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[nebulix]

I know this has been covered in the past, but I've just recently acquired EOS for use on an Android 5.1.1 tablet and would really like to stream live TV.

I've had a dual-tuner Hauppage TV card, and have been running live TV over the LAN and WiFi successfully for some time. Regrettably, there hasn't been a suitable solution for Android phones and tablets. Gizmo doesn't support TV. I've been running WinTV 8 instead of JRiver and watching it in the tiny Android browser, which brings little joy.

Now, I hear that folks have been able to get TV channels through the EOS client.

I've got as far as creating a new Media View in JRiver, that shows up in the tree.  All the TV channels are listed and I can click on them and watch them in JRiver OK.

I then create a Gizmo view from JRiver. On Android, the view shows up alright, but no channels to be seen.

I'd appreciated any comments from members who have gone down this road. Perhaps it doesn't work on the newer Lollipop version. I've tried every permutation of settings in JRiver, so perhaps there's something I've overlooked.

I've contacted Lenworth at EOS, and he's not tested it with a TV tuner himself, but told me that Interact user jmone has got it to work.

I also see a lot of chat about JRemote on this forum.  Would that support live TV also?  If so, that may be the solution.

Thanks and all the best,

Duncan McAllister

[jmone]

Hi and welcome to the forum.  Here is the thread on how I set it up Live TV Now Works (eos)!.  Is this what you have done?

[nebulix]

Thanks for your quick reply.

Yes, I've followed your steps exactly.

For the Media Network customized view for Gizmo, I  noticed you've placed it under the Audio media view. I can see that from EOS.

Is there anything else I have to do to get the channels to show up?  For example, do I have to add categories like TV Channels or Filename?

Also, it seems to inherit the rule File Type is tvlb.

If I leave the categories blank and no rule, I just get a listing of all my audio files in EOS.  I've tried everything, but no joy.

Your solution seems simple enough, but I can't get it going. Lenworth asked if the channels worked in JRiver.  I created a new Media View in root, so it looks just like yours, called TV Channels.  I used the tvlb rule and all my stations show up in the list.  I can click on any of them in JRiver and they play, so that works.

One other interesting clue.  If I play a station from within JRiver, I can see all the stations under Now Playing in EOS and even a timeline and video window of the current channel, but no sound or video.  I've tried both zones: remote and player.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.  I've been trying to do this for years now, and it would be great if it works.

All the best.

[jmone]

It's been ages since I setup the view, so I just redid one and got some weirdness.  It seems the New Views you add for Gizmo etc don't take till you restart MC / MC Server (and I had a crash).  ALso make sure that it is not nested under Audio etc but at the Root else I don't think it will show as they are not of Media Type Audio.

If that does not work.  I'll do the process from scratch with some pics.

[nebulix]

Thanks for doing the test.

Yes, in Standard View, it's in the root of the tree, like your screenshot.

But in Options, where you create a Library Item from Standard View, it's under Audio. I was unable to create it in the root. (BTW, did you choose any categories to show, like Filename or TV Channels?)

In any case, I made a playlist with all the TV channels and that seems to work. It shows up in EOS as Playing Now and you can choose the channels.

Only thing is now, the content starts and stops, which I imagine is due to my under-powered server.

Would love to know how you got all the little TV station icons. Looks great.

And yes, I had to restart the MC/MC Server each time I made changes.

Just for kicks, I tried running the TV Channels playlist in Gizmo, and it tried for a while then just gave a server connection error.

Do you know if JRemote can do this?  I don't really see any mention of it in all the fanfare.

Thanks again.  I appreciate your help.

[nebulix]

Aha, so in Create View for Gizmo, etc.,  I did Add Root Library Item first, and named it Television.

Then, I did Create Library Item from Standard View, which linked to TV Channels.

When I restart MC/MC Server, I now see in EOS a new view called Television which opens into TV Channels. Voila.

You're right, it can't be under Audio.

For a long time, I used MC on other PCs and Laptops as the TV client and it worked great. It makes use of the PVR function, so there was no problem with buffering or stuttering. EOS doesn't seem to have a buffer or cache, as they were saying in the forum. I guess it just streams out the .tvlb files directly.

