how come firefox transcodes while chrome directstream?

[tomatoesoncamera 0]

i haven't watched emby on my pc for sometime so i haven't noticed when it changed but i recall firefox used to play my videos via directstream instead of transcoding them.

two things may have affected this but i am not certain:

1) recently W10 Build 1903 update (a few days old)

2) firefox v70 upgrade (maybe a month or so old)\

what is interesting though is chrome still plays via directstream.

is there something i can do to force firefox or the emby server to use directstream instead of transcoding my videos?

[Luke 36999]

Hi there, did you explore the stats for nerds feature inside the video player to learn why it was transcoding?

[Happy2Play 8239]

You would have to post the ffmpeg logs corresponding to Firefox and Chrome, but each browsers has their own limitations.  Just like Edge can handle ac3 and currently Firefox and Chrome can't.

[tomatoesoncamera 0]

Hi there, did you explore the stats for nerds feature inside the video player to learn why it was transcoding?

that was where i found out it was transcoding. oh, i just read "play method", i don't understand the rest of the details here.

here's a screen cap of what it looks like playing the same video file.

 

[tomatoesoncamera 0]

You would have to post the ffmpeg logs corresponding to Firefox and Chrome, but each browsers has their own limitations.  Just like Edge can handle ac3 and currently Firefox and Chrome can't.

gotcha. so it's basically how the browsers decide to handle the media file not how the emby server throws send it.

noob question where do i get those logs from?

[Happy2Play 8239]

gotcha. so it's basically how the browsers decide to handle the media file not how the emby server throws send it.

noob question where do i get those logs from?

 

You can see the path to your logs via the Dashboard in the Paths box.

 

@@Luke why is FF transcoding h264 to VPX?

[tomatoesoncamera 0]

found it. thanks.

 

here's the ffmpeg log for both firefox and chrome:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a4mleq1e4z0l3qb/ffmpeg-transcode-e4d31b6a-a598-4f70-8d8e-49407511b221_1.txt?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bvosvtvjljqxgrz/ffmpeg-remux-5e508028-4de7-4ce0-b2dd-62b1c5cf79fb_1.txt?dl=0

[Luke 36999]

On some platforms Firefox doesn't include h264 support due to licensing, and you have to install it manually. But this is the first time I've ever seen that on Windows.

 

I would suggest updating Firefox. If the issue persists after that, try resetting the browser to default settings, removing any extensions, etc.

[tomatoesoncamera 0]

On some platforms Firefox doesn't include h264 support due to licensing, and you have to install it manually. But this is the first time I've ever seen that on Windows.

 

I would suggest updating Firefox. If the issue persists after that, try resetting the browser to default settings, removing any extensions, etc.

tried the browser without the extensions, no go. interestingly enough it did work on another workstation of mine with firefox and all the extensions enabled... so it wasn't the browser or the extensions.

 

and after a few more media sites break (youtube and spotify), firefox came to the rescue by showing me a help file that suggested installing the Media Feature Pack. yes, that simple. turns out am running an N version so i just needed to install the Media Pack Feature via Settings>Apps and feature>Optional features then reboot.

 

apologies for the fuss caused. and now back to my videos.

[Luke 36999]

Thanks for the feedback.