Emby Theater won't use DirectPlay (Synology NAS > Windows 11 HTPC)

[IJsmat 0]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new user of Emby. And I have a problem with DirectPlay on my HTPC.
On my Android mobile phone everything works fine: movies, also with high bitrates, play instantly and without stuttering using DirectPlay. But somehow on my HTPC the Emby Theater app keeps transcoding all of my movies. Or sometimes it also uses Direct stream. Never DirectPlay. I see this also in the "stats for nerds" where it always reports transcoding to a lower bitrate. Resulting in long waiting times before playback, stuttering and buffering. This shouldn't be happening: my Emby Theater is installed on a brand new fast PC which is in the same home network as my synology NAS. I have read numerous threads about this, tried many things, but still the problem persists. DirectPlay just doesn't seem to work on my HTPC.

This is my situation:

• My NAS has a fixed IP address (using DHCP on the router): 192.168.178.241
• My NAS is a Synology DS720+ running DSM 7.
• I have installed Emby on my Synology NAS with success.
• Version is 4.6.7.0.
• Inside the NAS Shared folder there are folders for Movies, TV shows, TV documentaries and Concerts. All have read/write permissions for the system internal user "emby".
• I have NOT created an extra user for Emby.
• Emby Server sees these folders and has succesfully identified all content within, including fanart, meta info, etcetera.
• Emby Server Dashboard says: running on port 8096 and In-Home (LAN)-access:http://192.168.178.241:8096
• The paths for the media Folders are Setup as following: 
  Folder = "/volume1/Films"
  Optional shared network folder = "\\192.168.178.241\Films"
• At Emby > Server > Network I have left both fields "LAN networks:" and "Local IP address:" blank. 
• I have a paid subscription for Emby Premiere.
• Emby Theater runs on my HTPC with no other problems besides this playback problem
• My HTPC has a clean install of Windows 11.
• The HTPC can play the movies on the NAS with no problem using the native Windows "Movies and TV" app or VLC.

This is what I have tried so far:

• Inside Emby Theater > Playback > Video I have reset "Home network quality" on "Automatic" 
• On my HTPC I gave file explorer access to the drives on the NAS: Windows can see and open all the movies on the NAS
• Tested the network path directly: "\\192.168.178.241\Films" as well as "\\Binas\Films" (Binas is the name of the NAS): Both with success: Windows sees all the files in both cases.
• Switched off automatic subtitles (I read somewere that this could be the problem?).
• Added ports 8096 and 8920 as TCP open ports to Windows Firewall on the HTPC.
• Restarted the Emby Server. 
• Tried movies of various bitrate and quality (720p, 1080p, 4K) and various audio codecs (DTS, AC3, DTS-HD, Dolby Digital HD)  

None of the above worked: playing a movie inside Emby Theater (or the browser) on my HTPC results in playback being halted after a few seconds due to buffering because of transcoding OR it plays using Direct stream. Never DirectPlay :-(

Hope you can help me out here. I really like the interface of Emby Theater and I would love to use Emby instead of Plex...

Attached a server log when trying to play Blade Runner 2049

Matthijs, The Netherlands

ffmpeg-remux-3df28fb7-921d-4ceb-abaa-7523e0300b49_1.txt

[Carlo 4331]

Hi, are you by any chance running the Windows store version of Emby Theater?
If so try using the Desktop version of Theater which usually is much more robust in playback.

You can download it here: https://emby.media/emby-theater.html

[Happy2Play 8356]

Yes there are currently limitations of the Store version. 

App: Emby for Windows 1.1.388.0

&AudioCodec=ac3,eac3,aac,mp3,opus


&TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported

16:18:59.067 Stream mapping:
16:18:59.067   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
16:18:59.067   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (truehd (native) -> ac3 (native))

 

9 hours ago, IJsmat said:

None of the above worked: playing a movie inside Emby Theater (or the browser) on my HTPC results in playback being halted after a few seconds due to buffering because of transcoding OR it plays using Direct stream. Never DirectPlay

Browsers are limited also as every browser has its own limitations.

[IJsmat 0]

Hi Cayars and Happy2Play,

Thank you very much, this was the solution!
I just installed the Desktop version from the Emby website and uninstalled the Windows Store version. Everything works fine now.
Interestingly, both are also very different. Not only in functionality and options, but also in design. It seems like a completely different app.

Wouldn't it be better not to offer that Windows Store version at all, assuming that it is less robust and causes serious playback issues such as I described?

Thanks again: I am very happy with Emby now

[Carlo 4331]

And soon there will be another new version that you will be able to play with and use.
The new version will have more unified features as well as run on more platforms.

[Happy2Play 8356]

12 hours ago, IJsmat said:

It seems like a completely different app.

Shouldn't be unless display modes are actually registering differently.

12 hours ago, IJsmat said:

Wouldn't it be better not to offer that Windows Store version at all, assuming that it is less robust and causes serious playback issues such as I described?

Well, it is used on the Xbox One also.  So, it is not specifically a PC client.

But yes, as Cayars mentioned a new version is in the works.