Fire TV Stick v2 x265 Playback

[bbking67 1]

The Amazon Fire TV Stick v2 supports HEVC playback up to 1080P but with my Emby setup it always transcodes.  I have a FireTV Cube v1 and I get direct playback of HEVC/x265 files.

Given that I have three Fire Stick v2 devices, is there a way to "force" direct playback?  is there a fix for this so that I don't have to transcode?  The quality of the transcoded video is horrible compared to the native playout by the way... native H264 files are fine.  Typically I am playing back low bitrate 720P MKV files.

I know the Fire Stick is not the greatest playout device, but it's what I have.

 

 

 

[Happy2Play 8296]

Can you post the ffmpeg for something that is transcoding as it will say why it is transcoding.

[ebr 14925]

Hi.  Yes, please provide the log.  Thanks.

 

[rbjtech 4284]

The Gen 2 FireTV Stick supports the following flavour of HEVC :-

H.265 (HEVC). Hardware accelerated up to 1080p @ 30fps, 25 Mbps, Main Profile Level 4.0, Color space 8-bit support

Without an ffmpeg log or a media Info screen grab giving us the detailed information on EXACTLY what you are trying to play - we really have no way of advising further.

You haven't mentioned the Audio type (below is what's supported on this device - anything else will need conversion and will likely force a transcode)..

• AC3 (Dolby Digital). Up to 48kHz, 6 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit
• eAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus). Up to 48kHz, 6 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit
• AAC-LC. Up to 96kHz, 6 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit
• HE-AACv1 (AAC+). Up to 96kHz, 6 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit
• HE-AACv2 (enhanced AAC+). Up to 96kHz, 6 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit
• FLAC. Up to 48kHz, 2 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit (no dither for 24 bit)
• MIDI. MIDI (Type 0 and 1), DLS (Version 1 and 2), XMF, and Mobile XMF. Ringtone formats RTTTL/RTX, OTA, and iMelody.
• MP3. Up to 48kHz, 2 channels in DSP (16-bit and 24-bit) and software (16-bit).
• Vorbis. Ogg (.ogg), Matroska (.mkv).
• PCM/Wave. Up to 96kHz, 6 channels, 16-bit and 24-bit.
• Opus. Up to 8 channels, 48 kHz.

 

[bbking67 1]

ffmpeg-transcode-6bc8dd53-0af5-4c4f-b9b8-a49e0823c730_1.txt

 

here is an ffmpeg... i havent found an h265 file that played without transcoding yet.

[bbking67 1]

it looks like the video is 10 bit...so that may be part of the problem... audio is eac3

[Happy2Play 8296]

Correct as it is part of the profile that cause the transcode.

TranscodeReasons=VideoProfileNotSupported

"Profile":"Main 10" vs supported "Main" and exceeds bitrate

 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Happy2Play

[bbking67 1]

So I tested an H265 MKV file with 8 bit colour and it worked fine.  Most of the newer ones are 10 bit and transcode.  Its a pity the drop in quality when transcoding is so dramatic.  I'll fool around with it and see what can be done.  Thanks again for the help... I guess I'll have to upgrade the old fire sticks.

[Happy2Play 8296]

7 minutes ago, bbking67 said:

I guess I'll have to upgrade the old fire sticks.

This will pretty much be your only option as it is a limitation of the device itself.

Device Specifications: Fire TV Streaming Media Player | Amazon Fire TV

The Gen 3 supports "Main 10" or the 4K models.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Happy2Play

[rbjtech 4284]

7 hours ago, bbking67 said:

So I tested an H265 MKV file with 8 bit colour and it worked fine.  Most of the newer ones are 10 bit and transcode.  Its a pity the drop in quality when transcoding is so dramatic.  I'll fool around with it and see what can be done.  Thanks again for the help... I guess I'll have to upgrade the old fire sticks.

I know Amazon have just brought out a 4K Plus TV stick and you used to be able to 'trade in' your old old one for a cashback option (it wasn't much, but it was better than nothing).

The Gen 2 devices are 5 years old now - so they have done well imo for the relatively low cost when they were new. (and tbh still work perfectly well with emby if you use h264 - as I do for non 4K stuff).

[bbking67 1]

Yeah so the solution is:

1. Only use H.265 with 8 bit colour

2. Transcode any 10-bit files (outside of Emby) to 8-bit

3. Let Emby server transcode on the fly (this works but the quality isn't great for me)

4. Upgrade the device to a Gen 3 Fire TV Stick (or better)

I have a Fire TV Cube 1st gen and it works perfectly fine--i noticed a drastic reduction is quality on the other TV with a Fire TV Stick 2nd gen.  I guess I'll have to upgrade some devices.

I would say this is case closed...thanks again for the help.

 

 

[Luke 37099]

Thanks for the feedback.

[bbking67 1]

Quick postscript, the Fire TV 4K Max is the first FireTV device to support AV1 codec... AV1 is supposedly 30% better than x265, so ultimately my solution is going to be a 4K Max to replace the aging Gen 2 Stick (which is still awesome by the way.)  As the owner of 4 Fire TV devices, 2 Apple TVs and two Chromecasts, the Fire TV is still the best of the bunch.  My Fire TV Cube (First Version) works fine with all 265 files.

Anyway, getting AV1 support is probably the best way to future proof any purchases as it's the codec of the future.

So my plan is to get a Fire TV 4K Max at some point soon.