[patssox04]

So I have 2 fire tv's connecting to my windows pc backend and serverWMC. Running KODI 16 this really works great, this setup is an excellent one device solution. However, when viewing a 1080i (MPEG2) channel, I will get some dropped frames. It's not bad, and really only noticeable where you have a crawl at the bottom of the screen or during sports, where it is very noticeable.

I have deinterlacing set to BOB-Inverted, and it looks excellent. I don't know what nearest neighbor or bilinear mean, but neither seems to have any effect. I have hardware acceleration enabled mediacodec and mediacodec (surface) neither seems to have any effect, I figured neither was being used for MPEG2 anyway? I used advanced settings to set the min buffer to 40% for PVR video, because I was getting a little stuttering of the signal with it at the default.

I didn't think I noticed it on recordings though, so as a test I recorded an NCAA game. When watching the file, I get no dropped frames, or at least so few that I didn't notice it, unlike when watching live.
Is this simply the constant buffering, or a settings issue maybe? I plan on setting the min buffer to 80% and seeing if that helps.
Does anyone else have this issue?
I'd just accept it and move on if it wasn't solved on all recordings, so it seems like something I could fix.

Thanks.

[Senor Rudy]

Neylon79,

I don't have a straight answer for you, but I recently abandoned a TVHeadend PVR project due to problems with transport of .ts stream (mpeg2). TVHeadend is an awesome package and works well, but I could not get the recorded .ts file streamed to my Kodi on FireStick or Android box via WiFi N (I don't have AC). Video and audio where choppy and not view-able.

When I first started researching PVR options, I came across a post I should not have ignored > streaming of mpeg2 ( .ts ) with HD content (native ATSC OTA broadcast) can not be streamed over WiFi N. I learned this the hard way, but was able to prove it. Both my Android TV box Kodi and FireTV stick Kodi could not stream mpeg2 from the PVR PC over Wifi N. When I use a data cable (5e) it worked flawlessly to the Android TV Box. Note the Android TV box has a 100mb data port, not gigabit.

Do you have WiFi AC?

Transcoding on the PVR will solve the WiFi transport issue converting to .mp4/h264 or .mkv/h264, unfortunately, my old laptop did not have enough horsepower or RAM to transcode more than a few minutes before other issues presented.

Hope you find resolution to the issue.

[noggin]

It depends on your WiFi set-up to a degree. If you have 5GHz 802.11n (usually indicated by 802.11a also being supported) you may have OK results.

I stream H264 HD stuff of ~13Mbs over WiFi to my Macbook (no 802.11ac) with no major issues.

[Senor Rudy]

Just checked the laptop USB nic, it is only 2.4ghz. I should have tried a different dual band, but both claim/rate 300mbit.

5ghz makes that much of a difference using N? In my mind, I was going to add AC soon, preserving 5ghz for AC, N on 2.4ghz, but i have dual band right now (at router) with N.

[noggin]

Just checked the laptop USB nic, it is only 2.4ghz. I should have tried a different dual band, but both claim/rate 300mbit.

5ghz makes that much of a difference using N? In my mind, I was going to add AC soon, preserving 5ghz for AC, N on 2.4ghz, but i have dual band right now (at router) with N.

For me it does. I live in a very built-up area of West London where there are a gazillion 2.4GHz WiFi networks, and far fewer 5GHz networks, so the spectrum is less congested. I always get much higher bandwith with 5GHz 802.11n. When downloading files from the internet I get sustained transfers of 50-60Mbs on a 76Mbs connection over WiFi (My access point is 802.11ac, but my Macbook is just 802.11n and I force it to 5GHz).

I wouldn't use WiFi for streaming Blu-ray lossless rips - at least no my 802.11n 5GHz - but for HD TV stuff from TV Headend it works OK most of the time for casual viewing on a laptop. (Though my Macbook 802.11n WiFi may be pretty good, and perform better than that in a Fire TV Stick or similar?)

[Senor Rudy]

Thanks for the feedback. I will have to investigate with 5ghz, or just make the jump to AC. I am rural AZ, USA and can see 4 other AP's all on channel 6. I use ch11. I am the only AP showing on 5ghz. My problem is ISP bandwidth. I over pay for business class DSL and it is rated at 20mbit download if the wind is blowing the right direction!

