ATSC 3.0 support - HDHomeRun Flex 4K

[sub]

Ok. I'm back.

In fact the installation of the LAVFilters package DID fix the HEVC codec problem with NextPVR! The "LAV Video Decoder" item now appears in the dropdown and I selected it. And sure enough there is now video presented when playing an ATSC 3.0 channel. WHEW! One down.

Great.

I still think it should be explored why both the "HEVC Video Extensions" purchase from the MS Store, as well as the free "HEVC Video Extension - x86" didn't produce the same addition to the dropdown. Is it an x86 vs. x64 problem? Or is it just not installed properly or in whatever way that NextPVR can find it and present it in the dropdown? It sure solved the same problem with HDHR which wanted the HEVC codec, and was then happy when I installed the MS Store product. So why not NextPVR? I think this should be at least investigated.

I know what it'll be caused by. Microsoft will be using a different media guid to LAV. I'll take a look at adding it too.

Also, I still haven't gotten to testing with Shield and ATV4K, for both HDHR and NextPVR. So I don't know if the Shield will support HEVC and/or AC-4 audio. But I think the ATV4K should. We shall see, but later today.

You definitely will not get AC4 audio on the ATV app, or the play store Android app. Hopefully in future software components those apps depend on will be updated to support AC-4. The versions currently being used do not support AC-4.

[BrettB]

Ok. I'm back.

Also, I still haven't gotten to testing with Shield and ATV4K, for both HDHR and NextPVR. So I don't know if the Shield will support HEVC and/or AC-4 audio. But I think the ATV4K should. We shall see, but later today.

I don't understand why you keep insisting on trying things that we have told you will not work. Especially when we have told you things that will work. I would suggest that you try using the uidroid client (NOT the NextPVR Android client from the Play Store) on the Shield.

[DSperber]

The NextPVR UI client uidroid should support HEVC and some level of AC-4 on most modern Android boxes that support HEVC.

Where am I supposed to find this?

[sub]

https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=63151

[DSperber]

https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=63151

Thank you.

[DSperber]

I've told you will not work. Especially when we have told you things that will work. I would suggest that you try using the uidroid client (NOT the NextPVR Android client from the Play Store) on the Shield.

I'm a new user really, and experimenting with what's available. So if I'm using ATV4K I search their store and install what I find. There is a NextPVR app returned and that's what I'm playing with. If that isn't supposed to be used then why is it in the app store?

So, given that I've now installed the NextPVR client version for ATV4K, I will report things that don't work and those things that do. Perhaps that will be helpful in getting the problems corrected eventually.

Same story with Roku version of NextPVR client, as well as the Android app from the Play Store (which I've installed on both my Samsung phone as well as on my multiple Roku Ultra's). Again, if there are bugs or issues with each of these I will report them, and hopefully they will eventually be fixed. Or, if I'm mis-using the software a helpful re-direction and correcting instructions would be most appreciated.


Now, as it turns out I've made a very significant discovery with the HDHR app which seems to explain why when I was playing with that app I was very often getting video but no sound for the LA ATSC 3.0 channels. I've been attributing that to some flaky AC-4 handling and yet Silicon Dust just today broadcast an email saying that they've pretty much got AC-4 sound working everywhere, on all of their client versions.  And yet... I was not seeing that using HDHR on Shield and ATV4K, so I was mystified.

Turns out the explanation is that the audio tracks within the the ATSC 3.0 streams here in LA seem to be arranged with track #1 being Spanish stereo, and track #2 being English 5.1. Now the HDHR GUI has an "SAP" button you can push, which cycles through each of the available audio tracks. Apparently HDHR opens with track #1 being the default being played, and for whatever reason sometime I hear Spanish and most other times I hear silence. Even more surprising, sometimes I hear what is clearly a low-volume muffled 2-channel English, not Spanish.

