Apple TV Struggling to Playback OTA Recording

[crownsox]

I'm having an issue with playing back recording that my Channels server has recorded from a local over-the-air Fox broadcast. This mostly appears as dropped frames, frame-to-frame artifacts, and sometimes speed up video as it catches back up to the audio. I've searched this forum and found some suggestions that switching from 6 to 2 channels audio source would help. That appears to stop the dropped frames for 5-10 minutes, but they re-appear with similar severity thereafter. I've included a screenshot of the stats readout during a playback glitch and a diagram of my setup.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.

[Edwin_Perez]

I know my fox 12.1 became unwatchable after they converted to ATSC 3.0 112.1 ... They lowered the Power on the 12.1 this is in the Portland Oregon Area. Not sure if you are experiencing same problem.

[crownsox]

It looks like WFXT (and a handful of other stations in the Boston area) switched over to ASTC 3.0 as of this past January. I just peeked at the live signal numbers and I think these should be good enough? Quality is down in the high 70s to low 80s, but symbol is at 100%

[slampman]

I wouldn't think sig strength would rack up dropped frames but i may be wrong. Usually you see signal strength in the first couple of lines of the stats. Not sure why it doesnt show on yours. Might check what it is on that channel to be sure.

Also try the official hd homerun app on your ATV and see if you get the same issue.

[slampman]

Another thing. Change the appletv res to 59.97fps resolution and turn hdr off. Then set atv to match frame rate and range in the same appletv settings.

[dschaper]

The Video output shows:

Dropped Frames: 0 (decoder) 1700 (output)

Doesn't seem to be a signal or processing issue, it's in the AppleTV box itself. Frame rates might be it but not sure. And there are no signal strength numbers on a recording playback.

The server log should show details but the better option would be to look at the recording itself, click on the View Details > File ID for the json output.

[crownsox]

Interesting. Is the Decoder on the server side of the playback operation and Output on the player (Apple TV in this case)?

I haven't had a chance to test the Apple TV settings as I'm away for home. But I did pull up the recording details and included them below:

[dschaper]

@crownsox

Is the Decoder on the server side of the playback operation and Output on the player (Apple TV in this case)?

My understanding is that decoder is the decoder in the Apple TV device and output is Apple TV to display (TV).

You do have signal issues that can cause the behavior you are seeing: pixels, dropped frames, catch up. You want all of those BadCount to be zero. Signal Strength (SS) is 100 all of the time but the Signal Quality isn't and it looks pretty variable.

Are you close to the broadcast tower? Do you have any kind of amplifier in the antenna path? Take a look at troubleshooting:signal_strength_quality [HDHomeRun] for more on that.

Is this behavior only on this Fox station or do you see it on other stations? Does it happen with all of the programs on that station?

[crownsox]

We've had several more rainy Saturdays in Boston that have confirmed the suggestions above that the issue was with my antenna's ability to receive the local Fox station signal (and other channels) in inclement weather. Looks like I'm off to try and remedy this in hardware. Thank you for all the help.