Slow Playback Start

Macnbaish · July 10, 2021, 2:21am

Do you have any other clients you can test with to see how they perform? We need more test cases to try and narrow things down.

breezytm · July 10, 2021, 4:21am

I have iOS devices. The playback for DVR seem to take equally the same amount of times on them as well. Live TV is nearly instant though.

tmm1 · July 10, 2021, 5:26am

Sounds like an SMB issue to me too. Not something we can fix in our code.

breezytm · July 10, 2021, 4:05pm

@tmm1. I have been at work all night trying to figure out how to improve this.

Replaced Cat5 cable with Cat5E
Enabled SMB 3.0

Increased QNAP Jumpo frame rate - I think I may revert back 1500

 [~] # smb2status

 **smbd (samba daemon) Version 4.0.25**

 **smbd (samba daemon) is running.**

 **max protocol SMB 2.1 enabled.**

 [~] # smb3enable

 Shutting down SMB services: smbd nmbd.

 Shutting down winbindd services: winbindd.

 **max protocol SMB 3 ... enabled.**

 locks path was set to /mnt/HDA_ROOT/.locks

 Shutting down winbindd services: winbindd.

 Starting winbindd services:Starting SMB services:.

 **smbd (samba daemon) Version 4.0.25**

 **smbd (samba daemon) is running.**

 **max protocol SMB 3 enabled.**

 [~] # smb2status

 **smbd (samba daemon) Version 4.0.25**

 **smbd (samba daemon) is running.**

 **max protocol SMB 3 enabled.**

 [~] #

This is the output of the file you asked me to download from a computer connected to the same node as the Shield.

The result is clearly significant considering where I started yesterday.

Playing the file from the share using VLC starts immediately. Whereas it used to buffer before.

Even after making all these changes, the playback issue remains in Channels. I decided to watch the resource monitor on the QNAP to see what keeps the stream from starting and then I found this. It took about 20 odd seconds before I saw the smbd and manarequest.cgi processes woke up from idle whereas if I ran the following command from my computer, they woke up immediately.

rsync -ah --progress /Volumes/DVR/TV/Forged\ in\ Fire/Forged\ in\ Fire\ S08E00\ Forge\ of\ Fear\ 2021-06-30-2100.mpg /Users/breezytm/Downloads/

That got me thinking. I decided to download Kodi and playback the same recordings on the Shield from the same SMB mount. That worked flawlessly. Please check out the video.

I know I know. The camera is all over the place. It was recorded by a 7-year old lol.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0CEk9DDkmeo1I0t5Gv_EusjGw)

Now the question remains. Why does the Channels app take so long?

speedingcheetah · July 10, 2021, 5:07pm

who uses cat5 or even 5e anymore???

cat6 should be minimal for anything.

There is all the way up to cat 8 now.

I use cat6a STP (Shielded) cables for everything.
Very much needed if u run cables near any sort of power cord or outlet strip, like i do with my massively cable infested desk setup.

speedingcheetah · July 10, 2021, 5:17pm

I would try connecting all devices via wired ethernet on the same switch and wired to your router, to eliminate the wifi mesh node aspect.

If you still experience the issue, its not related to your wifi mesh setup.
If not, then it is your mesh setup.

Next, you could setup a Channels DVR server on a standalone computer, or a Pi, set your client device to connect to that, not the Shield Server, and see if it exabits the same behavor.

breezytm · July 10, 2021, 5:35pm

Please read the thread. The cable, the mesh network, and the WIFI are not the issue.

Cat 5, 5e, 6, 8 also do make much of a difference for everyday use cases unless you start dealing with network-grade devices. In my parent's basement where I have my network types of equipment. They are all patched and wired with Cat 6.

The Shield which is running the Channels DVR engine/Client is having issues starting the playback instantly while Kodi running on the same Shield does not have the same issue. How can it be the wire? Watch the video. I can also play the same file using SMB or AFP on my laptop using VLC without any wait time wirelessly without any hiccups or delays.

Macnbaish · July 10, 2021, 6:14pm

Not trying to be argumentative but at this point I’d say we don’t know what the issue is so we can’t rule anything out. It must be something specific to your setup. If this was a widespread issue there would be a lot more noise about it on the forums.

I’ve been following the thread. If I understand your setup correctly, the shield is both your DVR server and client, correct? And the QNAP NAS you are using is being accessed via the network via SMB. Is all that correct? SMB is notoriously chatty, with lots of “back and forth” between server and client. Of course, those other apps you’re using are also accessing the QNAP via SMB, or is there a server of some kind that is transferring the data across using a different protocol?

breezytm · July 10, 2021, 11:35pm

It's not even like that. I am not trying to be confrontational. All I am saying is it can't be the network because the KODI app, Channels DVR, and the Channels client are all running on the same NVIDIA Shield. The SMB share is mapped to the Shield itself. If the issue is network or SMB related then any applications running on the Shield would experience the same symptoms. Except the Channels client is the only one with the 30s delay.

Here's a kicker. The thought just crossed my mind. I used the Channels DVR on a web browser and the playback was instant.

All I am asking is for the dev team to take a look at my log file and try to determine the difference between playing the file from the iOS client, the shield versus perhaps the browser. I am certain the logs files would show the wait time and also tell us what it is doing or waiting on during the delay.

breezytm · July 10, 2021, 11:46pm

Maybe no one is using it the way I am using it.

Yes

No intermidiate server. Direct connection to the SMB share. For VLC the share is mounted using finder smb://qnapserver/dvr

For KODI and Channels DVR, the SMB mount is done at the Shield ATV operating system level. Both apps are using the same mount.

I hope I clearly answered your question.

Macnbaish · July 10, 2021, 11:50pm

One definite difference is the web browser will always cause transcoding to happen. Have you tried switching the shield client to a lower quality to see if it plays faster?

breezytm · July 11, 2021, 12:03am

Ah, funny you said that. I saw in the web browser it read "Starting...." "Transcoder Ready." That sparked my curiosity. I went to the Channels client settings in the Shield and changed it from Original to 4Mbps and the start delay seems to be about 2 seconds. At 8Mbps it seems to be instant.

breezytm · July 11, 2021, 12:09am

If I may also add. When I change the quality setting from Original to 8Mbps for example, Live TV (TVE) stops working. Error Message - Playback failed (0).