pmac 143 Posted March 9, 2022 Posted March 9, 2022 I'm trying to figure out the extreme stuttering I have when playing media on my mini-PC. It only happens with Emby Theater, and it happens with every video I've tried (a couple of 720p videos seemed to show some improvement when I enabled display refresh rate switching, but this didn't work with all titles). Emby Theater (Windows Store App) seems to play fine, from the small amount of testing I tried, but I can't navigate the menus with a remote, so it's useless to me for use on a bedroom TV. Chrome, and Edge both play perfectly fine with the web app, but I have the same remote issue as the Windows Store App. Emby Theater is basically unusable. I've tried every setting I could find, and every combination of those settings I can think of, as well as any tips and tricks I could find in other posts; I'm not sure why this issue is limited to Emby Theater, but I'm hoping I can fix it without needing to buy new hardware, since this machine is capable of playing video perfectly in every other program I've tried except ET. Hardware: Intel Atom x5-z8350 1.44GHz 4GB RAM Windows 10 64-Bit Hardwired to ethernet switch Server Log I've attached a screenshot of the stats for nerds screen. Please let me know if there's any other information that may be relevant.
Luke 40111 Posted March 9, 2022 Posted March 9, 2022 Quote Emby Theater (Windows Store App) seems to play fine, from the small amount of testing I tried, but I can't navigate the menus with a remote Hi, this supports a remote, what is the problem there? Did you set the app to TV display mode?
generiq 259 Posted March 9, 2022 Posted March 9, 2022 Use the gpu renderer and not libmpv. It's forcing copy hardware acceleration. It's causing frame dropping. 1
pmac 143 Posted March 10, 2022 Author Posted March 10, 2022 21 hours ago, generiq said: Use the gpu renderer and not libmpv. It's forcing copy hardware acceleration. It's causing frame dropping. I could've sworn I tried that, but that seems to have done the trick. Thanks! This has been an ongoing issue for ages now, lol.
pmac 143 Posted March 17, 2022 Author Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) On 09/03/2022 at 10:26, Luke said: Hi, this supports a remote, what is the problem there? Did you set the app to TV display mode? Thanks, somehow I'd missed that option. Would you be able to briefly explain the difference between "Emby Theater" and "Emby for Windows", and which would be preferable to use? I've been pretty busy lately, but with both set to TV mode and "Horizontal", they seem basically the same, aside from "Emby for Windows" allowing you to cast to other devices. What other differences are there? Should I use one over the other if both (at least from a quick test) seem to work fine? Thanks EDIT: Strange, on looking back, I no longer see the cast option in the Emby for Windows app; I could've sworn I saw it there earlier though. Edited March 17, 2022 by pmac
Luke 40111 Posted March 17, 2022 Posted March 17, 2022 Quote Strange, on looking back, I no longer see the cast option in the Emby for Windows app It's not in TV mode. The desktop app has a more robust video player. The store app gets you the download feature. They will be unified soon.
pmac 143 Posted January 10, 2023 Author Posted January 10, 2023 The stuttering issue seems to be back for some reason (on the same machine). Video plays fine with the web app; stutters so bad in ET that it's unwatchable. Any ideas of what else I should try @Luke? I haven't changed any settings since last time, I just haven't used this PC for a while. It's running 3.0.19 though. I really like using ET, but this issue is super frustrating, which I why I don't use this machine often anymore and the web app is too clunky to use from bed.
generiq 259 Posted January 20, 2023 Posted January 20, 2023 On 1/10/2023 at 2:19 PM, pmac said: The stuttering issue seems to be back for some reason (on the same machine). Video plays fine with the web app; stutters so bad in ET that it's unwatchable. Any ideas of what else I should try @Luke? I haven't changed any settings since last time, I just haven't used this PC for a while. It's running 3.0.19 though. I really like using ET, but this issue is super frustrating, which I why I don't use this machine often anymore and the web app is too clunky to use from bed. Screen shot of stats?
