of the problems with Comcast recordings can be fixed with Remuxing, rather than transcoding. Ffmpeg can do this. Remuxing just re-packs the audio and video streams into a new container, so it is very fast and doesn't require much CPU power. The resulting file will still be the same size, resolution, quality and use the same codec as the original. Whereas transcoding can change all those things if you want it to.

If you are using Open-DCT to make your recordings, it can be configured to capture raw, unmodified recordings, or it can run them through Ffmpeg to remux them on the fly, or it can use ffmpeg to do a full transcode to another format on the fly.

You might want to experiment with different settings in Open-DCT.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Just so you know, transcoding can take a fair amount of CPU power. If you plan to record multiple shows simultaneously and transcode them all in real time you will need a top of the line processor.

In reality, most of the problems with Comcast recordings can be fixed with Remuxing, rather than transcoding. Ffmpeg can do this. Remuxing just re-packs the audio and video streams into a new container, so it is very fast and doesn't require much CPU power. The resulting file will still be the same size, resolution, quality and use the same codec as the original. Whereas transcoding can change all those things if you want it to.

If you are using Open-DCT to make your recordings, it can be configured to capture raw, unmodified recordings, or it can run them through Ffmpeg to remux them on the fly, or it can use ffmpeg to do a full transcode to another format on the fly.

You might want to experiment with different settings in Open-DCT.

Note that I tried remuxing through OpenDCT first without much luck. YMMV.

[panteragstk]

I really need to try real time transcoding with OpenDCT. I've looked, but can't seem to find a simple guide that tells me where to start.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I really need to try real time transcoding with OpenDCT. I've looked, but can't seem to find a simple guide that tells me where to start.

It's a little inconveniently located, but the release notes for 0.4.29 say this:

Set the software transcoding profile by changing sagetv.device.<unique_id>.transcode_profile to one of the available profiles are stored under C:\ProgramData\OpenDCT\config\transcode on Windows and /etc/opendct/conf/transcode on Linux. See profile_example.properties for help on how you can create your own. Do not include the .properties extension when setting the profile.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

It's a little inconveniently located, but the release notes for 0.4.29 say this:

Set the software transcoding profile by changing sagetv.device.<unique_id>.transcode_profile to one of the available profiles are stored under C:\ProgramData\OpenDCT\config\transcode on Windows and /etc/opendct/conf/transcode on Linux. See profile_example.properties for help on how you can create your own. Do not include the .properties extension when setting the profile.

Nice. OpenDCT was stupid simple to set up with my HDHR. I set the profile to "transcode_profile=ultrafast1080p" and it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

I get something wrong?

If you want I can stop derailing this thread and go to the opendct thread, but since real time transcoding may help the issue above I figured I'd continue here for now.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Nice. OpenDCT was stupid simple to set up with my HDHR. I set the profile to "transcode_profile=ultrafast1080p" and it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

I get something wrong?

If you want I can stop derailing this thread and go to the opendct thread, but since real time transcoding may help the issue above I figured I'd continue here for now.

I believe the ones that come with OpenDCT are oriented towards dealing with MPEG2 content. If the content is already H.264, it can be forced to re-encode, but I wouldn't recommend doing that because the load on your machine could be a bit much. Some of the profiles also only run on interlaced content. You can see inside of the files there's a lot of commentary on what's going on.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I believe the ones that come with OpenDCT are oriented towards dealing with MPEG2 content. If the content is already H.264, it can be forced to re-encode, but I wouldn't recommend doing that because the load on your machine could be a bit much. Some of the profiles also only run on interlaced content. You can see inside of the files there's a lot of commentary on what's going on.

Yeah, I'm using HDHR that provides a mpeg 2 stream. Just wondering if I set up on the fly transcoding right or not.

[crarbo1]

Thanks all for providing feedback.
Here is what I have for my SageTV setup:
OS: Windows 10 Pro (64 bit)
Motherboard/CPU/RAM: Gigabyte EP43-UD3/Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz/8 GB RAM
System Drive : Samsung 850 Pro SSD (256 GB)
Recording Drive's: 2 x WD WD4001FAEX (4 TB)
Tuner's: 2 x Ceton InfiniTV 4's
Clients: 2 HD300's & 2 ShieldTV's (2017)
SageTV v9.0.12 with OpenDCT v0.5.18
Java 1.8.0_111

I setup SageTV v9 and OpenDCT with the default settings, so I really don't know where to start to transcoding on the fly with OpenDCT. I will read up on this and try to figure it out.

Now if anyone wants to spell it all out for me that would be great!!

Thanks,
Chuck

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Yeah, I'm using HDHR that provides a mpeg 2 stream. Just wondering if I set up on the fly transcoding right or not.

What you did sounds correct. There's also a global setting that's just for the HDHomeRun Extend devices. You don't want to confuse this setting with that setting. And you need to be using the FFmpeg consumer (opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl).

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

What you did sounds correct. There's also a global setting that's just for the HDHomeRun Extend devices. You don't want to confuse this setting with that setting. And you need to be using the FFmpeg consumer (opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl).

I'm sorry for my ignorance on this topic but what do I need to do to use OpenDCT to transcode on they fly so I don't have to do a conversion via SageTV after the regular recording.

I'm trying to look through the release notes to understand but I'm still not sure what to do.

Thanks,
Chuck