[jwbyers]

Hi - new OpenELEC user here. I just got an Intel NUC (DCCP847DYE) to use with OpenELEC. I have another Window 7 PC with serverwmc/WMC and mediabrowser3 server set up with all my media. The NUC is connected to the same switch as my windows PC via gigabit ethernet. NUC has 2gb ram and 32GB mSATA ssd where OpenELEC is installed.

I installed the latest 5.0.5 version of OpenELEC via a USB drive to the ssd with no problem. OpenELEC boots up and is very responsive. I enable PVR in settings, enable the pvr.wmc add-on and configure the IP address to point to the windows PC. The addon connects, downloads the EPG and everything looks fine (the epg is viewable, I can see my channels, and I can see my recorded TV folder/contents). The problem is when I try to play a channel or a recorded TV file. When I click play, there is 20-30 seconds where I get the "Working" notification and then the program begins playing, but only for 2-3 seconds before stopping to buffer for another 5-10 seconds, then play for another 2-3 seconds and then buffer for 5-10 seconds, rinse, repeat. Bottom line is both live TV and recorded TV is impossible to watch as it is constantly buffering. I also installed the mediabrowser add-on and I'm having the exact same buffering issues over the network.

Given that the reviews of the NUC had several people saying that the box works great for an OpenELEC build, I have to think that there is some setting/configuration problem I'm missing. The boxes are connected to the same switch via gigabit lines so there shouldn't be a streaming problem. I also verified that it wasn't the line that was the problem by installing Kodi/pvr.wmc on a different Windows 7 laptop and connecting it to the same ethernet jack as the NUC was connected to, and that setup was able to connect to the serverwmc box and stream live/recorded TV with no noticeable delay. Also, I checked the logs on the Windows 7 ServerWMC program, and saw the OpenELEC box requesting and connecting to the channels and recordings properly and there were no warnings or errors in the logs that I could see. I have also tried reinstalling OpenELEC to the ssd, as well as creating a full OpenELEC USB install to run it off the USB drive, but I still ran into the same issues.

One other thing I tried was testing the network connection between the computers outside of the Kodi environment - I opened the OpenELEC machine on the network through windows explorer from my windows 7 media server PC and copied video files directly to the OpenELEC SSD....the transfer went at 11-13MB/s (nice and fast), finishing a 3GB 1080p movie file in

 

[bustamelon]

Hmm, tough one. Is the windows box set up to use max performance in the power settings? Have you disabled the sleep / power down in the ethernet adapter power settings? Have you set up a workgroup on the windows box and are you pointing to that in openelec? I'm not sure that any of these are strictly necessary, but it's where I would start my troubleshooting. Also, your transfer speeds are good, but not quite where they should be with gigabit.

 

[Dark_Slayer]

Is the recorded TV folder shared on your network without password?

I can't recall if this feature is in W7 or not, but does resource monitor or task manager show disk usage for your HDDs? If so, can you check your disk activity on the ServerWMC box while playing back a show on your Nuc? Are you doing anything else on the disk where the recordings go that would be thrashing it at the same time?

What tuner are you using? I will assume, but go ahead and ask anyway . . . live tv playback works fine on the windows box within WMC right?

Last thing, do you have video files on the windows box that you can playback on the Nuc over your network just to see whether it's completely network related?

 

[jwbyers]

Thank you both for the suggestions. Here is what I have noticed in response to your questions:

All power settings on the windows box are at max/plugged in. The computer is on 24/7/365 since it's my DVR/media server.
Both the windows and openelec computers are on the "Workgroup" workgroup.
I added a smb folder and tried playing files directly through that on the openelec pc and got the same buffering results.
I watched the resource monitor while streaming and noticed no unusual CPU, disk or RAM activity. I tested while no other shows were recording and my backup was not running (also turned off antivirus, etc.) and didn't have any change in the result.
The windows pc has a Ceton infinitv 4 tuner that I have been using with WMC for the past couple years.

