Question About Browser Support for Hevc

[burnchar 2]

See attached video.

1. All Emby videos played in Edge are extremely jittery, as if it plays frames in this order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 6...
2. All Emby videos played from FireFox are not jittery, they are transcoded and have frequent pauses because my server is a Xeon 3060 from the Core2 era.
   1. Emby documentation says that Emby transcodes only when necessary. This is false.
3. All videos play just fine over local network using Media Player Classic.
4. Emby through AndroidTV works without issue.

I do not know if Windows 11 has anything to do with the two bugs, but I know they are bugs. 

 

Client specs:

• Windows 11 on Microsoft Surface Pro 8
• Core i5-1135G7 / Intel Iris Xe
• Server's and client's CPU and GPU usage minimal
• Not transcoding (if it were, that would be a different bug)
• Same on two different wireless networks, wifi5 and wifi 6
• Distance from wireless router makes no difference

Server /network specs:

• Intel Xeon 3060
• Intel gigE
• Ubiquiti 16-port GigE switch, latest generation
• Routers: Linksys EA8300 Wifi 5 router and C4000XG Wifi-6 router
• 5-drive RAID5 array on 3Ware Escalade 9750-8i RAID card

 

[GrimReaper 3273]

Are those HEVC encodes you're trying to play? 

[Luke 37019]

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks !

[Luke 37019]

Quote

Emby documentation says that Emby transcodes

Actually this is true, but remember that in a web browser, it's not about what the device supports, it's about what the browser supports.

Have you looked at what Firefox supports? It's pretty limited compared to Chrome or MS Edge.

[burnchar 2]

1 hour ago, GrimReaper said:

Are those HEVC encodes you're trying to play? 

Yes! You are on to something.

I thought my second experiment, a very old TV show, would be in MPEG2 or something, but it, too, is in HEVC.

I re-tested a few samples that use MPEG-2 and AVC and they work perfectly.

Is the browser not capable of HEVC?

 

[GrimReaper 3273]

7 hours ago, burnchar said:

Is the browser not capable of HEVC?

Yes, browsers are generally poor in HEVC support, it has nothing to do with Emby. 

See below:

 

[Carlo 4330]

From my playing around with my HEVC collection I've found MS Edge to be the web browser for media playback from my Emby server.
But I'd still choose to use Emby Theater on a PC vs browser if possible, just because it's a much more robust client.

[justinrh 174]

7 hours ago, cayars said:

MS Edge to be the web browser for media playback from my Emby server

This is the Chromium version you are referring too, right?  From your usage, does it behave different than Chrome?

[Carlo 4330]

Yes absolutely.

[Luke 37019]

Chromium based browsers support the mkv container, and then on Windows, Edge also adds ac3 and hevc support to that, so that really helps it stand out as the best browser to play with.

[justinrh 174]

Interesting indeed.  Who'd thought it?

[burnchar 2]

15 hours ago, Luke said:

Chromium based browsers support the mkv container, and then on Windows, Edge also adds ac3 and hevc support to that, so that really helps it stand out as the best browser to play with.

Edge is the browser I was using, though my test cases have FLAC and AAC.

Emby Theater works perfectly, though.

[Luke 37019]

26 minutes ago, burnchar said:

Edge is the browser I was using, though my test cases have FLAC and AAC.

Emby Theater works perfectly, though.

The jittery playback of hevc in Edge is unfortunately an issue in the browser with certain videos. It's well documented and MS is aware of it. There's not much we can about that other than transcode it, which you've already said you don't want.

[burnchar 2]

19 minutes ago, Luke said:

The jittery playback of hevc in Edge is unfortunately an issue in the browser with certain videos. It's well documented and MS is aware of it. There's not much we can about that other than transcode it, which you've already said you don't want.

If I could edit my original post, I'd cross out: ", but I know they are bugs".

I suppose they are technically bugs, just not of Emby. I apologize for my presumptuousness; I thought I knew what I was talking about because I am a software engineer and I have encoded thousands of videos, digging into settings and encoding methods in great detail. I did not know, however, that the browser is designed to need all its own decoding support rather than just using the OS's registered media handling. I wonder what led to that design choice.

