MrMC on Apple TV4 - transcoding not working

[Jonir]

I can not get live tv to work when I enable transcoding in the DVBLink addon inside MrMC on my Apple TV4.

When transcoding is disabled, live tv works fine. Recordings works both with and without transcoding enabled (but I read in another topic the transcoding does not work on recordings in MrMC, so that is probably why). When I enable transcoding in the DVBLink addon inside MrMC the live TV doesn't start. I can see all the channels, when I pick one of them it starts the round circle going around but after a while I just goes back to the list of channels. No error message.

I am using a windows version of the DVBLink server (v6.0.0) with HD Homerun tuners (Expand 141050CC+Dual 1220C770). Transcoding is enabled on the server, and transcoded live tv is working fine on the DVBLink app on my Ipad and Iphone. I need transcoding as I am using the Apple TV as a mobile device.

Can someone help me please?
I am happy to upload log files or anything needed. I have checked Log files, but they do not incidate any problems (as far as I can see, but I am no expert).

[Montoya]

Please post screenshot of:

- DVBLink server tab "Settings/General"
- MrMC DVBLink PVR addon settings "Stream"

[Jonir]

Sorry for the late answer. I have attached the 2 screenshots.

Does anything look wrong?

[Oberon]

DVBLink on AppleTV does not support playing back a transcoded stream.

[Jonir]

Does DVBLink support transcoding on any TV boxes? for example Android TV boxes ?

[Montoya]

DVBLink on AppleTV does not support playing back a transcoded stream.

But the DVBLink PVR in MrMC does

When I watch a 12Mbps channel in MrMC on my Apple TV 4K, I see in taskmanager on my server:

- 12 Mbps incoming stream from my DVB-C network tuner to DVBLink
- 12 Mbps outgoing stream to my Apple TV 4K to MrMC

When I watch the same channel in MrMC on my Apple TV 4K and set transcoding in the DVBLink PVR in MrMC to 2048 I see this on my server:

- 12 Mbps incoming stream from my DVB-C network tuner to DVBLink
- 2,5 Mbps outgoing stream to my Apple TV 4K to MrMC

@Jonir:

- Did you force-close the MrMC app, after setting the transcode option in MrMC ?
- Have you tried a higher transcode setting like 2048 ?

[Jonir]

Thanks for the help Montoya, I would really like to see this work (to enable me to connect to my dvblink server from an apple tv on a remote location) - but no luck.

- I tried setting transcoding to both 2048 and 4096
- I tried killing MrMC and start it again
- I tried rebooting the apple TV
- I reproduced this problem on 3 different apple tv in the house

Do you also have your dvblink server running on a windows 10? Do you have Kodi installed on that machine as well? Could that be it?

[Montoya]

What tvOS is on your Apple TV's ?

My Apple TV 4K is on tvOS11.1
Look at my signature for the specs of my server software.

[Jonir]

Again, thanks for your help.

I just realised that you are using the 4K apple tv, while I am using the old 4th gen apple tv. I have now ordered a 4K apple tv to see if that helps.

Anyway my old apple tvs did run tvOS 11.0. I updated it to 11.1, but that did not solve it.

Finally I can see that you are using "DVBLink for IPTV" so most likely you are streaming your channels online, while I have a HD Homerun to source the TV channels from my cable provider into DVBLink. That might also cause this different behavior in MrMC. However I am tempted to install Kodi on my DVBLink win10 server, just to see if that is it.

[Montoya]

No problem to help out other users

My setup also contains a HDHomeRun for my DVB-C channels and the transcoding test I have done where with my DVB-C channels.
Transcoding in DVBLink is done by the DVBLink server not by the plugins like DVBLink for IPTV.

[Jonir]

Solution found:
Transcoding works fine in MRMC on the 4K version of the Apple TV 4. It does not work on the older Apple TV 4.

Maybe you can also activate transcoding in the apple tv 4k DVBLink Theater app?