Similar but not the same and 2 years old... thanks though. Did you have anything to add to the thread that can help?
the last post that was not u was on Jan 3 2020.
Are you sure that the issues u have are related to it being a Sony tv specificly?
there was some other thread i cant find atm that had to do with Sony ATVs...
creating a new thread if it is the same thing u suspect, is not helpful in getting an answer from the devs. best to tag them in the existing thread and wait. or submit diags in the app and email them direct.
in the ATV channels app, on some devices, u can change the encoder to Hardware, Hybrid, and Software. some devices do not support these options. If u have the option, try chaging it and see if i still have issues. I need to use i notice, Hybrid, to play a couple certain 480i OTA channels correctly on my Shield.
The buffering and timebar pop ups happens sometimes even on my Nvidia Shield when the channel stream needs to load or buffer when it drops it connection for whatever reason. For OTA, sometimes brief interference/single issues can cause that. u can see in the sever logs (if tuner share enabled) the more advanced signal stats through out the program.
Random stuttering can be caused by many things and OTA streams and TVE streams are two different animals.
What is the exact model tv u have?
DVR server version and app version?
What device is DVR server on?
Can u submit logs from the DVR when the issues happen, and then via the app?
Or are u saying that u have already done that?
Hi again. I have loked at our post history more closely now.
I see u active in this thread
is this the same issues u are mention in this thread now, or something different.
I do not watch fox news (only my local news on occasion) but i can enable it to test and see if it has issues on my Shield. it may be a issue with the TVE stream. Things maybe overloaded atm due to the state of the world.
In regards to Sony TVs specifically for those who read this later. devs stated this
There are multiple issues and I have spent a lot of time sending logs and trying different things as instructed in the forums and via email. Unless they're is a smoking gun then they just give up because they are not going to buy a Sony TV for just me. Even though I have given them info that it happens on the FireTV and sometime on the AppleTV so unless people are complaining other than me it won't get fixed.
There are multiple issues so I'm trying to get people to speak up in one thread in hopes to show that it's a large enough problem.
TVE buffering issues normally once an hour and it lasts about 2.5 minutes.
OTA I have 2 issues, sometimes the video will freeze for 1 second while the audio is still playing and then the video player fast until it's caught back up with the audio. This happens randomly a few times an hour. The third issue is similar to TVE buffering but it's only for a second randomly a couple times an hour. If I enable surround sound on the Android TV, the OTA buffering is worse and not even payable on SD channels.
So these problems are gone using the VLC player.
Personally the video player being used is not meant to be used for Android TV based OS IMO.
I'm curious if there are many others or if it's just me.
Yikes. that does sound frustrating. sorry to hear about all your issues.
I have had a few hickups with channels, some of those issues too, but were short lived and were solved.
Sorry if this been asked of you before, but are u using a wired gigabit Ethernet connection to the Sony TV and not wifi?
Curious, as i have played a single TVE channel (on both my ATV Shields) or flipped around for as much as 6 hrs consistently with no major issues of late. So I would not think it is a ATV issue as a whole.
A very short pause or buffer has always been there from time to time with TVE (i would think it is normal behavior) and sometimes OTA, if there is a brief signal issue. But anything longer than a short pause, or if the timeline jumps around strangely, freezing or crash, that is not normal.
I found your other thread that I now recognize and was that i was thinking of when i saw ur post in this thread about Sony.
I do know that the Surround Sound option being enabled is a known thing to cause issues on any ATV and sometimes Android Mobile app. That affects many users, not just Sony users. ( It causes audio issues on my Shield. I do not have a 5.1 system though)
I know it is not what u want to hear, but having read those, you have been told at least twice now by devs after looking at your logs, on separate occasions, that Sony ATV and Fire TVs seem to have something up with their implementation of the OS's.
The devs have no way to replicate or test this as they do not have the hardware nor means to go out an buy every make and model device that any given user may try to use and report they have issues with. So it is not something they can fix.
Perhaps pick up a Nvidia Shield and hook that up to the Sony TV...if that has the exact same issues with Channels, i would think the root cause is else where (like sever or network)...just a thought.
Got it. Then having a separate thread is fine for this purpose.
Hope others can chime in and share their Sony ATV/FTV experience with Channels.
Since I have no Sony TV to test on, and u have already done extensive troubleshooting, i'll retreat from further suggestions/troubleshooting.
I don’t have any Android based clients, so I’m afraid I can’t help with your issues. I did notice in your other thread though that you mentioned even your Apple TV client freezes occasionally. Do you have any clients that work perfectly? I know you don’t want to hear it but I sincerely wonder if there are network issues going on causing at least some of these problems on many different clients. I know it’s frustrating to hear, but I’m sure there are hundreds or even thousands of users using Android-based clients on a daily basis without major issues. If there were fundamental issues with the Android client code I imagine these forums would be inundated with users reporting the issues. I’m guessing you probably saw how quickly numerous threads were created within hours when that issue that affected older Mac server hosts appeared a week or two ago. I’m happy to help in any way I can. Unfortunately, I think one of the challenges is that you’ve posted about so many different issues that it’s difficult to keep track of. I would recommend picking the “worst” issue you are having, defined as specifically as possible. Focus on that and see if I’m you can get the cause of that one thing determined, and go from there.
Yea, seems to always happen on fox news channel, even before all the virus stuff. From what I see it would seem to point to a tv everywhere issue. Other channels seem ok. Fox news seems to always have issues. Causing mento have to go back to guide( you are behind the time line message) then go back to the channel. Occasionaly Bravo will do it as well. But Fox news is the one thats the major issue. Where i can always depend on the issue occuring.
