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Shield TV direct play issues but transcoding is fine


Airz5

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Hi,

  I just received my Shield TV in the post today and I eagerly disconnected my HTPC running emby in the hope that I wouldn't need it anymore. Unfortunately I'm having issues with video playback in the Emby app on the Shield TV. Direct playback is stuttery and the audio is usually way out of sync and adjusting makes no difference because the amount its out of sync changes constantly. If I disable the use of VLC in the settings and force Emby to transcode then it works fine. Has anyone else seen this issue and have any resolution?

 

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First thing I'd do is make sure the firmware and software on the device are up-to-date since it is brand new.

 

After that, we'd have to investigate the exact specifics of the content you are trying to play.  I haven't seen shield users reporting problems like this.

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The first thing I did when I connect of the shield was update it so its running version 2.1 of the shield firmware and the Emby client installed is version 1.105g :) The shield is connected via 1Gb ethernet to my media server which is a dell poweredge t310 running the latest stable emby server. An example file would be a roughly 1GB 720p MKV file that uses an AVC video stream and AC-3 6 Channel audio stream. I'm not really sure where else to start problem solving with this  :(

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I don't have that issue.  Though I am currently on 1.4 as I was avoiding the 2.0 update.  Will try the 2.1 update when I get home and report back.

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I think I may have narrowed it down. I just watched a film via direct playback and it was fine. I've now tried a few different films and episodes of series and it looks like emby is struggling with anything that uses AC-3 as the audio codec.

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I think I may have narrowed it down. I just watched a film via direct playback and it was fine. I've now tried a few different films and episodes of series and it looks like emby is struggling with anything that uses AC-3 as the audio codec.

 

That certainly hasn't been a problem with the existing systems.

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Steven Giles

I have started getting the same issue with emby on my Sony Android TV. Movies are fine but TV shows stutter and audio way out of sync havnt had a chance to dig into it yet. Hopefully this weekend.

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I have started getting the same issue with emby on my Sony Android TV. Movies are fine but TV shows stutter and audio way out of sync havnt had a chance to dig into it yet. Hopefully this weekend.

 

Yeah thats basically what I've been having. It seems a lot of the movies I have are fine but most TV shows are un-watchable which is what prompted me to see what the codec differences were  :) and AC-3 seems to be the commonality in the tv shows that don't play correctly.

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I am seeing the same thing.  Dolby Digital tv shows (720p).  audio direct plays and is way out of sink.

 

Didn't have this issue with the DVD movie rip with DD I tested.  Will maybe try a couple others tomorrow. 

 

DTS 720p plays fine - mind you that is coming across as pcm.

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Since this just started happening I'm more suspicious of the software update on the Shield.

 

Interestingly, it sounds like a very similar problem to the new Fire TV box.

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Anyone know if there's a way to roll back an update on the shield? I'd like to try and go back to 2.0 to see if that makes any difference

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Since this just started happening I'm more suspicious of the software update on the Shield.

 

Interestingly, it sounds like a very similar problem to the new Fire TV box.

 

Not sure if it sheds any light, but I can play the same file in Kodi (with DD passthrough) and the file plays fine, no sync issues.

 

Not sure if I had this issue before the update, as I hadn't played any 720p DD files until after I updated.

Edited by foghat
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Not sure if it sheds any light, but I can play the same file in Kodi (with DD passthrough) and the file plays fine, no sync issues.

 

 

Unfortunately, no.  When playing something in Kodi, you may as well not even be on the same platform as it has pretty much all necessary decoders built into it.

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Unfortunately, no.  When playing something in Kodi, you may as well not even be on the same platform as it has pretty much all necessary decoders built into it.

 

The vlc player is not using its own codecs as well?

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Anyone know if there's a way to roll back an update on the shield? I'd like to try and go back to 2.0 to see if that makes any difference

 

I think there is a factory reset option somewhere, no?

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The vlc player is not using its own codecs as well?

 

Yes, it is but that makes it even less relevant to whatever Kodi is doing (as they are both doing their own thing) and VLC's decoding is not as comprehensive as Kodi's - at least not yet and not on the Android platform.

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Yes, it is but that makes it even less relevant to whatever Kodi is doing (as they are both doing their own thing) and VLC's decoding is not as comprehensive as Kodi's - at least not yet and not on the Android platform.

 

I guess what I was sort of getting at is if everyone is using their own codecs vs. some modified/updated codecs that the sheild update installed, how likely is it that the sheild update is the issue?

