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Transcoding causing video to freeze?


shaefurr
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shaefurr

So, I posted this issue elsewhere a week or so ago, the problem before was my videos in MBT, Kodi, Netflix, etc. would randomly freeze up every few minutes, pushing play/space would start playback again just fine, but having a freezing video every few minutes is driving me nuts.

 

Anyway I narrowed it down now to it ONLY happens when im transcoding to another PC, if I play something off the server and no other users are transcoding playback is fine, but the second another user jumps on my video in whatever app will start freezing up over and over.

 

Is this an issue with ffmpeg or something? I'm lost here and my server is basically unusable when transcoding is needed. Also this only started a about 2 weeks ago, nothing changed except maybe a server update.

 

Transcoding log: http://pastebin.com/Y5VW5zyz

Server log: http://pastebin.com/index.php?e=1

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metaman

I imagine having experienced the same thing. These days the server doesn't seem to be able to handle two simultaneous transcodes, while in the past I'm almost confident it was able to keep up fine with even 3 simultaneous transcodes. I am not sure what has happened.

Edited by metaman
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CBers

Do you have throttling enabled/disabled?

 

Seems to be 2 trains of thought on this, in that if you are likely to have multiple transcodes, then throttling should be enabled to even out the CPU usage, as opposed to, having it disabled so that transcoding is completed as soon as possible.

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drashna

I can definitely confirm that others are having this issue.

 

I've been going crazy over this.

Whatever transcoding profile is being used by Emby is crap.

I was hoping to replace Subsonic for video streaming (as Emby is a much nicer package), but my system can't handle more than one stream at a time. 

Which is ridiculous because it's a Xeon E3 1245v3. And ... well, I can transcode 4-5 streams on Subsonic without even a hiccup. But Emby tries the same with 2-3... and it's brought to it's knees.

 

The difference is clearly visible, as it uses 100% of the CPU most of the time, while subsonic doesn't.  

 

I've tried disabling throttling... which only helps slightly. I'm to the point that I'm needing to find a different solution or re-encode my entire library to a format that Emby wouldn't need to transcode as much (if anyone has pointers for that, please let me know!).

 

Transcode logs.zip

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I can definitely confirm that others are having this issue.

 

I've been going crazy over this.

Whatever transcoding profile is being used by Emby is crap.

I was hoping to replace Subsonic for video streaming (as Emby is a much nicer package), but my system can't handle more than one stream at a time. 

Which is ridiculous because it's a Xeon E3 1245v3. And ... well, I can transcode 4-5 streams on Subsonic without even a hiccup. But Emby tries the same with 2-3... and it's brought to it's knees.

 

The difference is clearly visible, as it uses 100% of the CPU most of the time, while subsonic doesn't.  

 

I've tried disabling throttling... which only helps slightly. I'm to the point that I'm needing to find a different solution or re-encode my entire library to a format that Emby wouldn't need to transcode as much (if anyone has pointers for that, please let me know!).

 

attachicon.gifTranscode logs.zip

 

Well, you disabled throtting, and now you're upset that transcoding is maxing out your cpu. hmmm.

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shaefurr

Disabling throttling seems to have maybe fixed it?, didn't freeze at all for an entire movie while 2 transcodes were going, ill leave it off a while and see.

 

CPU usage is never my issue as even with 2 going I never go much over 50%.

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drashna

Well, you disabled throtting, and now you're upset that transcoding is maxing out your cpu. hmmm.

It's had issues with both throttling on AND off.

And if it's off right now... well, the UI says it's on, and ... I can't make any changes to it, due to a "Sequence contains no matching elements" error every time I try to save the settings.

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/21016-unable-to-change-some-settings/

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drashna

It's had issues with both throttling on AND off.

And if it's off right now... well, the UI says it's on, and ... I can't make any changes to it, due to a "Sequence contains no matching elements" error every time I try to save the settings.