I'll need to get a faster server. I only use it for audio, so it needs an upgrade for TV.

Thanks again.

[jmone]

Glad you have it at least "working", but on the stuttering you may want to look at a couple of things.

So how it works is:
- TVLB is just the "entry" in the MC Database holding the details for that channel
- When you "play" the TVLB from EOS, MC starts recording the TV stream on the PC to the folder you specify in "Tools--> Options--> General--> ... Folder for recoding and time-shifting files"
- EOS then asks MC to send the TV stream recorded and (like with any Video File to a Remote) MC creates a second Transcoded Version of the stream according to the settings (high med low) set in EOS and streams that to your Android Devices that then plays it.  These temporary transcoded files are stored in "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Temp"
- There is buffering done at all stages it's just not exposed or adjustable. 

So if it is stuttering, it will be either:
- Your server is not powerful enough for on the fly transcoding (you would see the CPU utilisation above 90% if that is the case) and/or
- Your WiFi network connection is not fast enough for Video Streaming at the quality you have set
- The throughput of the drive that is used for recording the TV Stream and the Transcoded file is too slow / being used by other things.  This is unlikely however as most HDD should be much faster than is required for these writes and reads.

Try lowering the Video quality to Med or Low and see how that goes.  Also I would expect you would see the same behaviour playing any other Interlaced Video on your system to EOS.

I have tablets in all the rooms and find I can stream 3 videos to EOS at one time before I hit issues but it all depends what is happening on the PC at the time.

[nebulix]

Excellent.  Thanks for the lowdown on the internals.  That really helps.

Initally I suspected the WiFi.

I have a newish AC1200 router, but none of my Androids support AC.  The tablet is N on 2.4Ghz and the phone is N on 5.8Ghz. and they both stutter running right next to the router.  I'll do some actual measurements shortly, but I'm sure at least the phone is fast enough.

I'm certain it's the CPU/memory combo in the server. It's a 64-bit dual-core Intel with only 4GB of DDR2 RAM. I upgraded the drives to SATA3 controllers, so while not "lame", it's probably not up to par for live video, but perfect for HD audio.

Thanks again for your help.  You've saved me a bundle of time. It's quite amazing when it works, that I can carry around a working HD television set in my pocket. Where I'm situated on the 23rd floor, I can receive about 26 OTA ATSC channels with the quad bay antenna. The cord was cut years ago.

[jmone]

To answer some of your other Q:
- In the Customise View screen for the Remotes you should see a "Move Up, Down, Nest, Unnest" button.  So which my TV View was created in Audio, I just highlight it and press "Unnest" the use "Move Up, Down" to put it in the order I want.  Remember you then need to stop/start MC & MC Server for the changes to be advertised to the remotes.  
- I have the Channels all being displayed in one list but you can group them I know (tested for similar setup for On Line Radio)
- While MC has all the back end commands to stream Live TV, only EOS has implemented support for it at this time.  I guess I'm one of the few who wanted it and Lenworth then only one dev I could convince to add the feature.
- You can just add the icons using the Coverart--> Paste from Clipboard or from the TV Setup menu

Have fun
Nathan

[jmone]

No probs - have a look at your CPU utalisation (press Cntrl+Alt+Del --> Task Manager) and see what happens when you start playing the Video on a Remote.  Also you can now watch Live TV anywhere in the world from your Phone/Tablet as long as your connection is good enough (it should be at the Low Setting).

[nebulix]

It's a headless server dedicated to MC21 running under Windows 10-64. I've tweaked it so there's little running in the background and turned off cron jobs, etc.

Just a sound card and TV card in it. I record with it, so Audacity and also a copy of WinTV 8 which is switched off most of the time.

I've tried running both droids at medium resolution with EOS.  At least I know how it works now, so I can experiment.  So it's recording and transcoding at the same time per each TV channel. I have an Asrock mobo I can swap in there that would probably handle it.

[jmone]

FYI - If you RDP into the PC then you can use Ctrl+Alt+End instead to see what is happening.