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mellomade · 2016-12-20, 23:39

(2016-12-20, 19:45)mechevarria Wrote: I previously had a HDTC-2US. I also have an Asus AC1900p router which is in the RT-AC68U family. Figured this out because viewing was absolutely perfect on my kodi htpc which was on ethernet, but all wifi devices were stuttering (phones, FireTV). Turns out the HDTC-2US can stream HD over A/C wifi, but not over N. The HDTC-2US-M can stream HD over N. I wasn't going to put my router in A/C mode so I went with the upgrade.

Unfortunately this is likely purely coincidental that this solved something for you. The only difference between the original HDTC-2US and the new M version is the passive heat sink case used compared to the older fan based unit. The internal hardware is identical. In fact, SD will convert your old EXTEND to the new case for a fee.

The hardware transcoding profiles between these 2 units are identical as well. So all this AC vs N stuff is speculation - because we all know that streaming any video over WiFi is spotty at best - and hardwiring will always win the day because it is much more stable. Wifi can fluctuate too much in continuous signal quality to be that reliable for everyone. If you pick a very compressed stream you might get it to work over N - but again not everyone will be successful at this because every setup and environment is different which will heavily influence your stability.

It will be even worse with the CONNECT or Prime because now you are talking about broadcast MPEG-2 video which (in the USA at least) can top over 20 Mb/s. Even my latest Ubiquiti AC APs struggle with this at peak usage time. Again - this is not about your wifi network being able to handle 20 Mb/s - of course it can - but maintaining that steadily for hours on end with no hiccups is quite a different story.

Now it is possible that the newer thermal considerations are helping keep the hardware cooler during transcoding operations - I actually had this problem with the original EXTEND and after I moved it outside my server closet where the ambient temp was much more reasonable I get almost no issues with stuttering, etc. But this has nothing to do with the WiFi.

Bottom line here - use WiFi at your own peril - it is far more likely that your network will be the issue rather than the SD hardware or Kodi.

mellomade · 2016-12-22, 03:32

(2016-12-18, 17:54)snafu7x7 Wrote:
(2016-12-18, 17:12)bry Wrote: Do you have the ability to use a ethernet cable? Maybe with a powerline adapter

It's NOT the wifi that is the weak link here. If that were the case I would have stuttering and poor performance across everything else, not only HDHomerun thru Kodi. Why do Netflix and Amazon Prime stream seamlessly? Why do HD movies and TV stream seamlessly over WIFI thru Kodi from our NAS?

One thing to look at when comparing your performance to other services like Netflix, HD movies you've encoded etc is to ensure you are comparing videos that share similar bitrates. Netflix/Amazon/other online video services do a great job delivering very low bitrates - typically 2-3Mb/s for their HD content. My encoded MKVs hover between 8-10Mb/s. When you compare this to the average MPEG-2 stream from the HDHomerun which for 1080i signal at 60fps can hover around 15-20Mb/s there is an obvious bandwidth difference there.

I promise you that WiFi definitely is a weak link for any setup. What I would do is to try either the 'mobile' or any of the 'internet' labeled transcoding profiles to see if you get an improvement. You can find this setting by going to the following URL in any browser - http://YOUR_HDHR_IP/transcode.html - under Default transcode profile.

smicale · 2017-02-01, 15:12

Hello everyone! I am looking for some help on this very same topic and I am hoping that anyone here can be of some help to me. My Kodi setup is 16.1 on all my devices. I am running a HDHOMERUN CONNECT on the backend. I have 2 Amazon Firesticks, XBOX ONE, iMac, Macbook Pro, 3 Amazon Fire Tablets, iPhones, Raspberry Pi 3, and Raspberry Pi 2. All these devices are operating over WiFi. I have 2 Apple Router Extremes. One on main floor and the other on 2nd floor. I also have a Apple Airport in the basement so I have really good WiFi coverage in my house. I am able to run the HDHome Run Addon in my Mac's & Raspberry Pi 3 no problem. On the Firesticks I have to run the HD Homerun View outside of Kodi because for some reason the buffering in Kodi seems to eat up the storage and will quit. Using the App outside of Kodi works pretty flawless. My one device that I just setup today is my Raspberry Pi 2. When I run the HDHomerun App in Kodi the playback is very choppy. Audio does not sync with the video. I tried this over Wifi and also tried it over ethernet. Both performed the exact same so I do not believe it is a network issue. I have tried modifying settings (Transcoding Profiles) all perform the same. Set it to NONE with no luck. I've tried going into Settings and TV and Enabling that and then loading a PVR client and it does the same thing. I am very curious as to what more I can try to remedy this. I am not sure how to get that log file some have mentioned in previous posts. I am still somewhat of a noob to Kodi. Any help provided would be greatly appreciated!

nickr · 2017-02-01, 21:09

debug log (wiki) <-- click and read.

mellomade · 2017-02-01, 23:58

(2017-02-01, 15:12)smicale Wrote: I am running a HDHOMERUN CONNECT ... I have tried modifying settings (Transcoding Profiles) all perform the same. Set it to NONE with no luck.

If you have a CONNECT you won't have access to those profiles since it does not transcode. The CONNECT only passes MPEG-2 video - so I would make sure you have the MPEG license from the Pi Foundation configured for your Pi2.

