Watching live tv is impossible right now on our Apple TV. It cuts out about every second, is horribly pixelated as well. I start the same channel on my iPhone on network, and it plays back perfect. Again, this is for live tv. Nothing recorded so can’t test out DVR yet
It only happens on the 4K Apple TV. All others play perfect
This means the network connection between that ATV and the hdhomerun is not very good. Is it on Wi-Fi?
You can try running a speedtest app to measure the bandwidth.
It’s on WiFi with no issues. 4K content was streaming just fine before and during the problem, and if WiFi was down or slow it wouldn’t have been able to do that.
The HDHR streams use 2-4x more bandwidth than any internet based video.
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Definitely a You thing. Working strong in my household.
That’s not completely accurate, he said he was streaming 4K, which is up to 30Mbps. Highest I’ve seen on the Mpeg2 streams from HDHR are about ~16Mbps.
@tbrass84 is the ATV 4K on tvOS 11.3? If so did you use Channels on it before updating to 11.3 without issue? I’m convinced that my issues (pretty same as you describe) started after updating to tvOS 11.3 (beta 3 if I remember correctly).
I did raise the question here and it was suggested being on a beta version of the os could be the cause due to the extra logging etc. that takes place and Channels pretty much uses most of the available CPU itself. That made sense so just waited until the public release of 11.3 was available. That made no difference though (even after a full reset) and my other ATV 4K which had never been updated to 11.3 beta builds suddenly started encountering the same issues as soon as it was updated to public release of 11.3. Both on WiFi with excellent signal and speed test consistently reported download speeds of 205Mbps with all other steaming (inc 4K)services working perfectly.
In the end resorted to power line adapters and all works perfectly despite them reducing my download speeds by more than 50% (speeds now approx 70Mbps).
I know nothing about how it works, but the only logical explanation to me is that something changed in tvOS 11.3 that has resulted in Cahnnels having issues for an ATV 4K connected via WiFi.
Quite strange. Does the free app InstaTV show the same problems over wifi?
If I remember correctly it did as that and the fact that Channels had no issues over WiFi on my ATV 4K still on 11.2, pretty much confirmed the issue wasn’t caused by Channels.
I will double check though to be certain and report back shortly.
Yep same issue with InstaTV.
Connected to WiFi, speed test 170Mbps download, Channels has issues within 3 seconds - frozen picture (sometimes with sound carrying on) and pixelated. InstaTV issues not quite as frequent and no pixelation just freezes then skips a bit to catch up.
Back to ethernet, speed test 40Mbps (powerline adapter for that ATV is on an extension lead which makes it a little worse), Channels and InstaTV work perfectly without issue.
Latency issue maybe?
Possibly…although I haven’t made any changes to my WiFi set up for nearly a year and it worked fine up to a few months ago?
Also I use Channels on iPhones, iPads, Fire TV 4K box and the newer Fire TV 4K pendant all over WiFi without issue.
So if it is a latency issue it is only impacting the ATV since updating to 11.3. Do you know how I could check for latency issues over WiFi? There clearly isn’t any (or enough to have an impact) over my wired network and that includes using powerline adapters.
The speedtest app might show a “ping” latency measurement.
Ah…yes it does. Used that app quite a bit when the issue first arose and I was testing my speeds on WiFi compared to wired. Varies a little depending on which server but I remember it always having a ping of around 20 ms.
Have just tested again now and ping on WiFi from iPad or ATV is 19ms and jitter (only shown on ipad) is 3.7ms. On ATV when wired (via powerline adapters) and using same server ping is 21ms.
I’m guessing that suggests my WiFi doesn’t introduce any more latency than already exists and in fact the powerline adapters make it a tiny bit worse?
Would be interesting to know if many other people are using over WiFi and having issues or not. If not then would suggest it is something at my end.
I use mine on wifi daily without any issue. Everything used to be local (LAN) but I have now moved the DVR to another location, still don’t have any issues playing “original” quality over wifi.
Remote viewing uses a completely different streaming method and isn’t really a fair comparison.
@Bells I’m surprised to hear that the iOS app works fine over WiFi, since it uses the same streaming code and tvOS and iOS are very similar.
Can you check what the Tuner Status > Tuner X > Streaming Rate says on https://my.hdhomerun.com on WiFi vs Wired?
Yes I’m on 11.3, and while most of my channels are remote streaming I do have local OTA streaming on the LAN without issue.
@tmm1 I’ve done some further testing…I used ITV HD and BBC One HD and the results of the streaming rate (which constantly changes when refreshing) are quoted below as a range
iPad Pro WiFi: works perfectly with no issues during 20 min stream
Speedtest ping - 18ms
Jitter - 3.6ms
Down speed - 174Mbps
ITV HD Steaming rate - 3-9 Mbps mostly around 5 Mbps
iPhone 7 WiFi: works perfectly with no issues during 20 min stream
Speedtest ping - 18ms
Jitter - 3ms
Down speed - 165Mbps
ITV HD Steaming rate - 3-9 Mbps mostly around 5 Mbps
ATV 4K Wired: works perfectly with no issues
Speedtest ping - 20ms
Jitter - N/A
Down speed - 57Mbps
ITV HD Steaming rate - 3-9 Mbps mostly around 5 Mbps
ATV 4K WiFi: Starts having issues within seconds of stream commencing
Speedtest ping - 19ms
Jitter - N/A
Down speed - 189Mbps
ITV HD Steaming rate - 3-9 Mbps when working, displays none when picture has frozen then jumps back up when it starts again. One thing I did notice a couple of times with this test was that when the picture was freezing the streaming rate either just before, during or just after would for a split second jump up to 30 ish Mbps.
As said previously, I’m now wired so not currently affecting me, but don’t want this issue to affect other people and put them off using Channels if something could be done to resolve. I have no problem with my WiFi being the issue (although I really can’t see how) but would be good to confirm one way or another.
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