I'll use Emby Theater and eventually get a faster server with video hardware that can transcode.

Not an Emby problem. Nothing to see here.

[Luke 37019]

Thanks for the feedback.

[burnchar 2]

For those that find this thread via web search or similar, note that there is a bug report for Chrome-based Edge on this issue here:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/hevc-video-decoding-broken-with-b-frames/m-p/2077247/thread-id/41831/page/4

[Luke 37019]

5 hours ago, burnchar said:

For those that find this thread via web search or similar, note that there is a bug report for Chrome-based Edge on this issue here:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/hevc-video-decoding-broken-with-b-frames/m-p/2077247/thread-id/41831/page/4

Thanks !

[Carlo 4330]

This issue has been around for a while now.  I'm really surprised it hasn't been fixed yet.

[burnchar 2]

It looks like Microsoft has been working on this problem and may have a fix:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/hevc-video-decoding-broken-with-b-frames/m-p/3176711/emcs_t/S2h8ZW1haWx8dG9waWNfc3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ufEtaUUhYV1QwUE5TTEJSfDMxNzY3MTF8U1VCU0NSSVBUSU9OU3xoSw#M52158

[Luke 37019]

26 minutes ago, burnchar said:

It looks like Microsoft has been working on this problem and may have a fix:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/hevc-video-decoding-broken-with-b-frames/m-p/3176711/emcs_t/S2h8ZW1haWx8dG9waWNfc3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ufEtaUUhYV1QwUE5TTEJSfDMxNzY3MTF8U1VCU0NSSVBUSU9OU3xoSw#M52158

That's great news. Thanks for sharing.

[GrimReaper 3273]

Can confirm stutter-less DirectPlay HEVC (8-bit/10-bit) with AAC/AC3 on Edge Dev 100.0.1163.1 and HEVC Video Extension 1.0.50362.0.

[Ronstang 201]

On 10/27/2021 at 12:36 AM, Luke said:

Chromium based browsers support the mkv container, and then on Windows, Edge also adds ac3 and hevc support to that, so that really helps it stand out as the best browser to play with.

My question is why does anyone play files in a browser?  I can understand if you are watching on a PC without premier but if you are then you are getting much lower quality video to begin with as there is no upscaling like when watching on a TV.  I test all my encodes in the browser app to make sure they play fine before I load them to an emby drive and on many the qualty is not good with jagged edges etc but when played on a TV they look fantastic.  Watch Netflix on a computer and compare it to the TV.....same thing.

It would only make sense to me to watch in a browser if you didn't have a TV at all because any new TV is going to have better playback support and even if it's an old TV a $25 Firestick or Roku fixes that.

[Luke 37019]

3 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

My question is why does anyone play files in a browser?  I can understand if you are watching on a PC without premier but if you are then you are getting much lower quality video to begin with as there is no upscaling like when watching on a TV.  I test all my encodes in the browser app to make sure they play fine before I load them to an emby drive and on many the qualty is not good with jagged edges etc but when played on a TV they look fantastic.  Watch Netflix on a computer and compare it to the TV.....same thing.

It would only make sense to me to watch in a browser if you didn't have a TV at all because any new TV is going to have better playback support and even if it's an old TV a $25 Firestick or Roku fixes that.

It's quick and easy and browsers are getting more and more robust by the day.

[Ronstang 201]

I understand that but accessing one from a TV is not and wouldn't make sense anyway with better options for emby.....and like I said, if you are watching on a computer monitor you are getting crap quality......OOPS.....I'm old, many people use a TV as a monitor now so I can see where that would be OK.   Answered my own stupid question....LOL

[ebr 14904]

12 hours ago, Ronstang said:

I understand that but accessing one from a TV is not and wouldn't make sense anyway with better options for emby.....and like I said, if you are watching on a computer monitor you are getting crap quality......OOPS.....I'm old, many people use a TV as a monitor now so I can see where that would be OK.   Answered my own stupid question....LOL

My kids consume >50% of their media on a mobile device of some sort - including their laptops.  It is just the way of the world for many these days.