[joshuashlilom]

Another thread on buffering ... I know.. I know but it's different this time.

Server:
Dedicated Win 7 machine
Core i5-6500
8 GB Ram
ServerWMC

Clients:
Wetek Core's
OpenElec (Ver 7)
Running Jarvis

PVR/Live TV:
Backend
WMC PVR Client


Connection:
WLAN VPN Tunnel
Home Connection - 250/25
RV - 15/8 (varies.. 4G connection)



Issue:

I can play live TV.. I've messed around with advanced config and I've gotten the TV to a point where it's sort of acceptable but I still have buffering. I understand that with my setup I should expect it but honestly it's not too shabby at the moment but I thought with the equipment that I have that transcoding would have taken care of it.

My current advanced settings : http://pastebin.com/kmjNd3vg

Server logs from today : https://www.dropbox.com/s/q0913nfgtgcidy...g.txt?dl=0



Is there anything that I can do to reduce the buffering at this point ? Or maybe to even reduce the video quality a tad ? I tried messing around with the cache mem buffer but when I increase it the live tv will fail to load (timeout). I've also noticed that if it does cache then when it tries to playback the cache the live video will speed up to try and catch back up to the live feed.

Any suggestions ?

[joshuashlilom]

I see a lot of this in my log also right before the stream closes :

16/04/05 15:29:30.596 Parse> re-throwing exception
2016/04/05 15:29:30.596 Remux> error: System.Exception: Timed out waiting for next guid header
at Remuxer.demux.microsoft.WtvToPesDemuxer.parse(JobStreamI jobStm, MuxManager muxManager)
at Remuxer.muxer.MuxManager.mux(JobStreamI stream)
at Remuxer.Remux.Start(String clientName, String outFullFileName)
2016/04/05 15:29:30.597 WriteChunk> long interval between writes (ms): 20018


Should I try using the Emby server for its transcoding abilities ? I've seen krustyreturns reply to others that this maybe a disk issue but I'm using a WD Black drive. If I add in a SSD would that help ?

[krustyreturns]

Not sure what you mean by 'with the equipment that I have that transcoding would have taken care of it'

The error you list above, and that is showing up in your logs, is not a buffering problem, instead the stream is timing out waiting for data from the tuners. Do you get this problem if you manually stop a live stream before you start another?

[joshuashlilom]

Not sure what you mean by 'with the equipment that I have that transcoding would have taken care of it'

When I was researching this project I read a lot and I remember something saying that you'd need a good computer on the backend for transcoding and a client that could handed decoding. I don't think this was the case with ServerWMC as it may have been when I was researching using Emby as a backend. I'm still considering that at the moment if I can't figure out the buffering with just the PVR client and server backend. I see that there is a setting in Emby to auto-negotiate the quality based on the network connection.

The error you list above, and that is showing up in your logs, is not a buffering problem, instead the stream is timing out waiting for data from the tuners. Do you get this problem if you manually stop a live stream before you start another?

I got that error more when I tried to increase the "minvideocachelevel" and "cachemembuffersize" to a larger amount. The WeTek core device has 4GB of ram but it only uses 9% with a cache mem buffer size of 150 bytes. I tried to increase that to a larger size to take advantage of the extra memory but I could not get a live stream with that large of a cache (using this guide http://www.tekto-kodi.com/kodi-how-to-tu...-settings/ ). I assume it timed out waiting. Is there anyway to increase the amount of wait time on the server waiting for the data from the tuner ?

This setup works and I can watch live tv and the quality is very good. It just buffers maybe once or twice every 30 secs. Is it even possible to offload or write some of the data to the client and the client just reads from it's memory the stream ? What would you do in a setup like this ?

[krustyreturns]

You can increase this value in the settings of serverwmc to extend how long it waits for data from the tuner (see debug tab to get to settings file)

<Timeout_WaitForTS_MS>10000</Timeout_WaitForTS_MS>

since you are trying to stream over a vpn connection you might be better off with a media server that transocdes to a lower bit rate, like Emby - of course the quality will suffer. Serverwmc supports both emby and kodi at the same time.

[joshuashlilom]

I tried Emby & Plex at your suggestion but they will not play certain channels (CNN, ESPN, TNT) although the streaming seems to be fine.

Can you explain what's going on here and if there is anything that I can change to stop the stream from ending ?

http://pastebin.com/K275vKv6 .. This is using Emby on the ESPN station.

[krustyreturns]

Sorry for the delay. Try changing the value UseHeadersForAudioFileEx to false in the settings of serverwmc. Then save the file and restart serverwmc. Then try those channels again. If it doesn't work, post the log again.

[joshuashlilom]

Tried your suggestion.. No luck. I still cannot play channels like ESPN, Disney, Bet, etc. I was able to play a local channel ( Channel 13) using emby

http://pastebin.com/GLS9u9Kc

[joshuashlilom]

I can't send you a PM but I'm more than willing to donate more to the further development of ServerWMC if you can devote a bit of time to help me resolve this.

[krustyreturns]

Sorry I forgot about this thread. Rereading it quickly now... So the situation is Kodi buffers too much trying to play over a VPN connection - but it can play all the channels. So you switched to Emby/Plex since they transcode based on the connection speed and these don't have buffering problems, but for some reason they don't play certain channels like ESPN. Is that right? Can you confirm that Kodi will play ESPN but Emby won't?

[joshuashlilom]

You are correct on your quick recap of the situation.

If I try to play ESPN in Kodi.. It will play but buffers every 5 - 10 secs or so and I assume that is just because of the network speed which I understand so I tried Emby instead but it won't play ESPN at all.

[krustyreturns]

That's weird. Did you try increasing the amount of time serverwmc has to discover the stream types, by increasing this timeout value:

<Timeout_WaitForTS_MS>10000</Timeout_WaitForTS_MS>

you need to restart swmc after making the change and saving. Also my suggestion of changing UseHeadersForAudioFileEx to false might have been a mistake, it is really only useful for emby to detect whether it can turn off transcoding. the downside is it makes it take longer for steam discovery.

[joshuashlilom]

At some point I had already changed that value to be 10000. Current settings are located here ( http://pastebin.com/e6kci9fv )

I can change the other value back to true but that will still render the same results previous to the change.

[krustyreturns]

?? 10000 is the default value. Try changing it to 20000.

[joshuashlilom]

Sorry. I miss read that last post from you. I thought you wanted me to change the value to 10000. I did go ahead and change it to 20000 , save ,reload the settings file and restarted ServerWMC.

No change.

Recent log here after waiting for channel to load : http://pastebin.com/ibJVAw3V