Worth trying the hdhomerun official app.
We had one user try their xfinity cable box and it was doing the same thing.
Interesting — I’ll try again using the HDHomeRun app and submit diagnostics to SiliconDust to see if they’re seeing the underruns as well. I haven’t found a way to monitor logs directly from their app, but I’ll ask if they can provide any insight.
Also, just to clarify: is the idea here that the issue might be coming directly from the Verizon feed? I’m wondering if that might help explain why that other user saw similar buffer drops even when using a dedicated Xfinity cable box.
Just want to make sure I am understand correctly. Thanks!
Edit: Just to reiterate - I have tested the same things on my hardwired FireTV and do not see the same behavior at all - it seems isolated to my mac devices with it being most severe on the ATVs
Because I don't use tuner sharing, there are no entries in the DVR logs. I can only go by what the on screen stats show. What I see now is 1 buffer event each time I change to a different OTA. This is new behavior since the beta. The buffering is not visible, seems to take place before the picture builds in.
I did have one odd pause this morning, but it was more than a pause, the channel I was watching just stopped dead. Pressing play did nothing. Changing the channel fixed it. Again, nothing in the logs because it was ATV direct to HDHR.
OK awesome - thank for clarifying for me!
Still rock solid now, even with terrible storms all night and lightning and sheets of rain lowering my signal quality.
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That's fantastic news!
Unfortunately I am still seeing the issue BUT the SiliconDust team was helpful and identified a signal issue from my Fios ONT. They're coming out today to check it. I am hopefully that I have FINALLY tracked down the cause of the issue...
Im confused, are you having an issue with OTA or TVE because I don't see how your internet has anything to do with your OTA signal on the HDHR.
Because the OP stated it was with a Prime on Fios, not an antenna.
So we have not been talking OTA at all this time. I must have missed that. I would never trust any data stream coming from a cable provider and would certainly not consider Channels responsible for fixing it. Way too many variables in that data path. OTA narrows it down to just a few things, your antenna, your coax, the HDHR and its connection to the ATV.
I don't think at any point I suggested that I was convinced that this was a Channels specific issue. That said, they have been most helpful in pointing me in the right direction and have offered valuable insight into the problem and where I should be looking.
So you've been commenting on this thread the whole time, but didn't read in the OP:
When someone says LIVE TV buffering I do not think STREAMING. That is not live TV to me. I personally do not consider any signal that comes over an internet connection to be live, by default it is delayed, processed, routed and manipulated from the original LIVE state. As far as it can be, only OTA is LIVE and even then there is still all kinds of signal delays and packet modifications that occur within the broadcast facility.
So cable TV is not live? (I'm not talking IP–based delivery, but QAM—whether ClearQAM or QAM256—is definitely within the same realm; the same for DVB-S and DVB-C; neither are delivered via aerial/antenna, but both are definitely live.)
Nope, I worked in the TV industry for 40 years and always got a kick out of watching the local return feed from Spectrum Cable in our control room of the signal being sent out to the entire country and Spectrum was 18 seconds behind live. The bounce to the satellite and back was 2/3 of a second, but however Spectrum (as just one example) moves signals through their network induces a huge delay. That means packet buffers, and who knows what else your local cable or internet provider does to the feeds they get from networks. It's not live, and it's not the original data stream.
This is definitely true, but I feel you are coalescing cable and internet into being one-and-the-same, which is not correct. Some broadcast networks also buffer their streams before broadcast; are they less "OTA", even though they broadcast over-the-air?
It rarely is. It is almost always reprocessed. Many also consider satellite feeds live, but they are always pre-processed (and often down-sampled).
For the purpose of this discussion, let's consider the incoming stream from a tuning device (such as an HDHomeRun with a coax feed) to be OTA.
What I am saying is that cable and internet providers do things to the signal that are totally out of the control of the broadcaster or companies that make the devices to tune those signals. If I send out a data stream at a certain quality (quality meaning all aspects of integrity and industry standards) and a local internet or cable provider decides to change just 1 bit of that data stream, then the original integrity is lost. Any troubleshooting the end user tries to do based on expected perfromance is moot because you have no idea what the parties between the original source and you have done.
At least OTA broadcasters are required to follow rules and regs imposed not only by the FCC but also the networks they affiliate with. And you can be sure that the chief engineers at your local station have a lot more training, years of experience and pay closer attention to signal integrity than some underpaid IT person sitting in a facility in Colorado that distributes cable/satellite signals to thousands of local cable plants around the country.
My final point on the topic is, trying to chase down issues and modify software for one end user based on all the variables that the internet and cable/fiber providers can induce is chasing your tail. You could implement a fix for person A, that completely messes up person B because who knows what kind of stream each is getting. Now if all your end users on all platforms see the same issue, then you have something to look at.
Of course, that's not what I'm asking for. I've been transparent and methodical throughout this process, working through every possible angle to help identify the issue. At the end of the day, the Channels dev team and community are the most knowledgeable and best equipped to help troubleshoot this, which is why I’ve continued engaging here.
While I fully acknowledge this may not be a Channels-specific problem, the reality is that the issue only occurs when using Channels on Apple TV — not with the HDHomeRun app, not with Plex, and not even with Channels on Fire TV. That’s a key detail that can’t be dismissed. This of course does not mean that this is a Channels problem - but it does mean they may have insights that I am lacking in diagnosing the issue.
There have also been other threads describing intermittent buffering on Apple TV, and while it may not be a widespread issue, it seems to exist in some capacity. My goal has never been to demand a custom fix — only to collaborate with those who understand the software best in the hope of finding what’s going on.
I've put in significant time, remained respectful, and ruled out everything I reasonably can on my end. At this point, there’s a legitimate possibility that something within Channels, specific to the Apple TV implementation, may be contributing to the issue (not causing) — and I just want to get to the bottom of it with the people who can help.
I am assuming you are using a current AppleTV device. In the off-chance you also own an Apple-silicon (M-series) Mac, have you attempted to replicate this issue with the Channels app on your Mac? (Yes, this is a stretch. I am only trying to rule out all other factors.) And if you do have a Mac, perhaps you could try directly playing the same content from another mpv–based app, such as mpv or IINA … (mpv is the underlying video player that Channels uses).
Hey @racameron! Thanks for the suggestions - I appreciate all the help I can get!
So the two main devices I have been working with are AppleTV 4Ks (A2169 & A1842) so they are not the newest gen, but not old. I do have an Apple Silicon Macbook pro and have not directly tested it yet. I can absolutely do that tonight.
On my other iOS devices (iPhone 16 and iPad Pro 2020) I did notice in the show stats that there were buffering pauses - but they did not actually stop the stream like I see on the AppleTVs.
perhaps you could try directly playing the same content from another
mpv–based app, such as mpv or IINA … (mpvis the underlying video player that Channels uses).
This is an excellent idea and I will absolutely see what happens here.
Again, thanks for the suggestions. I am nearing bedrock as to what threads there are still left to pull!