Odd live playback of Pluto channels behavior

Channels DVR Server TV Everywhere
#1

Weird thing i have noticed with some Pluto TV channels while watching live for a good amount of time (more than 15min+), some odd things. (have noticed this for some time, but never bothered to ask about it, so it is not a new thing)

  1. The airing program will just skip back 10-15min and replay the same part of the program I already was watching live. Happens every so often as i watch live. (every 10 or 15min it seems)
    Not all Pluto channels do this.
    The Channels timeline bar does not change, so it is not Channels that is skipping back, but the channel feed itself. I can seek back in the Channels timeline to and see the same part of the show that is streaming at present time(live).

  2. Many(most) Pluto channels, there seems to be some sort of live de-sync like effect.
    Meaning, I watch the episode that is airing live until it ends.
    The episode ends at 10min before the hour, has that Pluto screen for a min, then starts the next episode.
    If i back out of the channel, and the open it again, it now streams the last 10 min of the previous episode and it ends right at 1min before the top of the hour. (If i continue to watch live, it does the same thing again.)
    Or, if back out in the middle of episode, after watching it for at least 15min+, and load it again, it starts earlier back in the episode.

The channels that jump back all of a sudden, feel like it is trying to re-sync to live, whereas other channels just will stay out live sync until ones closes and re-tunes.

Anyone else notice these kinda things?

Server has correct and accurate date/time. And no other sources have this issue, TVE, Plex, Samsung etc.

This happens on both my CDVR servers, mine that is Win 11 powered and clients are Apple TV, and uses the Maddox Docker container to generate the m3u etc.
My Linux based one that my mother uses with Nvidia Shields, and uses the nocords site for the m3u etc.

EDIT: Looks like about every 10 or 15 min the COPS channel, for example, will repeat its content. I saw it suddenly jump back mid scene. I can seek back in the Channels Live TV buffer about 15min to confirm that its the same part of the show. (blue pickup truck got pulled over)

EDIT2: The Ghost Hunters, Stargate, Star Trek channels has behavior 2, and not 1.

EDIT3: Neither of these things happen when watching the same Pluto Channel via their website. Infact, I observe that after maybe 5 min, the Channels stream of the same channel is ahead of the website.
(i wonder if it has something to due with ad breaks? They seem to be much shorter in Channels.)
BOTH my CDVR servers are whitelisted from my AdGuard Home DNS, so nothing is blocking them DNS side)

EDIT4: I recorded a episode of COPS, and it recorded fine and does not skip back at all. I notice the recording, the episode completes about 25min in, then starts into the next nearly right away. (which is about 5min before it should start airing) So, recoding a channel with Behavior 1, results in Behavior 2 like. The feed gets ahead of "live".

1 Like
#2

And, just now, Ghost Hunter channel jumped back 10min while i was watching it. That is different than yesterday... and I have not changed anything.
So annoying.

#3

Sounds like it jumps off to a commercial url and gets different timestamps, then when coming back to the program the timestamps are wrong. I encountered the effect before, just don't remember the source or channel. All I remember is it corrected itself.

#4

Maybe... but it does it mid-scene sometimes, though, Pluto inserted add breaks may not always align with the old shows set break intervals. It is an instant, seamless jump btw, no pause or indication it is trying to load anything.

Also, recording the same channel, the recordings are fine. So, what is it about watching live that is different?

#5

I think that's a good question that possibly only the Channels developers can answer.

#6

I have seen both issues 1 & 2.

If I'm not mistaken (several year ago) I saw #1 occur in the Pluto app on Roku box (before I started using Channels). So would be a Pluto/Paramount/CBS issue.

Overall I suspect both 1 & 2 are related in the sense that many tv shows are geared for live/cable tv which had specific time allocations (show versus commercials) for 1/2 hour, 1 hour, etc. shows.

Example: 1/2 hour show might actually be calculated for 20 minutes of content and 10 minutes of commercials during 4,5,6 commercial breaks.

On pluto (or any streaming service) the runtime allotments don't matter since Pluto doesn't really have any commercials (except for lame podcasts or other pluto channels) hence the need to fill-in extra time. The original show still runs 20 minutes but Pluto's "commercials" only take up 5 minutes so pluto has to fill in the extra 5 minutes and skip back 5 minutes in the show and other times they show their screen saver for 5 minutes.

#7

I’ve been seeing behavior 1 on the DS9 channel. I’ve seen it on two different clients. It does often align with a commercial break, but it has happened mid scene. I’ve often seen extended Pluto screens between shows as well.

Sometimes I’ve seen the same scenes three times before it continues.