 

I wish I would have tried one of these files before I did the update.

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Steven Giles

Since this just started happening I'm more suspicious of the software update on the Shield.

 

Interestingly, it sounds like a very similar problem to the new Fire TV box.

I also seem to be having the exact same problem with emby for Android TV on a Sony Android TV. It's also just anything with ac3 audio.
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xXSagaiaXx

I have started getting the same issue with emby on my Sony Android TV. Movies are fine but TV shows stutter and audio way out of sync havnt had a chance to dig into it yet. Hopefully this weekend.

Yes, I have been having the same issues with the TV shows stuttering really bad. Movies play fine.

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I have the exact same problem on my Shield (running 2.1). Movies play fine, but TV shows stutter like crazy (and are out of sync all the time). Kodi works.

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There is no functional difference between TV and Movies as far as playback is concerned so you guys need to dig into what the true differences are between the videos that have the problem and those that don't.  Thanks.

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Ok, I'll attach mediainfo for two files. Both are direct streamed (with/without SRT subs). Let me know if you need more.

 

Here is mediainfo for a movie that works: 

General
Unique ID                                : 112580863327572361292967633051625851859 (0x54B2491C1519FED08BDFBD29ECC60BD3)
Complete name                            : .....
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4 / Version 2
File size                                : 10.9 GiB
Duration                                 : 2h 4mn
Overall bit rate                         : 12.5 Mbps
Movie name                               : ...
Encoded date                             : UTC 2015-09-27 19:14:29
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v7.9.0 ('Birds') 64bit
Writing library                          : libebml v1.3.1 + libmatroska v1.4.2
DURATION                                 : 01:53:44.109000000
NUMBER_OF_FRAMES                         : 2989
NUMBER_OF_BYTES                          : 9490829
_STATISTICS_WRITING_APP                  : mkvmerge v7.9.0 ('Birds') 64bit
_STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC             : 2015-09-27 19:14:29
_STATISTICS_TAGS                         : BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
 
Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L5
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 5 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 2h 4mn
Bit rate                                 : 11.0 Mbps
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 960 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.000
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.249
Stream size                              : 9.34 GiB (86%)
Title                                    : 1080p x264
Writing library                          : x264 core 142 r2495 6a301b6
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=11000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
 
Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Mode                                     : 16
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 2h 4mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.31 GiB (12%)
Title                                    : DTS 5.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
 
Text
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : PGS
Muxing mode                              : zlib
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Title                                    : Subtitles
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
 
Menu
00:00:00.000                             : en:00:00:00.000
00:06:59.169                             : en:00:06:59.169
00:11:01.828                             : en:00:11:01.828
00:18:28.441                             : en:00:18:28.441
00:25:34.867                             : en:00:25:34.867
00:31:20.837                             : en:00:31:20.837
00:39:23.861                             : en:00:39:23.861
00:44:07.854                             : en:00:44:07.854
00:48:57.226                             : en:00:48:57.226
00:55:51.056                             : en:00:55:51.056
01:01:21.344                             : en:01:01:21.344
01:09:50.561                             : en:01:09:50.561
01:15:25.479                             : en:01:15:25.479
01:23:51.860                             : en:01:23:51.860
01:30:14.701                             : en:01:30:14.701
01:36:45.425                             : en:01:36:45.425
01:41:15.653                             : en:01:41:15.653
01:47:35.282                             : en:01:47:35.282
01:53:06.029                             : en:01:53:06.029
01:55:37.556                             : en:01:55:37.556
 
And here for a TV-episode that doesn't:

General
Complete name                            : ...
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 603 MiB
Duration                                 : 29mn 25s
Overall bit rate                         : 2 865 Kbps
Writing application                      : x264.exe
Writing library                          : mkv2rls x264-tv version built on 2015. febr. 22
 
Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 5 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 29mn 25s
Bit rate                                 : 2 424 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.110
Stream size                              : 510 MiB (85%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 146 r2538 121396c
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
 
Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 29mn 25s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 384 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 80.8 MiB (13%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
 
Text
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : UTF-8
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                            : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title                                    : English
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

 

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So, looks like maybe AC3 audio is the actual difference...?

 

Can you turn on debug options, then go play the one that doesn't work and immiediately then back out to the home screen and send a log?

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Also, if you can install VLC on the device and try and play something with AC3 audio with it that could be useful information too.

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