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Throttling the stream to phone (away from home wifi)


Bingie

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Bingie

Hi all,

When I'm streaming to my phone connected to our local wifi, it works great.  HD movies play just fine.  However, when I leave the house, Emby still tries to direct play to my phone, but the phone has nowhere near enough bandwidth, and just chokes.  Shouldn't it be throttling down?

I can watch youtube videos just fine over the air, but when I try to watch the same music videos from Emby, it chokes massively.

If I have to manually set bandwidth limits, the only thing I can think of is to do it on a per-user account.  When away from home, use a separate slowed login account.

Thoughts?

Thanks

 

Edited by Bingyyyy
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Bingie

I'm pleasantly surprised :) w00t!

Been doing some testing, created a test user, throttled all the way down to 0.25 Mbps, played an HD video, and it works!  Yes, the res is really low, not quite as good as direct to youtube, but it does play uninterrupted.

Server task manager shows no cpu burden when throttling either, still idle, so that's good!

The area I live in has lousy/spotty cell phone reception, but as I move around the city, bandwidth changes all the time.  I bookmarked a speed test for android (google), and will have to do more testing, but I think this setup will work.

 

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Q-Droid

You can set a server wide internet streaming bitrate limit.

You can set a per user internet streaming bitrate limit that overrides the server limit.

In your Emby client apps under user profile you can set playback quality levels with corresponding bitrate for LAN, WAN and Chromecast. Some apps may differ.

 

 

Edited by Q-Droid
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Bingie
21 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

You can set a server wide internet streaming bitrate limit.

You can set a per user internet streaming bitrate limit that overrides the server limit.

In your Emby client apps under user profile you can set playback quality levels with corresponding bitrate for LAN, WAN and Chromecast. Some apps may differ.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback!

1.  I have very fast Internet up & down, so a server wide limit to fix one usage is a non-starter.  I want all devices to get as much available bandwidth as possible.

2. I am currently setting a per-user limit, that is the only way I found to fix the above overbuffering problem.  It's a manual process though, I wish it was more dynamic.

3. I've never been able to get my server added to Emby Connect, so using the Emby app on Android isn't yet available to me.  I'll probably get this working next.

Thanks

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Hi, instead of setting a limit on the person why not just leave that open and make the bandwidth change directly on the client when needed?

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Bingie
6 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

You don't need Emby connect for remote access or any of the above. 

 

I want to test the Emby app, to see if it does any better than browsers on my phone.

I have been trying different browsers on my android phone, all with limited success.  It seems there is no way to block ads AND watch youtube videos full screen (they always keep 2 lines of text on top).

So now, instead of watching videos from youtube, i'm now streaming them from my home emby server, but the resolution isn't as good.  I can get full screen now though.

I wanted to test the Emby Connect app, to see if it does any better than the browsers available on android.

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Bingie
1 minute ago, cayars said:

Hi, instead of setting a limit on the person why not just leave that open and make the bandwidth change directly on the client when needed?

Client, what client?  I'm using browsers on my android phone.  I want to try the Emby app on my android phone, but haven't been able to add my server to Emby Connect yet.

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Bingie

OMG LOL I just got my server to add to Emby Connect w00t!  :)

Okay now I can try the Emby app for Android.................

 

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Q-Droid

Install the Android app on your phone then connect to your server on LAN. If your server is setup correctly it will connect over mobile network automatically when you leave home. 

 

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Bingie
8 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Install the Android app on your phone then connect to your server on LAN. If your server is setup correctly it will connect over mobile network automatically when you leave home. 

 

Thanks, I got the app working, will test that this morning.

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Bingie
16 minutes ago, cayars said:

Hi, instead of setting a limit on the person why not just leave that open and make the bandwidth change directly on the client when needed?

Hi, where in the Emby app can I set the bandwidth for the client?  I don't see any bandwidth limiting options on a device basis.

Thanks

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GrimReaper

You set it server-side, so go to Settings>Users, edit desired user. 

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Bingie

That is per user, not per device.  I'm already manually setting it per user, because the auto option isn't working.

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GrimReaper

There's "global" and "per user". For any specific device, you limit quality/bandwidth from OSD during playback. Also, settings>Playback gives quality options. 

Edited by GrimReaper76
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GrimReaper
14 minutes ago, Bingyyyy said:

OSD?

On Screen Display, press "down" during playback on Android TV app or touch screen on Android. But I misread your query, Settings>Playback section is the one you're after. 

Edit:

 

IMG_20210722_153527.jpg

Screenshot_2021-07-22-15-34-52-237_com.mb.android.jpg

Edited by GrimReaper76
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Bingie

Thanks, found the playback settings, they are on "Auto - Direct".

Each time I play a video, it plays usually just a few seconds then pauses to buffer more (on my Emby server dashboard, it shows direct play, no throttling/transcoding down).  The first half of the video pauses every few seconds, but after about a minute of play, I guess it figures out how to play the rest without pauses.  Sometimes.

The next video starts all over again, with lots of pauses.  I guess the auto settings can't handle low bandwidth connections.  I have to manually limit the bandwidth.

I'll keep playing around with it.  Making progress though!

 

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Bingie

Solved (sort of)

I created TWO different remote users:

Fast (no bandwidth limitations)

Slow (limit user bandwidth to 0.25 Mbps, the lowest setting)

When I'm away from wifi connections, and the download speeds drop to next to nothing, the "Slow" login account plays without pauses.  Low res, obviously, the Emby server is transcoding down to 250kbps, but it works.

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You can set this in the app as well which is likely the better way to do it as you only need one user.

Look at the picture above and you will see bandwidth settings for home and internet (remote) use.

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Bingie

Thanks everyone!

I just did a semi-scientific test LOL I streamed full HD on auto, got in my car, and drove around the city.

Apparently all of Los Angeles has great cell phone tower signal, EXCEPT for about a mile radius around my house :( Figures, my luck...

So, when home, I connect to our wifi, and away from home, OTA signal strength seems to hold up, for the most part.  It is what it is, I guess.

p.s. I did find the above mentioned settings THANKS!

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pwhodges
5 hours ago, Bingyyyy said:

OMG LOL I just got my server to add to Emby Connect w00t!  :)

Okay now I can try the Emby app for Android.................

As has been said, Emby Connect is purely optional for most people.  You could have installed the app at any time and just specified the address of your server in it.

Paul

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  • 2 years later...
ng4ever
On 7/22/2021 at 9:47 AM, Bingie said:

Thanks everyone!

I just did a semi-scientific test LOL I streamed full HD on auto, got in my car, and drove around the city.

Apparently all of Los Angeles has great cell phone tower signal, EXCEPT for about a mile radius around my house :( Figures, my luck...

So, when home, I connect to our wifi, and away from home, OTA signal strength seems to hold up, for the most part.  It is what it is, I guess.

p.s. I did find the above mentioned settings THANKS!

I like your semi-scientific test!

 

 

Just wish Emby was smart enough to do streaming like YouTube or Netflix does.

 

I know not possible :(

 

 

 

 

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