You refer to streaming H264 without issues which my N does as well just fine. It is raw .ts mpeg2 file/stream that requires more than my N could provide. I kinda recall the posting that warned about mpeg2 HD suggested it requires 80mbit/sec....my PVR .ts mpeg HD source had minimal compression compared to the same file transcoded to H264. Storage on PVR for native .ts mpeg2 was about 10GB/hr. H264 encoded was 1/10th of this with 2ch audio, about 2.5GB with AAC 5.1. H265 improved on this, but Kodi(s) are hit and miss with h265, it can freeze them up.

[noggin]

Thanks for the feedback. I will have to investigate with 5ghz, or just make the jump to AC. I am rural AZ, USA and can see 4 other AP's all on channel 6. I use ch11. I am the only AP showing on 5ghz. My problem is ISP bandwidth. I over pay for business class DSL and it is rated at 20mbit download if the wind is blowing the right direction!

Ah - I'm lucky. I live in an area covered by 'Fibre-to-the-Cabinet' - which gives me a VDSL connection over my phone line but with the DSL modem in the cabinet in my street, not at the telephone exchange. We get 76/20ish for our broadband connection - though this isn't that relevant for in-home WiFI connections to TV Headend.

You refer to streaming H264 without issues which my N does as well just fine. It is raw .ts mpeg2 file/stream that requires more than my N could provide.

Hmm - I'm talking about H264 within an MPEG2 transport stream - aka a .ts (I don't know what TV Headend does with its htsp format but I think it still stays pretty MPEG2 transport stream format. We use H264 for HD (and SD in our DVB-T2 muxes) and MPEG2 for 16:9 SD (on our DVB-T muxes). The bitrates we use are probably a bit lower than the US uses for MPEG2 HD (as H264 is more efficient). However I have no major problems with streaming 720/50p 13Mbs H264 .ts stuff from DVB-S2 either.

I kinda recall the posting that warned about mpeg2 HD suggested it requires 80mbit/sec....

No idea where that comes from. The ATSC muxes used in North America carry 19.2Mb/s - and that is for the entire payload (main channel, sub-channels, audio, video, PSIP, subtitles/closed captions etc.)

my PVR .ts mpeg HD source had minimal compression compared to the same file transcoded to H264. Storage on PVR for native .ts mpeg2 was about 10GB/hr.

10GB/hour = 170MB/min = 2.8MB/s = 22Mb/s which is more than ATSC can carry (are you recording QAM cable or ATSC)

Assuming you are recording the entire ATSC mux for your station (i.e. the main channel and all the sub-channels) I'd expect

19.2Mb/s = 2.4MB/s = 144MB/min = 8.4GB/hour would be the max I'd expect for a high quality ATSC broadcast with no sub channels (like some CBS O&Os have been in the past). If you are only recording the main channel and are recording a regular station I'd expect it to drop a lot below this...

AIUI Fox network feeds are pre-encoded by the network at around 14.5Mbs (they use a splicer system to avoid the local stations re-encoding network feeds), whilst ABC, CBS and NBC are re-encoded by local stations at any bitrate they like (if they chose a lower bitrate they can add more sub-channels)

In the UK we use a different model - we have 40.25Mbs for our DVB-T2 muxes, and use H264 not MPEG2, so we are running 5 HD 1080i services on a single 'channel'. (BBC One HD, BBC Two HD, CBBC HD, ITV HD and C4 HD), so they are averaging around 7Mbs each (H264 runs at around half the bitrate of MPEG2 for a roughly equivalent quality, and by sharing 40Mbs between 5 services we can 'stat mux' which means you can dynamically allocate bitrate based on each channels' need - so if one is showing a talking head and the other a pop music show, the former gets a lower bitrate than the latter. There is also some currently unallocated payload I think)

H264 encoded was 1/10th of this with 2ch audio, about 2.5GB with AAC 5.1. H265 improved on this, but Kodi(s) are hit and miss with h265, it can freeze them up.

Ah - I'm not talking about re-encoding to H264. Our digital TV broadcasts OTA here in the UK use H264 for HD at between 6 and 13Mbs - dynamically altering bitrate. I've seen some Swedish DVB-T2 stuff go well over 15Mbs at peak as well. Our SD MPEG2 stuff peaks at around 6Mbs.