Even after you've done that - the Pi2 may perform better if you overclock and increase the GPU.

smicale · 2017-02-02, 04:32

(2017-02-01, 23:58)mellomade Wrote:
(2017-02-01, 15:12)smicale Wrote: I am running a HDHOMERUN CONNECT ... I have tried modifying settings (Transcoding Profiles) all perform the same. Set it to NONE with no luck.
If you have a CONNECT you won't have access to those profiles since it does not transcode. The CONNECT only passes MPEG-2 video - so I would make sure you have the MPEG license from the Pi Foundation configured for your Pi2.

Even after you've done that - the Pi2 may perform better if you overclock and increase the GPU.

How do I go about over clocking the Pi2?

nickr · (This post was last modified: 2017-02-02, 11:01 by nickr.)

(2017-02-01, 23:58)mellomade Wrote: The CONNECT only passes MPEG-2 video - so I would make sure you have the MPEG license from the Pi Foundation configured for your Pi2.

That is not strictly correct. It passes what it receives - if it receives mpeg2 it will pass mpeg2, if it receives h.264, it passes h.264.

mellomade · 2017-02-02, 17:14

(2017-02-02, 04:32)smicale Wrote: How do I go about over clocking the Pi2?

The easiest way I have found is via Leopold's config.txt add-on. Not sure if it works with newer versions of OE/LE as I use the Pi3 which doesn't need any overclock with Kodi currently.

Just search the forums - there is tons of good info on overclocking.

rpcameron · 2017-02-02, 21:47

(2017-02-02, 04:32)smicale Wrote:
(2017-02-01, 23:58)mellomade Wrote:
(2017-02-01, 15:12)smicale Wrote: I am running a HDHOMERUN CONNECT ... I have tried modifying settings (Transcoding Profiles) all perform the same. Set it to NONE with no luck.
If you have a CONNECT you won't have access to those profiles since it does not transcode. The CONNECT only passes MPEG-2 video - so I would make sure you have the MPEG license from the Pi Foundation configured for your Pi2.

Even after you've done that - the Pi2 may perform better if you overclock and increase the GPU.

How do I go about over clocking the Pi2?

http://elinux.org/RPiconfig

smicale · 2017-02-04, 01:12

So I have gone in to the OSMC settings and overclocked my Pi 2 with these settings, arm_freg=1000, sdram_freq=500, core_freq=500, over_voltage=2. After rebooting and running these my performance is not any better. Does anyone else know what else I could try to get this working like all my other devices do?

rpcameron · 2017-02-04, 04:14

You haven't mentioned whether you have the MPEG-2 license activated. What format does your provider transmit in? MPEG-2 or H.264?

smicale · 2017-02-04, 15:41

(2017-02-04, 04:14)rpcameron Wrote: You haven't mentioned whether you have the MPEG-2 license activated. What format does your provider transmit in? MPEG-2 or H.264?

How do i figure that out what format my provider sends? This is all OTA TV. All my other devices (8) work just fine streaming this. How do I know if the license is activated?

mellomade · (This post was last modified: 2017-02-04, 16:34 by mellomade.)

(2017-02-04, 15:41)smicale Wrote:
(2017-02-04, 04:14)rpcameron Wrote: You haven't mentioned whether you have the MPEG-2 license activated. What format does your provider transmit in? MPEG-2 or H.264?
How do i figure that out what format my provider sends? This is all OTA TV. All my other devices (8) work just fine streaming this. How do I know if the license is activated?

Well I think we've figured out your problem. All Pi devices require an MPEG2 license that is tied to the particular board to playback MPEG-2 content from the CONNECT. You get this key from the Pi Foundation and enter it into the same config file where you overclock.

http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/

If you are in the US - all OTA signal is MPEG-2. Not sure about the rest of the world - but again you should be able to google that.

smicale · 2017-02-04, 21:18

(2017-02-04, 16:34)mellomade Wrote:
(2017-02-04, 15:41)smicale Wrote:
(2017-02-04, 04:14)rpcameron Wrote: You haven't mentioned whether you have the MPEG-2 license activated. What format does your provider transmit in? MPEG-2 or H.264?
How do i figure that out what format my provider sends? This is all OTA TV. All my other devices (8) work just fine streaming this. How do I know if the license is activated?
Well I think we've figured out your problem. All Pi devices require an MPEG2 license that is tied to the particular board to playback MPEG-2 content from the CONNECT. You get this key from the Pi Foundation and enter it into the same config file where you overclock.

http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/

If you are in the US - all OTA signal is MPEG-2. Not sure about the rest of the world - but again you should be able to google that.

Why does my Pi 3 work just fine and I never bought this for it?

rpcameron · 2017-02-04, 22:23

(2017-02-04, 21:18)smicale Wrote:
(2017-02-04, 16:34)mellomade Wrote:
(2017-02-04, 15:41)smicale Wrote: How do i figure that out what format my provider sends? This is all OTA TV. All my other devices (8) work just fine streaming this. How do I know if the license is activated?
Well I think we've figured out your problem. All Pi devices require an MPEG2 license that is tied to the particular board to playback MPEG-2 content from the CONNECT. You get this key from the Pi Foundation and enter it into the same config file where you overclock.

http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/

If you are in the US - all OTA signal is MPEG-2. Not sure about the rest of the world - but again you should be able to google that.

Why does my Pi 3 work just fine and I never bought this for it?

Because the RPi3 has a more powerful processor.