Web Player buffering - Server Quality and Client Buffer

Channels DVR Server
#1

Hi!
I love your product. One of the better purchases I've made on software over the year so congrats!
I tend to watch television on my PC a lot using the web app. I am experiencing buffering on the web app a decent amount. Every few minutes the video will buffer for a few seconds.
Playing with the Server Quality and Client Buffer settings I've tried to make it perform better but don't really know what these settings do.
I have a very fast network and have measured 931mbps from my nas to the PC that is running the web player, so I know network latency is not an issue. It seems to be with my PC possilby. Any ideas what could cause this?
I don't have the remote feature turned on or anything like that.
My appleTV or my iphone do not seem to have this buffering issue.

Thanks!

#2

What browser are you using? Can you try with Chrome?

What kind of CPU is on your NAS running the DVR server?

#3

I always use chrome on the PC that is running the web player.
The CPU on the NAS is an 'Intel i3-4130T @ 2.9Ghz.'
I have't had any issues running high quality mkv h-265 files from the NAS and I'm not getting any monit alerts for resource issues or anything, so I don't think it's the NAS.
Oh, and this happens on Live TV as well as recorded programs.
It does not seem to happen if I drop the 'Server Quality' to the lowest setting.
Would that indicate that my PC (running the web player) is not quite good enough in regards to CPU?

edit
I watched some television through the web player just now with the task manager up and the memory and CPU are not really that hight, so now I am not thinking it's the PC.
Will do the same with the NAS now.

edit
NAS cpu and memory is not high either. I'm stumped.

#4

This is a personal observation only. I've noticed over the years anytime I play back something over a PC web browser it never seems to be as smooth as a dedicated application on a streaming box, phone etc.
This is true even with Plex for example. My Apple TV on wifi for example also plays back content on Plex, Channels, etc much more smoothly than any PC's web browser I have. Even when the PC has a direct Ethernet connection. I don't know if it's because the Apple TV, Roku, etc are better optimized but that's always been my personal experience. My Channels DVR playback is buttery smooth on my Apple TV's and phone's even over wifi or even when I'm travelling and I'm using cellular. But like I said even my I-7 computer doesn't appear as smooth when I try viewing via web browser.

I love Channels and Channels DVR!

#5

Thanks for the reply! This has also been my perception.
It's not a huge deal, but it's a small annoyance. I tried to set the server quality all the way to the bottom of the scale and while it didn't buffer, the picture quality was awful. I have zero issues at all with my wifi connected i-devices or my appleTV.

#6

Can you try in Safari on your iOS device?

#7

Safari on iPhone is buffering too.

#8

What kind of NAS?

#9

Home built running raid5 with Open Media Vault os (debian flavor).
Question: does watching live tv put any resource load on the NAS (where channels dvr is installed) or does it simply pass through the the stream from the HDHomerun.

#10

By default live tv does not go through the DVR. If you enable Tuner Sharing, it does a simple passthrough and uses very few resources.

#11

I will try turning on tuner sharing. At one point I remember seeing this as an option but I can't seem to find it now.
How do I turn this on?

#12

It's in the DVR settings on the client. Also, since it's a client option, it must be set on each client. (Don't forget, the tuner priority listing must also be the same on the DVR as the client setting tuner sharing to on, otherwise it won't actually share the tuners with the DVR.)

#13

Found it. Went to settings on my Apple TV and turned it on.
The web client streaming seems to be better.
So with the priority, I just have one HDHomerun 4 tuner, so having the tuner shaing on everything should be okay right? I never changed any of the priority settings from default.

#14

The web player does put a lot of load on the DVR. It has to convert the video into a web browser compatible format using a video transcoder.

The official clients don't need to do that, and can use the tuner sharing option or turn it off for direct connections.

If both safari and chrome are buffering, that seems to suggest the transcoder is having issues on your NAS. Is it set to hardware or software transcoding in the web UI settings?

#15

Software. There you go. Thanks!
Is there a negative to having tuner sharing turned on?
My network is pretty fast.

#16

If everything is hardwired and fast, no problems with tuner sharing are expected.

#17

See if you can load the i915 driver to enable QuickSync and take advantage of Hardware transcoding with your Intel CPU.

#18

Thank you! I really appreciate your help, and I love Channels.
From my reading the QucikSync deal is more than I want to get into at this point.
I did change my graphics settings to 'Quality' and that seems to have cleared up some of the buffering, at least for now. Thanks again!

1 Like
#19

All you should need for quick sync is "modprobe i915"

#20

This commad is to run on the NAS correct? Command not found.