TV Everywhere Experiences (Internal Beta)

I’m still having issues with streams freezing, primarily during commercial breaks. This has happened on CNBC, Food Network, Cooking Channel and Science Channel, using streams from Xfinity and Philo. Once freezing occurs, the only way of restarting the stream is to exit (I get a warning that I’m behind in the timeline), open a stream on another channel (switch to a different channel), then switch back. I’ve not waited longer than 3-4 minutes after the freezing occurs, so I don’t know if the stream would eventually return on its own or not. DVR is being run on QNAP NAS (2019.06.21.2348), show is being watched on ATV 4K (3.2.23).

I just experienced this too... when this happens, I also get warnings that my buffer is more than xx% full...

2019/06/22 18:36:52 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 18:36:52 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 75% full (clients=1, len=25198592)
2019/06/22 18:39:19 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 18:39:19 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 18:39:19 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 75% full (clients=1, len=25198592)
2019/06/22 18:39:20 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 95% full (clients=1, len=31883264)
2019/06/22 18:39:20 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 99% full (clients=1, len=33226752)
2019/06/22 18:39:22 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 18:39:22 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 75% full (clients=1, len=25198592)
2019/06/22 18:39:22 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 95% full (clients=1, len=31883264)
2019/06/22 18:39:22 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 99% full (clients=1, len=33226752)
2019/06/22 18:39:25 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 18:39:25 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 75% full (clients=1, len=25198592)
2019/06/22 18:39:25 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 95% full (clients=1, len=31883264)
2019/06/22 18:39:25 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 99% full (clients=1, len=33226752)
2019/06/22 18:39:27 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 18:39:28 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 75% full (clients=1, len=25198592)
2019/06/22 18:39:28 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 95% full (clients=1, len=31883264)
2019/06/22 18:39:28 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Philo ch6110 is more than 99% full (clients=1, len=33226752)

[SOLVED] Receive message: "MVPD already registered" when adding cable provider as source

I had to upgrade cache drive on Unraid and create new docker image for Channels DVR. I was able to get recordings and the Channels database restored, but when I go to add Spectrum or Playstation Vue as a source I get this message that I have already registered.

Is there a way to un-register the previous instance of Channels?


Solution: Thanks to @tmm1 for the suggestion to restart the DVR container. That fixed it. Seeing both TVE sources.

Investigating this a bit further, most times, if I just let the stream run, the show will eventually restart, although it seems to stutter and freeze several times before restarting. Looking at the DVR logs, I see the following:

2019/06/22 23:13:03 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6104 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 23:13:03 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6104 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16809984)
2019/06/22 23:13:04 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6104 is more than 75% full (clients=1, len=25198592)
2019/06/22 23:13:04 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6104 is more than 95% full (clients=1, len=31883264)
2019/06/22 23:13:04 [WRN] Buffer for TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6104 is more than 99% full (clients=1, len=33226752)

Please let me know if there is any additional information you need me to capture.

Buffer errors should be rare, and generally indicate some sort of resource exhaustion issue. Maybe your disk is not keeping up with the write speeds required, or the cpu is overworked.

I saw you answered a question about watch.spectrum.net sometime ago. Can you explain or help me understand how TV everywhere is different then this?

You said something about the urls can’t be accessed by other apps, but I’m not understanding that point if you can help. Thanks @tmm1

With tv everywhere you are accessing directly though the individual channels app/website.

Problem with TVE streams or with Channel DVR?

So far the only advantage to me for using TVE is it offers DIY channel in HiDef, vs my Xfinity channel which is Std Def.

I have been experiencing playback issues with all of the recordings I made from the TVE DIYHD channel, where playback stops or skip doesn't work.

So yesterday I decided to record programs from other TVE streams to see if it was only the DIYHD channel.

I updated Channels DVR to v2019.06.21.2348 and setup 9 recordings, each on different TVE channels from the Web UI grid guide so I could select which TVE channels it recorded from.

One program was recorded from each of the TVE channels and I made sure to space them apart so as not to have more than one stream record at a time.