However if I tap on the SAP button to move to the next audio track (i.e. track #2, which is the DD5.1 audio), LIKE MAGIC ALL OF A SUDDEN I HAVE WONDERFUL SOUND!!  And this is the case with the three HDHR client apps I've installed: Win10, Shield, and ATV4K. Although it's certainly annoying that the default opening audio track played is not the high-quality DD5.1 English audio but unfortunately that happens to be track #2. And it's certainly annoying that I always need to push the SAP button every time I tune to an ATSC 3.0 channel in order to get English sound, but at least this now confirms what SD said this morning in their email, namely that AC-4 sound handling is truly available from each of their HDHR clients no matter whether the device or system actually has the proper codec installed.

In other words, I now AM GETTING DD5.1 AUDIO FROM HDHR FOR THE ATSC 3.0 CHANNELS. I just have to push the SAP button to produce it via audio track #2 within the AC-4 wrapper.

Now that strongly suggests the same possibility of getting sound from NextPVR if only I could select audio track #2. The NextPVR GUI doesn't have an SAP button on it. But according to the release notes posted in this forum with version 3.1 of the NextPVR ATV client placed in the App Store last November 2020:

changes:

Added ability to select audio track, and subtitle track when watching recordings or live tv. These can be selected by a long press of the remote touch pad while watching.

Tonight my testing with ATV4K and NextPVR included trying to get the "audio stream" functionality to work, so that I could select track #2 (or just cycle through all the tracks if that's how it was written). And I must report that it does NOT WORK.  It appears to be broken.

I long-pressed the remote touch pad, and that produced two items on the screen, one for audio track and a second for subtitle track. And I was able to navigate left and right between these two buttons. So I settled on the first "audio track" button and pressed ENTER. This resulted in the words "audio stream" to appear on the screen, and that was all she wrote!  Program now hung, with no way to go back or exit or do anything. The entire ATV4K was hung. I had to pull the power cord to go through a cold power reset, in order to get back to operating.

With "audio stream" on the screen no navigation works, the ENTER key doesn't do anything, in fact NOTHING HAPPENS. Totally hung and locked up. I believe the operating system is running in the background because I can hear faint sounds as I struggle to press things on the remote. So that much is alive. But otherwise totally locked up.

So until I can learn what I might be doing wrong with the ATV4K remote, or maybe there really is a major bug in the ATV client software even though 3.1 purported to make it available, there does not seem to currently be any way for me to truly select audio track #2... which is my goal!

I'm sure that even if AC-4 support is not present when I do get to select audio track #2, it's certainly clear that it's got to be audio track #2 rather than audio track #1 we should be working with, same as was proven with the HDHR app. But I'm optimistic I will get sound out of my ATV4K and NextPVR if only I can select audio track #2.

Is there any way the program can be made to examine the tracks imbedded, and select that track #2 (i.e. the DD5.1 English) instead of just going with track #1 which appears here in LA to be 100% the wrong track to choose? Sure one or the other will be selected, so why not go with the English track by default instead of the Spanish (or whatever) track?

[DSperber]

For example and reference, here is the MediaInfo for the ATSC 3.0 stream (recorded as TS by NextPVR):

Code:

General
ID                                       : 1 (0x1)
Complete name                            : E:\MPG ATSC3\KTTV111.1-NFL Football_20211216_17002030.ts
Format                                   : MPEG-TS
File size                                : 390 MiB
Duration                                 : 8 min 20 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 6 533 kb/s