In my opinion from all this trouble shooting and the fact that they are using a source (MPV.io) for the video player which does not originate for Android TV, the video player in general is the problem in my opinion. They don't want to hear that and it would be too much work to use a different video player so they would rather just have people live with what we have.
My network is Gigabit and solid.
The Apple TV works 98% solid. I have only seen an issue with TVE on it and it's rare and doesn't bother me honestly.
My network is Gigabit and solid. I have 2 kids gaming all day and the wife working, I have content going without a blemish with any device not using Channels.
Anything I record does not exist any of my problems. It records without any buffering or skipping it pausing it anything.
Everything leads to the video player being the problem!
I have also seen it on DiY and HGTV.
I have extensive knowledge and use of MPV player. I switched from MPC-HC (that i had all tweaked out with madvr and manual custom compiled codecs) on my Windows machines to MPV, and use it often on Linux too. After setting up my own .conf and tweaking things to my liking, I find it far better, higher quality, and far smoother and minimalist a player that I always wanted for my needs and hardware setup.
I also use MPV player app on my Pixel 3 and Shield as my main video player for local files. Mainly cause i can set custom .conf (to a point) and add a bit of sharpening to make the vids more crisp (since I use a computer monitor, and not a TV with standard image adjustments ability) {The default Android player backend, Exo i think it is?} {I also used MX Player Pro for some time on Android.}
Funny u mention MPV though, as I used to use Emby for many years, before only recently switched to Channels. (I think Plex also uses MPV) ?
Emby switched to MPV as their back-end player some time ago for their desktop software (Theater) and Android Mobile app and there was lots issues and tweaks that took a while to hammer out.
After I got my Shield a few months ago, Emby on ATV for Live TV was full of micro stutters/pauses on all channels for me (using HDHR Prime at that time), and on Weather Channel most especially the audio would go way out of sync within 2 min. This only happened on the Emby ATV app, and i spent a extensive amount of time going back and forth on their forums, logs and all with the Emby devs...many test builds,.only thing they could conclude, was something with how ffmpeg was processing things on my hardware, and they gave up trying to help. The same channels played fine in the Shield in every other app possible, including Channels DVR. Even when set Emby to use External Player, and i set the standalone MPV app to use, that played fine.
I mention all this just in case it may give some insight or any ideas for the devs to look at to help.
For me, Comedy Central and Discovery TVE would be the go to channels for the buffering and stream stopping issues I had previously. DiY and HGTV (any Discovery owned network) also did it alot.
But that was caused by "Failed to download file error 403" errors when certain commercials came on, and was labeled by devs a "regional issue" that did not affect everyone. It was fixed (for me and several others that reported in) in the next pre-release sever build soon after.
Assuming u have the most up to date sever build, your issues do appear to be unrelated to that though i can only surmise.
The only similar issues i have seen reported with out a solution are from UK users. Something about the UK tv data streams does not play well with Channels.
Hope this may help any bit.
I have a Shield also but I'm using it for my server and it's not connected to my TV.
When I look in play store mpv is not compatible with both my Android TV devices. When you go to their website it only lists Android mobile. Thanks for your information on Emby. If they did TVE I would try it out.
As I have mentioned before in another thread, I do experience a frequent issue with video freezes on my 2018 Sony OLED TV. The audio continues as normal, but the video freezes for about a second and that happens several times per minute.
That issue only occurs on live or delayed TV, but does NOT occur when playing a program back from the DVR.
I will add that I do also have a 2020 model Sony LED TV, and a Shield TV Pro, and both of those devices play perfectly. So this doesn't appear to be a universal problem, but something that only affects specific devices.
I contacted support by email recently and received a response that the developers are working on updating the player with some fixes that may have an impact, but I don't know any more details than that.
For me personally, it is only one device that is impacted, but it is a significant impact. It is also an expensive high-end TV that I am not planning to replace anytime soon, and I would prefer not to add any more new devices to my setup (Shield, Fire TV, etc). I am hopeful that some type of solution can be provided, but until then I am reluctant to fully switch over to Channels as my primary method of watching broadcast TV.
I have already provided logs, but I am more than willing to assist in any way that I can to try to solve the issue.
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We experience the same issues by the sounds of it. The 2020 Sony doesn't experience this issue is kinda kind boggling since they share most of the firmware will all the Android TV models. The Sony A9 series and Z9 series share the same firmware. Which OLED model do you have?
Edit; With your Shield or 2020 tv do you have decoding options?
Can you try transcoding on all 3 of your devices? I cannot get it to work on my Sony.
I side loaded the MPV app on my Shield. The most recent alpha. Same apk that is on my phone from the Google Store. I used a app backup & restore app to export the APK. Put that into shield download folder, use a file manager app to browse and install.
Other ATV boxes or TVs may not support side load apps.
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Would you mind sending me the extracted app so I can test to see if it plays fine? If it does then that is data I can give @eric.
2018 Sony OLED - XBR65A8F
2020 Sony LED - XBR43X800H
Don't see how that would help for Channels as it has no way to set use external player like Emby did.
U can find the MPV apk on apkpure or such sites. I can't attach APK file here.
I just installed it from the Playstore on my phone but I don't see an option for a beta.
I can pull it myself and sideload it.
There is a way to stream from the server just like it did with VLC. I can also play directly from the tuners.