Picked from grid guide from TVE channels
6037,TRUTVHD 1500-1530 Impractical Jokers Inside Jokes-Tooth and Consequences (GOOD)
6038,TRUTVHP 2300-2330 The Carbonaro Effect Double Takes-Back to the Big Dig (GOOD)
6070,NGCHD 1300-1400 Hostile Planet-Grasslands (BAD)
6071,NGCPHD 1400-1500 Hostile Planet-Mountains (BAD)
6072,NGWIHD 1800-1900 The Incredible Dr. Pol-Hook, Line & Lemu (BAD)
6087,BBCAHD 2100-2300 Caddyshack (1980) (GOOD)
6101,DSCHD 1200-1300 Mysteries of the Abandoned-Desert Ghost Fort (BAD)
6108,DIYHD 1130-1200 Pool Kings-A Hawaiian Paradise Pool (BAD)
6775,WEATHHD 1900-2000 Heroes & Survivors-Wildfire & Whitewater (GOOD)

The ones ending in (GOOD) made good recordings which experienced no issues when playing back.
The ones ending in (BAD) experienced issues when playing back.

The Channels DVR log showed no issues recording any of these, no connection issues or dropped streams.

Since I used comskip on all the recordings, I decided to view the comskip video.log for each of the BAD recordings and found the following.
Lots of PTS errors and resolution changes.
This appears to point to adaptive streaming where Channels DVR is switching between different resolution streams while recording.

Search the comskip video.log for error|jump in base|resolution change from|strange|warning

I kept the recordings and can provide logs if needed.

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Are you playing back on tvOS with Original quality from Home, or something else?

Web UI player on Firefox using Original quality at home which remuxes, VLC Player and VRD TVSuite.

Try restarting the dvr to see if PSVue shows up.

The web UI has known issues in remux mode. What is the behavior in VLC?

Playback freezes until I scub or jump forward in the timeline and sometimes skipping forward goes backwards because of PTS timestamp errors.

Another thing I noticed while some of the TVE streams were recording (and no other activity going on) was that channels-dvr service on my NAS would use 37% CPU on my quad core Intel where it's normally less than 1%.

Right now it's recording a series pass show from my HDHR Prime and is taking 0.5% CPU.

Forgot to add, because of the CPU spikes I had to change my comskip.ini to use one thread instead of two, otherwise if comskip ran while a TVE recording was happening my CPU usage would spike to 90%.

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Thanks for the suggestion to restart the DVR container. That fixed it. Seeing both TVE sources.

Do you happen to know if those CPU spikes were during commercial breaks? This seems to be where issues arise for me with the streams, and I’ve seen CPU spikes as high as 45-55% when the streams hiccup/freeze during these commercial breaks.

Spikes are occuring during recording, not playback, so don't know what part of the recording they happen on and it's intermittent. I would have to sit there and watch while every TVE stream records and note the time the CPU spikes happen. Too much work!

A new build is available with some fixes for the playback stalling issues.

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Found some other channels that might be able to be added:
NBATV - https://www.nba.com/nbatv
MLB Network - http://m.mlb.com/network/live
NFL Network - https://www.nfl.com/watch/channel/nflnetwork
CBSSN - http://www.cbssports.com/cbs-sports-network/
RT America - https://www.rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/ (no login required; uses RTTV guide listing)

Is there any way to change the channel numbers? I guess the 6000s are to keep them above CableCARD channel numbers and HDHomeRun-generated numbers in the 5000s, but it would be a neat trick to be able to automatically map them to the provider's numbers from the guide listings, or at least let them be changed manually. I want the CSPANs to be available, just down at the bottom where I don't have to scroll past them so much :slight_smile:.

From the “On Now” tab, you can change the order of your channels without needing to change their number. There is a tutorial I believe in this thread as to how to do it. For iOS or Apple TV it requires a long click on the show tile which will allow for the option of moving the tile/channel. When you then switch to the guide view, the channels will be in the order of placed them...