Video
ID                                       : 49 (0x31)
Menu ID                                  : 3 (0x3)
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L4.1@Main
Codec ID                                 : 36
Duration                                 : 22 h 29 min
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio #1
ID                                       : 50 (0x32)
Menu ID                                  : 3 (0x3)
Format                                   : AC-4
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 4
Commercial name                          : Dolby AC-4
Format version                           : Version 2
Codec ID                                 : 6
Duration                                 : 8 min 18 s
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS (1920 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : 1 s 966 ms
Number of presentations                  : 1
Number of substreams                     : 1
Presentation #1                          : Stereo Main (Spanish)
Presentation ID                         : 0
Dialogue normalization                  : -24.00
Language                                : Spanish
Loudness                                : Yes
  Integrated loudness (speech gated)     : -24.3 LKFS
  Integrated loudness (level gated)      : -102.4 LKFS
  Audio Loudness Standard                : ATSC A/85
  Realtime loudness corrected            : Yes
  Dialogue corrected                     : Yes
Dynamic Range Control                   : Yes
Group #s                                : 1
Group #1                                 : Main
Content classifier                      : Main
Language                                : Spanish
Channel coded                           : Yes
Number of substreams                    : 1
Substream #s                            : 1
Substream #1                             : Stereo
Channel mode                            : Stereo
Channel layout                          : L R
Preprocessing                           : Yes
  Phase 90 Filer Info 2-ch               : Not applied
Dialogue enhancement                    : Yes
  Enabled                                : Yes
  Max gain                               : 9 dB

Audio #2
ID                                       : 51 (0x33)
Menu ID                                  : 3 (0x3)
Format                                   : AC-4
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 4
Commercial name                          : Dolby AC-4
Format version                           : Version 2
Codec ID                                 : 6
Duration                                 : 8 min 18 s
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS (1920 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : 1 s 979 ms
Number of presentations                  : 1
Number of substreams                     : 1
Presentation #1                          : 5.1 Main (English)
Presentation ID                         : 0
Dialogue normalization                  : -24.00
Language                                : English
Loudness                                : Yes
  Integrated loudness (speech gated)     : -22.0 LKFS
  Integrated loudness (level gated)      : -102.4 LKFS
  Audio Loudness Standard                : ATSC A/85
  Realtime loudness corrected            : Yes
  Dialogue corrected                     : Yes
Dynamic Range Control                   : Yes
Downmix                                 : Yes
  LoRo center mix gain                   : -3.0 dB
  LoRo surround mix gain                 : -3.0 dB
  LtRt center mix gain                   : -3.0 dB
  LtRt surround mix gain                 : -3.0 dB
  LFE mix gain                           : -3 dB
  Preferred downmix                      : Pro Logic II
Group #s                                : 1
Group #1                                 : Main
Content classifier                      : Main
Language                                : English
Channel coded                           : Yes
Number of substreams                    : 1
Substream #s                            : 1
Substream #1                             : 5.1
Channel mode                            : 5.1
Channel layout                          : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Dialogue enhancement                    : Yes
  Enabled                                : Yes
  Max gain                               : 9 dB

Menu
ID                                       : 48 (0x30)
Menu ID                                  : 3 (0x3)
Duration                                 : 8 min 20 s
List                                     : 49 (0x31) (HEVC) / 50 (0x32) (AC-4) / 51 (0x33) (AC-4) / 57 (0x39) ()

[DSperber]

One more problem to report... this time with the NextPVR Android app installed on my Shield Tube (yes, I know I was asked to try uidroid but haven't got there yet).

The problem is that the left/right arrow navigation from the Shield remote DOES NOT WORK (only BACK works), when:

(1) pressed ENTER for a recording, in order tothen  be able to select either RESUME or WATCH and then press ENTER. It's not possible to do this.

(2) pressed ENTER on a Guide entry for a program, in order to then be able to choose either WATCH, RECORD ONE or RECORD SERIES. Again, the navigation keys to select the proper value are dead. as is ENTER.

[BrettB]

I've told you will not work. Especially when we have told you things that will work. I would suggest that you try using the uidroid client (NOT the NextPVR Android client from the Play Store) on the Shield.

I'm a new user really, and experimenting with what's available. So if I'm using ATV4K I search their store and install what I find. There is a NextPVR app returned and that's what I'm playing with. If that isn't supposed to be used then why is it in the app store?

So, given that I've now installed the NextPVR client version for ATV4K, I will report things that don't work and those things that do. Perhaps that will be helpful in getting the problems corrected eventually.