I've been sufficiently stumped on this one that I just ordered new hardware so we'll see if that has any effect. Any other ideas for this?

Thanks!

 

[Dark_Slayer]

Definitely sounds like windows networking issue. Are the shares password protected?

 

[katsup]

Enable debugging in Openlec and check to log to see what Kodi is doing.

 

[nickrout]

Try forum.kodi.tv. the kodi and pvr.wmc authors hang there.

 

[TornadoTJ]

I've had this same problem with ServerWMC no matter what I throw at it. I've never gotten this to work correctly for any of my client boxes. I went as far as to put Windows 7 and ServerWMC onto my server box, with a Xeon E3 1246v3 processor and 16 gigs of RAM, with buffering set to use the boot SSD, and I still have this same exact problem no matter which client box or computer I use. One thing that is different, but I do not think matters, is that I'm using an HDHR Prime receiver. I'm all gigabit here also, no wifi or 100mbps anywhere.

On my Roku, I've recently tried the HDHR "channel" to tune live TV, from the same server I described above. It does work much better than ServerWMC, but even it isn't perfect.

 

[Dark_Slayer]

@jwbyers I just noticed you are using a Celeron 847 NUC. I'm not sure entirely, but I think you may be having deinterlace issues. Can you try going to the OSD during video playback and set deinterlace to "Off" and set as default for all videos?
@StardogChampion knows the most of anyone I know about the 847s capabilities, perhaps he can chime in on whether it can deinterlace 1080i mpeg2 or not
@TornadoTJ the server has little to nothing to do with performance as remuxing the wtv buffer to .ts is not intensive. The trouble with performance is a combination of two things. The first was how the ffmpeg demuxer handled "growing" files and how it was a fairly poor mpeg2 demuxer compared to more refined solutions like npvr and myth tv. This was a result of PVR not being a core feature for so long, but most of that has been worked out and improved upon in Kodi Helix/Isengard. The other thing will be the client's ability to deinterlace mpeg2 1080i content. Most intel chipsets don't have issue with this whatsoever. For example, I use an ivy bridge desktop celeron processor (G1610) which has no problem deinterlacing mpeg2 in software/hardware. On ARM there are few chipsets that support hardware mpeg2 deinterlacing, so almost all have to do it in software. Some are capable, some not. Some people claim the FireTV is capable, but in my experience it was not. The Nexus Player is not, and the ADT-1 was not. They didn't have any problem with decoding mpeg2 in software, just the deinterlacing bit. Turning deinterlace off lowers the PQ for sure, but at least makes live tv watchable on arm

As for the 847, it's not specifically Celeron iirc. Akin to the j1900 that supercedes it, they are atom chips with very low EU desktop graphics (Intel HD graphics with 4 EUs or something like that). While they can handle most 1080p files in OpenELEC, I'm again not certain the 847 could ever deinterlace 1080i mpeg2 with or without vaapi

 

[TornadoTJ]

I tried the FireTV for this stuff, and it was completely unacceptable. Even though they tout it being 2x as powerful as the Roku 3, in real world use my experience shows it to be the other way around. I sent back my FireTV.

I've worked with the Celeron 847 NUC. Built one for my dad. It has worked great, but he does not do any live or recorded TV on it at all, which means no 1080i content, ever. What might surprise you is that I have Plex Media Server installed on it, and it is able to stream to at least one Roku with no issues at all. I don't know if he has tried two at once, but he hasn't complained about its performance (he has 3 Rokus), and believe me, he complains to me when he has tech issues.

For the money, the Fry's $70 bare bones kit was a better deal than the Celeron NUC, but then those $70 deals don't pop up every day.

