Buffering away from home

Channels DVR Server
#1

on a cross country road trip right now and trying to watch some of our recordings, and it's not possible. it's buffering constantly. i've got the quality turned down to 300kbps on a 25mbps connection, and it's still buffering every 2 seconds or so. it's literally unwatchable. any ideas?

the server back home is on a 500/500 fios connection, so that's not the issue either.

actual TVE is also unwatchable, but at least a little better. it's only buffering every 5-6 seconds instead of every 2-3 like our recordings are.

further proof that the network connection is fine: we're watching directv stream right now without any issues. it took a few seconds to load the stream, but after it loads no buffering issues whatsoever.

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#2

I have used Channels on a 1.5mbps dsl connection without any buffering once the stream started. If you are using an Android/FireTV client maybe you could use the Settings, Support, Test DVR Speed.

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#3

Could you submit diagnostics from the client after this happens?

3 Likes
#4

I'm a novice, but have gone through the same issues. Unfortunately none of my suggestions will help until you get home.

My main problem was an insufficient CPU on my Windows machine at home. It takes a lot more horsepower to transcode for remote and the CPU was maxing out. Almost any CPU will work for at home viewing, but not remote.

Also, I find Tailscale works better than port forwarding. Assuming your remote device supports Tailscale I'd recommend setting it up.

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#5

it's on a vm on a r720 with 20 cores. CPU power isn't the issue.

#6

Well, if not the power maybe Tailscale will help, and maybe you can do that remotely! I've only done that once and I don't remember if the setup on the server is anything more than changing the setting in Settings (the same area as Port Forwarding) to turn on Tailscale, or if there is anything more if you can do that remotely. Using Tailscale you connect as if you're at home, using the IP Tailscale address of your Channels server. It's much easier than logging on with port forwarding, and I found it seemed to work better.

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#7

25mbit should be plenty for original quality on atsc 1.0 as well as any TVE stream.

It may seem like that but you add some complexity going through a hypervisor. I used to run my channels server on an esxi host with 24 procs and 256GB ram. My guest vm had 4 cores and 8gb ram (Linux). Comskip would take a really long time to complete and transcoding struggled as well.

I would go with original quality and see how it is. If it's fine then it's got to be something on the server side. I'D be surprised if it is a bandwidth issue unless something crazy is going on.

Re VPN. I work for a VPN company for the last 15 years. SSL VPNs add overhead to every packet and a TCP stream like channels dvr is never going to benefit from a VPN (other than security). There is no performance gain. Especially if tailscale is going through a relay server. Even if it is connecting you direct from your client to your channels sever, it is taking the same path that a port forward non vpn connection would. The difference is that tailscale would just add overhead. Any test that seems to prove otherwise is a red herring or possibly the cellular provider is throttling and masking the traffic on port 443 gets around the restriction. I've never seen this happen on my verizon and AT&T mifi's.

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#8

I have used WireGuard (Run by PiVPN) on my mobile devices, so as not to use port forwarding.
Never had any issues remote streaming Channels DVR, or Plex over it, even on lower bandwidth wifi.

3 Likes
#9

I also use a VPN on my channels clients without issue. My point was if you are having issues, adding a VPN isn't going to magically improve things.

4 Likes
#10

done, but from the ipad app on my macbook pro at the moment because i don't have another way to test tonight...but it's still buffering there just like it has been.

@slampman i tried original last night on my tivo stream 4k and it was slightly better, but still a ton of buffering.

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#11

watching live TVE right now at original quality, and that is working reasonably well...still buffering occasionally, but at least watchable. tried to watch a recording the same way, and it wouldn't even load.

#12

@crackers8199 It looks like the problem is your software encoder can't keep up with encoding in realtime. For instance, in one case it took 6 seconds to encode a 2 second segment.

If you watch the DVR web interface while you're playing on a device, you'll be able to see the rate that the encoder is operating at. You'll want it to be more than 1.0x to have a good experience.

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#13

what would cause that? the computer this is on is plenty fast enough to do any transcoding that would be thrown at it.

#14

No idea. Maybe the VM?

#15

it used to work though, that's the frustrating part. nothing has really changed that I can think of that should be causing this...

#16

My first channels server was on my esxi server and I would have random issues that I couldn't figure out. I had a NUC laying around and installed Linux on it and then setup channels and it's been working perfectly. I tell you this becuase my vm shouldnt have had issues either. I got tired of chasing them down so I did a standalone setup.

#17

my plex server is setup exactly the same way on the exact same server, and has no trouble transcoding and streaming anything. i am watching a movie in my Tesla right now while charging on the other side of the country.

I don't have another random machine laying around to dedicate to channels...that's why I have a server.

#18

Plex can build a buffer though since it isn't playing live video, which can hide most issues...

Have you tried watching live tv through Plex to see if it buffers, or do you get buffering when watching a recording on Channels?

#19

i don't have live tv set up in plex, that's what i use channels for. i don't have cable, everything is TVE or my own custom channels that run off of plex media.

it's particularly annoying though because this is only a recent issue. this used to work quite well. i'm not sure exactly when it started, but right now it's at the point where i basically can't use channels at all when away from home...i just use directv stream. which also unfortunately means i'm probably less likely to renew my channels sub when it runs out in september, unless i can get this sorted...

#20

does it buffer if you watch a recording in Channels?

did you try live tv in the web player and see what the fps and speed shown underneath is?