Same story with Roku version of NextPVR client, as well as the Android app from the Play Store (which I've installed on both my Samsung phone as well as on my multiple Roku Ultra's). Again, if there are bugs or issues with each of these I will report them, and hopefully they will eventually be fixed. Or, if I'm mis-using the software a helpful re-direction and correcting instructions would be most appreciated.

"helpful re-direction and correcting instructions" are what we keep providing you and you keep choosing to ignore. You need to understand that ATSC 3.0 is only recently available to a very small NextPVR user population. And, based upon posts, you are the only user that is actually trying to use it. While many things (such as recording) will work just fine, others (such as playback on many clients) will not. We have tried to give you work-arounds based upon our knowledge of how things work, what things work, etc. But you keep not listening.

The fact that the iOS client (available from the Apple Store) and the Android client (available from the Play Store) do not work with native ATSC 3.0 streams is known. We've told you that. They are not intended to work with those streams. "If that isn't supposed to be used then why is it in the app store?" you ask. Because these clients work for 99.9% of the NextPVR users (i.e. everyone except for you--the single ATSC 3.0 user).

[BrettB]

Now, as it turns out I've made a very significant discovery with the HDHR app which seems to explain why when I was playing with that app I was very often getting video but no sound for the LA ATSC 3.0 channels. I've been attributing that to some flaky AC-4 handling and yet Silicon Dust just today broadcast an email saying that they've pretty much got AC-4 sound working everywhere, on all of their client versions.  And yet... I was not seeing that using HDHR on Shield and ATV4K, so I was mystified.

Turns out the explanation is that the audio tracks within the the ATSC 3.0 streams here in LA seem to be arranged with track #1 being Spanish stereo, and track #2 being English 5.1. Now the HDHR GUI has an "SAP" button you can push, which cycles through each of the available audio tracks. Apparently HDHR opens with track #1 being the default being played, and for whatever reason sometime I hear Spanish and most other times I hear silence. Even more surprising, sometimes I hear what is clearly a low-volume muffled 2-channel English, not Spanish.

However if I tap on the SAP button to move to the next audio track (i.e. track #2, which is the DD5.1 audio), LIKE MAGIC ALL OF A SUDDEN I HAVE WONDERFUL SOUND!!  And this is the case with the three HDHR client apps I've installed: Win10, Shield, and ATV4K. Although it's certainly annoying that the default opening audio track played is not the high-quality DD5.1 English audio but unfortunately that happens to be track #2. And it's certainly annoying that I always need to push the SAP button every time I tune to an ATSC 3.0 channel in order to get English sound, but at least this now confirms what SD said this morning in their email, namely that AC-4 sound handling is truly available from each of their HDHR clients no matter whether the device or system actually has the proper codec installed.

In other words, I now AM GETTING DD5.1 AUDIO FROM HDHR FOR THE ATSC 3.0 CHANNELS. I just have to push the SAP button to produce it via audio track #2 within the AC-4 wrapper.

Now that strongly suggests the same possibility of getting sound from NextPVR if only I could select audio track #2. The NextPVR GUI doesn't have an SAP button on it. But according to the release notes posted in this forum with version 3.1 of the NextPVR ATV client placed in the App Store last November 2020:

Did you actually read the email from SiliconDust about how they are getting AC-4 support for devices which don't have native support? For those devices, they are sending the audio stream across the Internet to their proprietary servers which are then transcoding the audio into a format which the client does support and then sending it back to the client. And they (SiliconDust) are paying the licensing fees for that AC-4 transcoding support. This method does not "strongly suggest the same possibility of getting sound from NextPVR if only [you] could select audio track #2". If the solution was that simple, do you not think that we would have told you???

Additionally, NextPVR already has logic and settings to select the default audio track based upon the preferred language and available languages. It does not simply default to audio track #1 as you say the SD software does. In your scenarios, I'm quite sure that NextPVR is already selecting audio track #2.