 

[Dark_Slayer]

What might surprise you is that I have Plex Media Server installed on it, and it is able to stream to at least one Roku with no issues at all. I don't know if he has tried two at once, but he hasn't complained about its performance (he has 3 Rokus), and believe me, he complains to me when he has tech issues

Very surprising actually. Probably a case where the video was supported and only audio was being transcoded . . . I believe the roku3 supports h264 video in mp4 and mkv containers

 

[TornadoTJ]

That is almost certainly the case. Roku does really well on the h264 video in MKV containers.

 

[csmith]

Hi - new OpenELEC user here. I just got an Intel NUC (DCCP847DYE) to use with OpenELEC. I have another Window 7 PC with serverwmc/WMC and mediabrowser3 server set up with all my media...

The problem is when I try to play a channel or a recorded TV file. When I click play, there is 20-30 seconds where I get the "Working" notification and then the program begins playing, but only for 2-3 seconds before stopping to buffer for another 5-10 seconds, then play for another 2-3 seconds and then buffer for 5-10 seconds, rinse, repeat.

I have a i3 processor with Win7 and WMC as the back-end, with a Raspberry Pi as the OpenElec (Gotham) front-end and have no problems with delays.

I also have a Chromebox running OpenElec (Gotham) with Tvheadend running as the back-end and as a front-end. Using a Raspberry Pi 2 or MK808 Plus (OpenElec) as a client, it works fine.

1) Check your settings and turn off: telext, cc (captions)
2) Also, check your acceleration video settings, try different settings (hardware, software, etc).
3) When you play live or recorded tv, hit the ok button (if you have a MCE remote), that should show a menu with fast-forward/back, pause, etc.

Select the one that shows a speaker or something for audio, ensure captions are turned off and select pass-through, hit ESC or back on your MCE.
Next, select the icon that will look like a tv, check your video settings for interlace, etc... try playing with them to see if there is an improvement.

 

[csmith]

I tried the FireTV for this stuff, and it was completely unacceptable. Even though they tout it being 2x as powerful as the Roku 3, in real world use my experience shows it to be the other way around. I sent back my FireTV.

I was thinking of getting one, with the SlingTv promo.

What was your setup (back-end OS, etc)? Did you use the android XBMC or did you jailbreak it? Which FireTV (stick, etc)? What problems did you have with the FireTV? Thanks.

 

[TornadoTJ]

Xeon E31246V3 on Intel DBS1200V3RPL server motherboard, 16GB ECC RAM, SSD boot and swap disk, 5TB WD Red data drives, gigabit network throughout house. I had a Fire TV, but sent it back, hardwired to network. Still have a AFTV Stick.

No jailbreaking, you can't root the current AFTVs. Sideloaded Kodi and MediaBrowser3 onto the AFTV and AFTV Stick. Also have Plex on the AFTVs and Roku 3. Roku 3 has Plex (as stated), MediaBrowser, and Emby on it.

Fire TV stick was worth the $19 I paid for it. No biggie. Fire TV wasn't worth what I paid for it, so I exchanged it for the Roku 3. Much happier with Roku.

If you surf over to the Plex site, go look on the forum regarding Plex issues on AFTVs. It is the same issue I had with the other applications (Mediabrowser and Kodi) on the AFTV. It's a Fire TV problem, not a Plex or other application problem.

 

[csmith]

If you surf over to the Plex site, go look on the forum regarding Plex issues on AFTVs. It is the same issue I had with the other applications (Mediabrowser and Kodi) on the AFTV. It's a Fire TV problem, not a Plex or other application problem.

They were having issues with interlaced video, but I've read that they (Kodi/android guys) are close to fixing it.

I wasn't impressed with the Roku/Plex and having to transcode on the fly, it looks like it drops frames from DVD/BluRay rips (used Vortexbox). Maybe with the Roku 4, they'll add more codecs to it.

 

[TornadoTJ]

Plex on Roku has been able to direct stream for several weeks now. I still like MB better though. It direct streams also, and seems to work better. FireTV was not able to direct stream die to lack of codecs.