I stream this over WiFi from TV Headend to my Mac with few problems.

[wrxtasy]

@ neylon79,
I'm not sure this has anything to do with WIFI

The Fire TV1's/Sticks do not have enough CPU Grunt to both Software decode 1080i mpeg2 and do Bob Software deinterlacing at the same time. Attach a Keyboard and hit the "O" key and you will see dc:ff=mpeg2. This is a well known FireTV issue.

Transcode 1080i mpeg2 TV content to H264, and you get Hardware decode from the FireTV I believe and you then have sufficient spare CPU capacity left to do Bob deinterlacing without dropping frames.

[MrMC]

get out of here Dual Core ARM Cortex A9 should be able to eat 1080i and handle the deinterlacing just fine. Something is messed up somewhere and I'll just have to find and fix it when one arrives... oh wait, opps. I'm supposed to be in submarine mode

[wrxtasy]

Ha Ha, mpeg2 1080i has been borked for a while on the FireTV v1, needs some bashing into shape.

Get back down that Fox hole before you get spotted out in the "Wild"

[patssox04]

OP here-
I didn't clarify enough in my original post, but thank you all for trying to help.
Both of the Fire TVs are 2s, not sticks, the new 4k boxes I bought new in the last 3 months.
They are both wired also, not wifi.
I have one tv on a stick, but don't do live tv on it, just transcoded recordings from the PC.

That is what I don't get- My hardware readout shows all 4 cores at about 30-50%, working but not maxed out at any time, when streaming MPEG2 1080i live tv. But I am getting dropped frames nonetheless, more so on live than on a recording that I am watching.

[MrMC]

that's even more confusing, the 2nd gen firetv set-top-box has more than enough ponies to sw decode and deinterlace 1080i mpeg2.

Check that you are really using bob-invert. The other ones will bring all but an i7 to it's knees.

Also, if you are seeing this using off-the-air ATSC, could be natural drops in actually receiving the content.

[patssox04]

I have confirmed that it is not a signal issue. I watched a game and recorded it. While watching live, the dropped frames were there, but watching the recording later, they were not as noticeable.
Since I have a minimum buffer of 40% and never run into re-buffering issues, I am assuming the serverwmc pc is sending the feed just fine. I was thinking the box was having an issue processing the stream while constantly loading the buffer live, as opposed to a recording which i would imagine buffers much further in advance since it can?
I don't really know what I am talking about technically speaking, just using some logic on the variables at play.

[noggin]

that's even more confusing, the 2nd gen firetv set-top-box has more than enough ponies to sw decode and deinterlace 1080i mpeg2.

Check that you are really using bob-invert. The other ones will bring all but an i7 to it's knees.

Eh? Celeron Dual Core Ivy Bridge and Haswell do a 1080i YADIF 2x fine. (It's what fritsch and co worked so hard on before Intel enabled hardware deinterlacing, with their VAAPI decode but CPU YADIF 2x deinterlace hybrid solution which made Celeron 1007U and 2955Us such great boxes for Live TV)

[wrxtasy]

OP here-
I didn't clarify enough in my original post, but thank you all for trying to help.
Both of the Fire TVs are 2s, not sticks, the new 4k boxes I bought new in the last 3 months.
They are both wired also, not wifi.
I have one tv on a stick, but don't do live tv on it, just transcoded recordings from the PC.

That is what I don't get- My hardware readout shows all 4 cores at about 30-50%, working but not maxed out at any time, when streaming MPEG2 1080i live tv. But I am getting dropped frames nonetheless, more so on live than on a recording that I am watching.

More info on this same FireTV2 issue over in this post:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2251479

2). I did not think it did mpeg2, but apparently I have never tried until now. Turned off my hdhomerun extends transcoding and watching with deinterlacing turned off. Dropped frames. Hundreds. Turned on Bob and I got serious motion blur. Do not notice motion blur with Bob Inverted.

Edit. All above was libstagefright. Switched to media codec and turned off deinterlacing. No dropped frames.

Coincidently Kodi Jarvis in combo with Android Lollipop mediacodec produces lousy Software ff-mpeg2 deinterlacing on the C2 / AML S905 I've tested as well. Dropped Frames, skipping....

Of course you can turn off deinterlacing completely and then enjoy the lovely Video Combing effect when the camera pans about !