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buffering and sound drop out during live TV.

Added by Jeff Viola about 8 years ago

I'm new at this. I just bought a Raspberry PI 3 and installed libreelec, which has Kodi,tvheadend, and HDHOMERUN HDHR and HDHR3. I have an android box with Kodi that i use on the frontend. But I use the Raspberry PI 3 for the backend. Trying to run Kodi on the Raspberry PI 3 was horrible. Buffering, lock up, etc. So I connected the Android tv box to it and it is much better, but I still get buffering and sound drop out. the sound drops out about every 30 seconds. Something that I think is strange is my recording don't have the sound dropping out and buffering issues. Only live tv. Below is my advancedsettings.xml file on the raspberry PI box and the Android tv box. I wasn't sure which one should have so I put in both places. Also, I tried to disable time shifting to see if that had any affect, but the results were the same.

<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>139460608</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
</network>
</advancedsettings>
<pvr>
<minvideocachelevel>55</minvideocachelevel>
<minaudiocachelevel>40</minaudiocachelevel>
<cacheindvdplayer>true</cacheindvdplayer>
</pvr>


Replies (3)

RE: buffering and sound drop out during live TV. - Added by Robert Cameron about 8 years ago

Firstly, do you have the license for MPEG-2 decoding for the Pi? Most Live TV streams are MPEG2, so without purchasing the codec license you will get VERY POOR playback of Live TV to the point of making it nearly unwatchable.

I use a Raspberry Pi2 with Kodi for TV in the bedrooms in my house, and this is my advancedsettings.xml:

<advancedsettings>
  <network>
    <cachemembuffersize>41943040</cachemembuffersize>
    <readbufferfactor>10</readbufferfactor>
  </network>
</advancedsettings>

That works for versions of Kodi up to 16. If you are running a beta version of Kodi (v17/Krypton), the settings are slightly different:

<advancedsettings>
  <cache>
    <memorysize>41943040</memorysize>
    <readfactor>10</readfactor>
  </cache>
</advancedsettings>

I have no real issues with buffering, and I am streaming full HD streams over 802.11n/2.4GHz WiFi where buffering would be expected. So, as long as you have the license for the codec and available bandwidth in your network, give these settings a try.

RE: buffering and sound drop out during live TV. - Added by Jeff Viola about 8 years ago

Thank you for the reply. I heard about having to buy a license, but since my play works with recording and somewhat works with live tv I thought maybe that wasn't an issue with the Raspberry PI 3? Do you know if I really need it? If so, where do I get it and how do I apply it? Also, just to verify, the advancedsettings.xml are applied on the Kodi frontend device and not the backend Kodi on the Raspberry PI 3? OR do you put those setting for both Kodis?

Regards,
Jeff

RE: buffering and sound drop out during live TV. - Added by Robert Cameron about 8 years ago

The advancedsettings.xml file is for Kodi, so it only makes sense on the devices you are using for viewing.

And yes, if your stream is MPEG-2, then you most definitely need the license. Again, this is only for the device viewing content. Recording is no problem, because it is merely saving the stream, not trying to decode/display it. You can purchase a license here:

http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/

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