#8

A few months back, i watched alot of the DS9 channel, and it never had any issues. Then it started doing behavior 2 at some point, same as the Stargate channel does (which that channel always does)

I setup a Emby server on a spare RPi4b i have, just to used Channels M3U export, and use that a tuner sources for Emby.

Using CDVR as source to Emby, i do see Behavior 2 on the Stargate channel, and few other channels, but have yet to experience Behavior 1.

I plan on just trying Pluto with Emby using the direct URLS from the docker container, and eliminate CDVR from the equation, to see if anything changes. Have not had the time to do that though.

Finaly, i guess i can try the Pluto app directly on my Apple Tv.

#9

A snip from the log. It shows a reset of the stream several times. Earlier viewings on February 3rd don’t have that reset. I don’t know if it means anything.

2025/02/10 22:50:37.047070 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-Pluto for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
2025/02/10 23:22:49.264091 [SNR] Rewriter statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: discontinuity_detected=13 transport_errors=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=1947.619000
2025/02/10 23:22:49.264258 [SNR] Buffer statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: buf=0% drop=0%
2025/02/10 23:22:49.264395 [SNR] Streaming statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: timeouts=0 segment_timeouts=0 playlist_timeouts=0
2025/02/10 23:22:49.264669 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-Pluto for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
2025/02/10 23:22:49.264686 [TNR] Retrying live stream for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Transcoder Reset: Playlist skipped to a higher sequence (393 -> 402): https://cfd-v4-service-channel-stitcher-use1-1.prd.pluto.tv/stitch/hls/channel/65c69bbfd77d450008c7ffee/3321280/playlist.m3u8?terminate=false&sid=b59ad683-16b3-4bec-ae7d-dd6495e7321c&deviceDNT=0&deviceModel=web&deviceVersion=unknown&serverSideAds=true&appName=web&deviceId=59fdb274-e82b-11ef-974b-001132e513e3&appVersion=unknown&deviceType=web&deviceMake=Chrome
2025/02/10 23:22:49.338461 [M3U] stream timestamps: star-trek-deep-space-nine: start_at=2025-02-10T23:22:47-05:00 end_at=2025-02-10T23:23:07-05:00 live_delay=15s
2025/02/10 23:22:49.338552 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-Pluto for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
2025/02/10 23:42:27.317134 [SNR] Rewriter statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: discontinuity_detected=14 transport_errors=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=3138.750667
2025/02/10 23:42:27.317280 [SNR] Buffer statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: buf=0% drop=0%
2025/02/10 23:42:27.317417 [SNR] Streaming statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: timeouts=1 segment_timeouts=0 playlist_timeouts=1
2025/02/10 23:42:27.317810 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-Pluto for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
2025/02/10 23:42:27.317826 [TNR] Retrying live stream for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Transcoder Reset: Playlist skipped to a higher sequence (308 -> 311): https://cfd-v4-service-channel-stitcher-use1-1.prd.pluto.tv/stitch/hls/channel/65c69bbfd77d450008c7ffee/3321280/playlist.m3u8?terminate=false&sid=1cbc59c0-e47c-475b-b5fb-20a20a0dfb3f&deviceDNT=0&deviceModel=web&deviceVersion=unknown&serverSideAds=true&appName=web&deviceId=da239831-e82f-11ef-974b-001132e513e3&appVersion=unknown&deviceType=web&deviceMake=Chrome
2025/02/10 23:42:27.384265 [M3U] stream timestamps: star-trek-deep-space-nine: start_at=2025-02-10T23:42:26-05:00 end_at=2025-02-10T23:42:46-05:00 live_delay=15s
2025/02/10 23:42:27.384367 [TNR] Opened connection to M3U-Pluto for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
2025/02/10 23:51:08.263402 [SNR] Rewriter statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: discontinuity_detected=3 transport_errors=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=3672.160667
2025/02/10 23:51:08.263575 [SNR] Buffer statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: buf=0% drop=0%
2025/02/10 23:51:08.263722 [SNR] Streaming statistics for 192.168.1.224 (Master) for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine: timeouts=0 segment_timeouts=0 playlist_timeouts=0
2025/02/10 23:51:08.264146 [TNR] Closed connection to M3U-Pluto for ch8421 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
2025/02/11 03:34:05.865675 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Pluto in 209ms
#10

It just happened in channels so I switched to the Pluto.TV app and the same thing happened. It appears that it’s either a problem with Pluto.TV or some local issue.

1 Like
#11

Same thing's happening to me. Virtually same setup - Windows 11, Maddox Docker, and Apple TV client. Been going on for several weeks. I have about 10-15 Pluto Channels in my guide (all movies) & it happens regularly.

Can anything be done on our end?