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/21016-unable-to-change-some-settings/

Apparently, (at least on my system), both the Emby server process and FFMPEG are being ran at the "Below normal" CPU priority level. This is what is affecting it, as I'm using Process Lasso to force ffmpeg to use the "Normal" priority and it seems to be working just fine.

 

 

Also, I would like to convert all of my media to a more Emby-friendly format. Luke, would you have a suggestion/sample command line for ffmpeg to be able to do that? It would be GREATLY appreciated.

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tvman777

Im having the issue as well 

 

Version number of Emby: 3.0.5597.1

 

What is happening is that everything is now trascoding. Every video an format, it doesn't matter if the file is 80Mb or 750Mb it will still transcode the video that is being streamed. I have changed the option “Max Stream” to 30Mbs. I have also selected low Mbs to 2Mbs an up as high as 30Mbs it does not make a difference. Keep in mind all the videos that are finished are all done in Mp4 format. I have also thought it mite be my domain I have just tried the static IP to see if that would help an it does not. I made sure it not an upload issue as well I am getting about 900mbs on average on upload an about 500mbs donwload.  If you need anything else please just ask.

 

Transcode  Logs

 

Example 1: http://paste2.org/FPYWDtzy

Example 2: http://paste2.org/96GaGmV2

Example 3: http://paste2.org/bbhOCxBH

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Im having the issue as well 

 

Version number of Emby: 3.0.5597.1

 

What is happening is that everything is now trascoding. Every video an format, it doesn't matter if the file is 80Mb or 750Mb it will still transcode the video that is being streamed. I have changed the option “Max Stream” to 30Mbs. I have also selected low Mbs to 2Mbs an up as high as 30Mbs it does not make a difference. Keep in mind all the videos that are finished are all done in Mp4 format. I have also thought it mite be my domain I have just tried the static IP to see if that would help an it does not. I made sure it not an upload issue as well I am getting about 900mbs on average on upload an about 500mbs donwload.  If you need anything else please just ask.

 

Transcode  Logs

 

Example 1: http://paste2.org/FPYWDtzy

Example 2: http://paste2.org/96GaGmV2

Example 3: http://paste2.org/bbhOCxBH

 

I only looked at your first example, but i think that one should direct stream in the next release.

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shaefurr

Well as far as my original issue with this, disabling throttling completely fixed it, so I'm just leaving it off. :P

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drashna

Apparently, (at least on my system), both the Emby server process and FFMPEG are being ran at the "Below normal" CPU priority level. This is what is affecting it, as I'm using Process Lasso to force ffmpeg to use the "Normal" priority and it seems to be working just fine.

So I was wrong, setting the priority helps when there is only one stream. But as soon as I have 2-3 people watching, it becomes completely unwatchable.
 
I've tried re-encoding a couple of files to support Direct Play. but it appears that DirectPlay seems to only work locally, not remotely. That makes re-encoding the files useless for me. Especially as it didn't significantly reduce the transcoding load.
And even if I did re-encode everything, because of the number of files I have... would take months to process everything.
 

And I tried out the folder sync.... it reduced the file size by 75% and significantly degraded the quality to ... well effectively VHS quality.

 

 

I have a Xeon E3-1245v3. It's a quad core CPU with hyperthreading. It's not a weak CPU.

And as I've said before, Plex and Subsonic (which uses ffmpeg as well) are able to transcode the same files at as good or better quality while using less than 20% of the CPU, as opposed to Emby's 60-80% (while the other 15-20% is being used by the Emby Server process. And if I run ANYTHING that is CPU intensive at all, it also causes the issues to occur.

 

And this is clearly an issue with the profiles being used to transcode, as I've swapped the files back and forth with Subsonic, which clearly has no issue transcoding with a small amount of CPU.

 

However, Emby has the best experience end to end, by far. And I would much rather use it. However, the absurdly high CPU usage by ffmpeg, and its sensitivity make it nigh unusable. 

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