[kccrow]

I have a cute little PC stick with Widows 8.1 and Kodi 14.2. It streams movies and other content perfectly but live TV not so much. A live TV stream will play for about 5-6 minutes then freeze, might show buffering window but not always. It will not buffer and continue, just sits there. I must stop the stream and choose the channel again to continue.

Also, most of the time there is excessive buffering from the start, every 10 seconds or so. This includes all channels I receive. Other computers and devices around the house are fine. Have tested with all devices stopped for off with same results. My router is also good, Netgear R7000 gigabit router. No problems streaming other content; movies, music, etc..

Server Machine (Live TV)- Windows 7, Kodi 14.2, ServerWMC 1.0.0.56 build 1190, strong hardware (AMD A10-6700, 16GB memory) with 2 Hauppauge tuners (2250 and 2255).
Client- Windows 8.1, Kodi 14.2, Atom quad core and 2GB of memory. Runs strong for such a small PC (IVIEW Cyber PC)

LOG- http://pastebin.com/gxbQDGhg

I hope the log is useful and shows what is going on. Love to get this thing working. Thanks.

[krustyreturns]

Do you only have this problem with live-tv? What happens when you try to play recorded (wtv) files?

[kccrow]

Thank you for the reply. Only live TV is effected. Playing recorded TV is fine just like other types of media.

[krustyreturns]

Have you tried turning the kodi hardware acceleration off on your pc stick for video playback?

[kccrow]

Turning off hardware acceleration makes it way worse. I'm currently playing around with settings but the buffering issue remains the same. I have tried changing the scaling method, deinterlasing (on/off/ auto select), etc. Playing prerecorded TV is OK, just the live stream that isn't working properly. I will investigate any settings in Windows 8.1 to see if that will make a difference, this is my first time using this flavor of windows so the most I will do is poke around. Any suggestions is most appreciated. Thanks

[krustyreturns]

If you want to continue experimenting... When swmc does a live stream it creates a temporary ts file in the tempswmc folder inside of your recorded tv folder, this is the file that is streamed to your clients. If you go to the debug tab of swmc and turn off 'delete temporary files', then this file will not be deleted when you stop the live stream. So take this ts file and try playing it directly from this same location on your pc stick. Does it play smoothly then, or does it still freeze?

[kccrow]

The ts file plays but with a lot of buffering, buffering about every 30 seconds. I also played the wtv file which also plays with a lot of buffering. Thanks.

[g-man]

I always have a similar issue and this occurs because my TV Recordings and Live Buffer are on the same disk. The resolution for me is to move the TempRec from the TV Recording directory to another drive / Ram Drive. Do a search for "TempRec symbolic link" and see if this helps resolve your issue. Writing the buffer and saving the recording to the same drive causes stuttering in almost all cases in my set up.

In my current setup, I bought a cheap 16gb SSD drive online (cheaper than memory at the time, less than $20) and use this for all my buffering. Yes, I am writing a lot to it and it will probably die earlier than most SSD's but it is easily replaced and all I lose is a buffer file.

[krustyreturns]

@kccrow, but your recordings are playing fine off the same disk, right? I mean, why would one wtv file play fine and another play badly when they are on the same disk? Are you actually moving your recordings to a different disk after they complete? Doing g-man's idea is worth a try if you are.

[kccrow]

Lets see; I have added the public Recorded TV folder to my Kodi video library. I can see and play the recorded TV wtv files, there are several and they play fine. When I try to play the files in the tempswmc folder I get buffering. Also get buffering and freezing when streaming live TV. All of the recorded TV files are on the same disc. I do not move any of them. I agree this is strange. Everything is OK except streaming live TV.

I don't have another disc right now but could pick one up if this can help. I'm leaning to this not helping as there is no problem with other PC's in the house, all running Kodi. I have an Android tablet and installed Kodi then tested it with live TV and it has issues as well but I really don't use it for watching TV, the TV streams frame rate is too slow causing "pausing" or inconsistent video (hard to describe).

[krustyreturns]

How are you playing the files in the temp folder? and isn't it true that the wtv file there also freezes? based on what you are saying i can't see much of an advantage to using a different disk.

[kccrow]

Since I added the Recorded TV folder to my library I'm able to play both the Media Center files and the wmcserver temp files. Here's the strange part; the previously recorded TV Media Center files play fine, no freezing or buffering, but the temp files (wmcserver) files do buffer and freeze. It makes no sense to me. Maybe it is just the way it is, a mystery with this cute little PC stick.

[krustyreturns]

But these files are not even stored on the pc stick, right? they are on your server machine. I hate mysteries.

[kccrow]

Sorry for not responding earlier, didn't get the email notification. Correct, all media files are on my server machine, includes all recorded TV and TV tuners for streaming. Interestingly, things appear to have improved. It is possible there was an update of something and this change improved the situation. ServerWMC is still 1.0.0.56 build 1190. I will keep an eye on it, use and abuse it and see what happens. Thanks

[moronim]

I'm actually experiencing severe buffering as well. I've been using ServerWMC for probably about a year now without issue and it wasn't until the past week or two where I've started to experience this. The issue is only with Live TV, recorded TV works fine and doesn't experience this.

I haven't changed any settings on ServerWMC, Kodi or the PVR.WMC Add-On.

A temporary workaround has been to jump back in Live TV about 10 seconds, but after a while the buffering returns. I also tried to increase the <minvideocachelevel> and <minaudiocachelevel> in advancedsettings.xml, but it hasn't made a difference.

Kodi 14.2
ServerWMC Build 1190, assembly version 1.0.0.56
PVR.WMC Version: 0.3.112

Log FIle: http://pastebin.com/aRUWXGSd

Client and server run on the same Windows 7 Machine
Intel Core i3-4130
8GB Memory
Ceton Infinitv6 PCIe Tuner