Improvements to recording statistics

Buffer warnings usually mean your HDD is too slow and cannot keep up. But if its only hitting 50% sometimes that's OK.. If it goes to 95% or 99% that's bad.

It is a 4TB Mycloud.
There have been many buffer warnings ver the past few days. It seems odd that must of the problems that I have occur around 6 or 7 pm.

Is the laptop being used for anything else, or dedicated to Channels? Other uses/applications could be keeping the disk busy, causing the issue.

The laptop is only used for channels. The DVR is using a NAS for storage. Is that still an issue?

Can you tell me where to start looking for the problem that is causing the buffer problems?

Are you seeing buffer warnings where the percentage is more than 50%?

You can check Task Manager to see if CPU or NETWORK or DISK is hitting 100% utilization.

It sounds like you're recording to a NAS.. is that over USB or Network? If you're recording to the network then you're essentially doubling the amount of traffic on your network and that could be why things are getting overloaded.

Yes, I’m seeing buffer warnings as high as 99%
I will check Task Manager.
I am recording to a 4TB MyCloud. It does not have the capability of using USB to record (apparently).
The HDHR, Laptop running Channels, and My Cloud are connected to the same Gigabit Switch. The laptop NIC is 100Mbps. My Cloud is 1000Mbps.

There's your bottleneck. You've got:

  1. Incoming stream: Data coming from tuner to laptop.
  2. Recording stream: Data from laptop to NAS.
  3. Watching recording/stream: Data from NAS to laptop, then from laptop to network.

If you're watching/streaming a program while recording, that's 4 separate transits across your laptop's slow 100Mbps connection. For an OTA HD stream (~12Mbps), that's 48Mbps, or half your bandwidth. Couple that with additional streams, and you're severely being limited by your network.

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get a better NIC. like a usb gigabit adapter.
otherwise, recommend using something newer/better as your server.

The laptop is one year old. The NIC is outdated to be sure. I was using a 4T MyCloud previously and I didn’t have nearly as many problems.
I have ordered a USB NIC, I’m hoping it will help.

USB 3.0 gigabit NIC would be best. if the laptop has usb 3.0

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I couldn’t stand it any more. I got a USB 3.0 to gigabit adapter from Best Buy, curbside. It looks like it has solved all of my problems.
Dell sucks, I never thought about the laptop having a 10/100 NIC until now. I thought I just needed to update the drivers.

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My few year old Dell Precision 5510 does not have a wired NIC at all. it too thin a machine
I just use a USB C Gigabit NIC when i want wired connection.

Which of the following debug values from my example post go into determining sigerr?

get /tuner0/debug
tun: ch=qam:279000000 lock=qam256:279000000 ss=95 snq=100 seq=100 dbg=-450/9119
dev: bps=38810720 resync=0 overflow=0
cc:  bps=77621440 resync=0 overflow=0
ts:  bps=3869792 te=0 crc=0
net: pps=373 err=0 stop=0

Noticed these in my DVR log on different channels from my Prime tuner.

ss=95%     snq=100%         seq=100% bps=3922097,2884672-5333184 pps=376,284-507 sigerr=5%
ss=97%-98% snq=99%,98%-100% seq=100% bps=3409680,2078528-5378304 pps=336,210-523 sigerr=1%
ss=95%-96% snq=100%         seq=100% bps=1585849,792608-2280064  pps=168,97-233  sigerr=5%
ss=96%     snq=100%         seq=100% bps=2035246,1815328-2341728 pps=208,190-238 sigerr=5%
ss=96%-97% snq=100%         seq=100% bps=1767367,395552-2528224  pps=185,67-256  sigerr=5%

sigerr tracks tun/seq dips and ts/te increments.

Figures it's nothing to worry about assuming the percentage is percentage of times you polled (once/second?) the debug info.

Results I showed from the log were from streaming different Prime tuner channels live, first one for 35 seconds, next one 3 minutes and 8 seconds, next one 37 seconds, next one 36 seconds and final one 36 seconds.

Do you happen to know what the ts:te transport error indicates?
Is it number of TEI bits set in the transport stream?

Yes it counts the number of packets with the TEI bit set.

So obvoius next question is if HDHR tuner demodulator sets the TEI bit in a TS packet it means it's corrupt, so does the HDHR tuner just drop that TS packet?

Reason I ask is running recordings through TSReader, there are no TEI erros.

I'm not sure if the packet is dropped. I don't think it is, usually you can see it in the stream.

Couldn't find an issue.
Recorded one of those channels for 39 seconds and it shows sigerr=5%

2020/07/10 16:46:26.945101 [DVR] Starting job 1594423800-ch768 Family Guy on ch=[768]
2020/07/10 16:46:27.404963 [TNR] Opened connection to 1323AADB/0 for ch768 FRFMHDP
2020/07/10 16:46:27.405322 [DVR] Recording for job 1594423800-ch768 from 1323AADB ch768 into "TV/Family Guy/Family Guy S17E19 2019-05-05 Girl Internetted 2020-07-10-1646.mpg" for 13m33.054768399s
2020/07/10 16:46:27.434242 [DVR] Refreshing metadata for Family Guy (184483)
2020/07/10 16:46:28.194472 [IDX] Generating video index for job 1594423800-ch768
2020/07/10 16:47:06.722998 [SNR] Statistics for "TV/Family Guy/Family Guy S17E19 2019-05-05 Girl Internetted 2020-07-10-1646.mpg": ss=93%-94% snq=100% seq=100% bps=3542371,1937152-5196320 pps=341,195-494 sigerr=5%
2020/07/10 16:47:06.723688 [TNR] Closed connection to 1323AADB/0 for ch768 FRFMHDP
2020/07/10 16:47:06.723739 [DVR] Job cancelled: 1594423800-ch768 Family Guy

So I figured it's an issue on that cable frequency.
I captured the full cable mux of that frequency for 4 minutes, 31 seconds and see no issues.

hdhomerun_config FFFFFFFF set /tuner2/channel auto:267000000

Tuner 2 Status
Virtual Channel none
Frequency 267.000 MHz
Program Number none
Authorization none
CCI Protection none
Modulation Lock qam256
PCR Lock locked
Signal Strength 94% (-3.8 dBmV)
Signal Quality 100% (36.8 dB)
Symbol Quality 100%
Streaming Rate 38.806 Mbps
Resource Lock none

hdhomerun_config FFFFFFFF get /tuner2/debug
tun: ch=auto:267000000 lock=qam256:267000000 ss=94 snq=100 seq=100 dbg=-456/8680
dev: bps=38810720 resync=0 overflow=0
cc: bps=38810720 resync=0 overflow=0
ts: bps=38810720 te=0 crc=0
net: pps=3686 err=0 stop=0

hdhomerun_config FFFFFFFF save /tuner2 prime.ts
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................................................................
................................
-- Video statistics --
1004855 packets received, 0 overflow errors, 0 network errors, 0 transport errors, 0 sequence errors

hdhomerun_config FFFFFFFF set /tuner2/channel none

Looking at the captured mux, TSReader shows no TEI errors.

How does Channels DVR figure I had sigerr=5%

P.S. I know my HDHR Prime and cable service don't have issues. Also doubt anyone makes short recordings or looks at logs. Just wondering where the 5% comes from.