LiveTV freezes and shows a lot of artifacts (4 Viewers)

[JackTramiel]

Hi. First of i am just adding my logs since i might have the same issues and thought another person/log could help then.
I am facing this issue long time, even after hardware changes and fresh installations. One reason i never opened a own
thread is that i had used mdapi and even i dont use it anymore i wasnt sure if this is the reason - so no post from me.
Wanted to wait for the next complete fresh installation and if it occours then i would have made a own thread.
However, i have freezes and artifacts, too. Channels having a lot of issues for me are ZDF HD - just like TO.
Pro7 (Not HD) is another problematic channel. RTL for example plays way better.
( I´d be interested if the TO has radio issues, too. )

I tried several codecs, networks settings, energy options... it never disappeared.

So i will add my tvserver logs - cant access the client now - just in case it might help nailing it down.
If our case is similar and my logs or tests made by me would help just let me know.
In case my issues are different and my contribution in this case isnt needed - just let me know.

Edit: Watched ZDF HD yesterday (20:xx - 23:xx) and had above mentioned issues.

 

[Owlsroost]

So i will add my tvserver logs - cant access the client now - just in case it might help nailing it down. If our case is similar and my logs or tests made by me would help just let me know. In case my issues are different and my contribution in this case isnt needed - just let me know.

Thanks for the logs.

I think your server logs look OK (no continuity errors, other than one after a channel change - not unusual). We need a matching set of server + client logs to progress this, please.

Do you use RTSP or 'UNC paths' to play from TV server ?

You might want to try the latest TsReader.ax from here - https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/tsreader-for-mp-1-6-0.122083/ - this should work on 1.3.0, but I haven't tried it on that version of MP.

 

[Snoopy87]

@JackTramiel : Yes, in the past I also noticed that there are more problems on some channels. I also have a lot of issues on ZDF HD (also without using mdapi) and on NatGeo HD. On other channels it's random and sometimes heavy and sometimes I can watch for a few hours without any problems. That's why it is so difficult to find the reasong and of course it's hard to fix it, if it is not reproducable, because after using a new TSReader it always takes many days to be sure if it's better or not. Also I'm only able to watch TV for 2-3h a day.

As said, since yesterday I'm using XBMC with MP TV-Server. I will test this for a few days to make sure if there are also occuring the problems or not. Until now I had no issues yet with XBMC. No stuttering, no artifacts, no noticble frame drops, etc. It's perfect at the moment

Is there any way to clear EPG data and force loading EPG data so that I could test this scenario with XBMC to find out if EPG Grabber is one of the causer?

Edit: XBMC is set up to use the timeshift files directly, so no streaming.

 

[Owlsroost]

Is there any way to clear EPG data and force loading EPG data so that I could test this scenario with XBMC to find out if EPG Grabber is one of the causer?

TV server config -> Manual control -> Refresh DVB EPG (this clears all the old data and forces a new EPG grab)

 

[JackTramiel]

Do you use RTSP or 'UNC paths' to play from TV server ?

You might want to try the latest TsReader.ax from here - https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/tsreader-for-mp-1-6-0.122083/ - this should work on 1.3.0, but I haven't tried it on that version of MP.

I am used to use UNC paths, but lately i set it to rtsp just to check if it works better. Basicly there is no difference between them concerning this issue.
Might be a feeling, but rtsp doesnt freeze that often.
Dont know if this is related, but i had problems with stopping radio playback (dvb-s), too. Thats why i was interested in TO report about radio usage.
I "fixed" it with online radio streams.

I dont use dvb-epg. Clickfinder runs over night. DPCChecker tells me everything is fine.



I ll be back..... with logs.

 

[JackTramiel]

Ahoi. Attached you will find the Client logs. I just took all of them into one zip, including the above mentioned saturday. (ZDF HD)
Hope those help more.

Next i will delete all logs and install you recommended tsreader.

 

[Snoopy87]

@Owlsroost :

Hi,

I tried your new TSReader for MP 1.6 and have some feedback for you (sorry, no logs, but I will post logs in the next couple of days!):

Until now the TV playback is much better! On ZDF HD I had the following situation:

Whenever the TV playback got a lot of problems (stuttering, stopping, looping, etc.) in the past, now with your new TSReader the VIDEO (!) playback of the TV channel has no problems. Only the audio playback still stuttering and play 1-2 secs in a loop for a ca. 10 secs. So in this case video is still playing but audio has still the problems and of course in audio and video are not in sync for this moment. Then everything is normal again until the next time (could be minutes or hours).

So if the audio issue will be also fixed, it should be perfect! Great job so far! But keep in mind, that I have to test this for a longer time, because as said in the past, sometimes everything worked great for hours or days also with the original TSReader. The problem is, that the issue is not reproducable, it's random :-( So it could be that the problem still exists with your new TSReader and it was just luck until now, that everything worked so good.

 

[Owlsroost]

Whenever the TV playback got a lot of problems (stuttering, stopping, looping, etc.) in the past, now with your new TSReader the VIDEO (!) playback of the TV channel has no problems. Only the audio playback still stuttering and play 1-2 secs in a loop for a ca. 10 secs. Then everything is normal again until the next time (could be minutes or hours).

Something to try:

Open regedit, go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Team MediaPortal\TsReader' and open the 'BufferingDelayInMilliSeconds' value. This sets the extra intial buffering delay (which builds up a video/audio data buffer inside TsReader.ax) - the value is in milli-seconds, allowable range is 0 to 2000 (default is 0). Try changing this to 1000 (1 second) - this will increase the channel change time by 1 second, but it might allow playback to continue properly if you get breaks in the incoming stream e.g. if disk access takes a long time, or there is a network problem.

 

[Snoopy87]

Thanks, I will try this!

But I hope, that then the main channel switching time will be improved with one of the next releases, because it's soooo slow and with this delay it will be much slower :-D Even with fresh installation, RAM disc, everything else disabled in the background (Windows Defender, etc.), with fast TV Tuner (DD CineS2 6.5) it takes at least 3-5 seconds to switch the channel. This was a lot faster with older versions (1.3 or 1.2) of MP. There is also a special build of XBMC which includes fast channel switching which switches the channel a lot faster than MP although the same TV Server (MP TV Server) is used. But this is another "issue" we should talk about when tv playback works without any issues Step by step

 

[Owlsroost]

it takes at least 3-5 seconds to switch the channel.

On DVB-T/DVB-T2, I usually get about 1.2 sec for a full 're-tune' channel change, and around 0.5 sec for a 'different channel in the same mux' change.