NFL RedZone - [ERR] Failed to start stream...same channel works fine from the guide

This has happened at least the past two Sundays on my Series Pass for NFL RedZone. I can tune the RedZone channel 803 no problem when I select it from the guide. But for some reason the DVR fails to tune the same channel when trying to start the recording.

From the log:

2019/11/17 12:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1574013600-100 NFL RedZone on ch=[6182 803]
2019/11/17 12:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 3h24m29.943801222s until next job 1574025870-95 NFL Football
2019/11/17 12:00:06 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 803 via 1322C895: Get http://10.3.11.183:5004/auto/v803?: net/http: timeout awaiting response headers
2019/11/17 12:00:06 [TNR] Closed connection to 1322C895 for ch800 HD ESPN
2019/11/17 12:00:06 [DVR] Finished job 1574002800-57 Sunday NFL Countdown
2019/11/17 12:00:06 [DVR] Waiting 3h24m23.814654655s until next job 1574025870-95 NFL Football
2019/11/17 12:00:06 [DVR] Processing file-14499: TV/Sunday NFL Countdown/Sunday NFL Countdown 2019-11-17-0900.mpg
2019/11/17 12:00:06 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 14499 (TV/Sunday NFL Countdown/Sunday NFL Countdown 2019-11-17-0900.mpg)
2019/11/17 12:00:12 [TNR] Opened connection to TVE-Spectrum for ch6182 NFLREDZONE
2019/11/17 12:00:12 [DVR] Recording for job 1574013600-100 from TVE-Spectrum ch6182 into "TV/NFL RedZone/NFL RedZone 2019-11-17-1200.mpg" for 6h59m59.943777937s

The DVR times out after 6 seconds and then fails over to the lower priority TVE RedZone channel 6182, which records fine. But I would much prefer recording from the Prime channel because the TVE channel is poor quality. The video is jerky and of course it's only stereo audio.

Side question...I know it's normal that TVE channels are only stereo audio, but Is it normal for the video from TVE channels to be so jerky, as if the frame rate is low?

It's not that the frame rate is so low, but rather the stream's bitrate that is much lower than broadcast.

I know the bitrate is much lower, but it should be since it is h264 as opposed to the Prime channel's mpeg2. I don't think it's a bitrate issue as the picture quality itself is very good, much better than the Prime channel in terms of pixelation or blockiness. It's just that fast moving scenes are jerky, like the frame rate is low. The Prime channel isn't like this (jerky).

Higher bitrates correlate to more information being presented, lower bitrates imply less information and quality. Streams are generally variable, and bitrates increase during action scenes.

If you recorded it, check the details of the recording. It should show the frame rate
Screenshot_2019-11-17%20Channels%20DVR(1)

I really wish that details view included the actual channel that was recorded. It's sometimes hard troubleshooting things when the channel number recorded is not known.

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This is true when comparing apples to apples, i.e. h.264 streams to other h.264 streams. But it's very possible for an h.264 stream to have a lower bitrate than an mpeg-2 stream, but to appear as "better quality" due to the much more efficient encoder.

I wholeheartedly agree. The only way to get that info is by scouring the logs for the time the recording was made.

Yes, generally true. But TVE streams are not just H.264, the bitrates used are quite a bit reduced from the comparable level of the source feed.

That's what I was wondering...is this just "normal" for TVE streams? This is the first time I've watched a TVE stream so have nothing to reference.

If you have the File ID from the details view you can lookup where it was recorded from, File ID 1864 example;

http://x.x.x.x:8089/dvr/files/1864
"Airing": {
"Source": "tms",
"Channel": "756",

UPDATE: Even easier (I just discovered this) is if you hover your mouse pointer over the channel logo on a recording in the DVR web UI, it shows the channel number and callsign!

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The HDHR is not responding to the tuning request. Is that IP correct for the HDHR?

Yes the IP address is correct.

Why would it work fine when tuning from the guide, but not for a DVR recording?

Also of note...this is a newish problem...I've had the same Series Pass for RedZone for quite a while and this just started two or three weeks ago. Come to think of it, that would be around when I added TVE to my DVR. Is it possible that before I had TVE, the DVR would retry if tuning failed the first time, and then succeed on the retry? As opposed to the behavior now of failing over to the TVE source when it failed to tune the first time?

Is tuner sharing on or off?

That's possible. You could check older logs to see if it was retrying in the past?

Two Sundays ago:

2019/11/03 12:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1572804000-100 NFL RedZone on ch=[6182 803]
2019/11/03 12:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 3h24m29.991927368s until next job 1572816270-95 NFL Football
2019/11/03 12:00:00 [TNR] Opened connection to 1322C895 for ch803 HD RedZ
2019/11/03 12:00:00 [DVR] Recording for job 1572804000-100 from 1322C895 ch803 into "TV/NFL RedZone/NFL RedZone 2019-11-03-1200.mpg" for 6h59m59.991895027s

Three Sundays back:

2019/10/27 12:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1572195600-100 NFL RedZone on ch=[803]
2019/10/27 12:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 3h24m29.924954723s until next job 1572207870-95 NFL Football
2019/10/27 12:00:00 [TNR] Opened connection to 1322C895 for ch803 HD RedZ
2019/10/27 12:00:00 [TNR] Closed connection to 1322C895 for ch800 HD ESPN
2019/10/27 12:00:00 [DVR] Finished job 1572184800-57 Sunday NFL Countdown
2019/10/27 12:00:00 [DVR] Recording for job 1572195600-100 from 1322C895 ch803 into "TV/NFL RedZone/NFL RedZone 2009-09-01 2019-10-27-1200.mpg" for 6h59m59.9249373s

No problems tuning the HDHR Prime channel on either of these two. So it looks like last Sunday was the first time it happened.

I just got some interesting results from a test of tuning to the Prime ch803 by picking the current "Sign Off" program from the grid guide in Channels. I did it 25 times.

The first time and the ninth time, it took 18 and 17 seconds to tune, and showed this in the log:

2019/11/17 21:13:23 [ERR] Could not start stream for 1322C895 ch803 HD RedZ: Get http://10.3.11.183:5004/auto/v803?: net/http: timeout awaiting response headers
2019/11/17 21:13:39 [TNR] Opened connection to TVE-Spectrum for ch6182 NFLREDZONE

The other 23 times it tuned without issue in 2-3 seconds, and showed this in the log:

2019/11/17 21:13:56 [TNR] Opened connection to 1322C895 for ch803 HD RedZ

So it looks like the Prime is occasionally failing to tune the channel. Or maybe Channels is giving up and timing out too quickly?

Anything in the HDHR Prime's log?

Just did a similar test using the HDHomeRun app on my Mac. The majority of the attempts, it tuned the channel no problem in about 2-3 seconds. Four times though, the app crashed after ~7 or 8 seconds ("HDHomeRun quit unexpectedly"). Two other times, it just displayed a black screen with a plain white message, "Unable to play channel" or something to that effect.

Good call, should have checked that earlier. Here's what I see in the HDHR System Log when it fails to tune:

20191118-04:08:22 CableCARD: message: Network difficulties. Please try again later.
20191118-04:08:32 HTTP: rejecting request from 10.3.11.139 - no video data
20191118-04:08:32 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (requested time reached)
20191118-04:08:32 CableCARD: message: Network difficulties. Please try again later.

Do you think this indicates a problem with the Prime or CableCard? Or maybe it's more likely an issue further up the line with the feed from Spectrum?

Never saw that message on my Prime.
Sounds like it's time to ask Silicon Dust what it means.
Do you have a lot of those in the log?
This thread says it's the tuning adapter
https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=72380