pmac 143 Posted January 21, 2023 Author Posted January 21, 2023 22 hours ago, generiq said: Screen shot of stats? I'm not able to get a screenshot at the moment, but when I checked the other day everything looked the same as my screenshot at the top of this post. @Luke yes, I'm still having this issue
generiq 259 Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 On 1/20/2023 at 6:47 PM, pmac said: I'm not able to get a screenshot at the moment, but when I checked the other day everything looked the same as my screenshot at the top of this post. @Luke yes, I'm still having this issue Theater has been updated. Make sure that video output is set to gpu-next and hardware acceleration is set to auto.
pmac 143 Posted January 25, 2023 Author Posted January 25, 2023 On 22/01/2023 at 13:44, generiq said: Theater has been updated. Make sure that video output is set to gpu-next and hardware acceleration is set to auto. I have those video settings set. I didn't have a lot of time this morning to test, but 1080p H264 seemed to play fine (only tested for about 30 seconds though), and 1080p HEVC had the same stuttering issue. I briefly checked the stats for nerds and it was showing a lot of dropped frames; not sure if that's a symptom of this issue or not. Hopefully tonight I'll have a chance to upload some screenshots and/or logs
rbjtech 5000 Posted January 25, 2023 Posted January 25, 2023 (edited) The processor/igpu is from 2016 ? - so I would hazard a guess that HEVC is possibly not supported in hardware acceleration - thus dropping to cpu to decode, thus your performance problems. Intel Atom x5Z8350 Processor 2M Cache up to 1.92 GHz Product Specifications Edited January 25, 2023 by rbjtech
generiq 259 Posted January 25, 2023 Posted January 25, 2023 If the stats say no hardware acceleration, try setting it to auto copyback
pmac 143 Posted January 26, 2023 Author Posted January 26, 2023 On 25/01/2023 at 14:36, generiq said: If the stats say no hardware acceleration, try setting it to auto copyback Unfortunately that doesn't seem to make a difference. What does the web app do differently than ET that makes it able to play the video perfectly smoothly on the same machine? If I were able to properly navigate the web app with a remote I'd be fine with just switching over to that, but the issue I'm having with ET seems like something that should be fixable.
generiq 259 Posted January 27, 2023 Posted January 27, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, pmac said: Unfortunately that doesn't seem to make a difference. What does the web app do differently than ET that makes it able to play the video perfectly smoothly on the same machine? If I were able to properly navigate the web app with a remote I'd be fine with just switching over to that, but the issue I'm having with ET seems like something that should be fixable. Are you sure it's not transcoding when you watch it in the web app? Otherwise I would have to run you through a series of tests and configurations. Edited January 27, 2023 by generiq
pmac 143 Posted January 27, 2023 Author Posted January 27, 2023 19 hours ago, generiq said: Are you sure it's not transcoding when you watch it in the web app? Otherwise I would have to run you through a series of tests and configurations. So it seems that it is transcoding when using the web app; I hadn't noticed that before. I've attached the "Stats for Nerds" from playing the same file with both ET and the web app. Web App (I'm not sure why it says "recovering from playback error"): Emby Theater: What would you suggest my next steps to be?
generiq 259 Posted January 27, 2023 Posted January 27, 2023 Well, at least you know why it works in the web app. But looking at the stats for Theater, I'm curious why hardware acceleration is blank. If it's failing back to software (which it is), it should say 'no'. Can you set it to auto copyback and post the stats?
pmac 143 Posted January 28, 2023 Author Posted January 28, 2023 39 minutes ago, generiq said: Well, at least you know why it works in the web app. But looking at the stats for Theater, I'm curious why hardware acceleration is blank. If it's failing back to software (which it is), it should say 'no'. Can you set it to auto copyback and post the stats? It was (is) set to auto copyback when I took the screenshot
generiq 259 Posted January 28, 2023 Posted January 28, 2023 15 minutes ago, pmac said: It was (is) set to auto copyback when I took the screenshot Set it to auto and post a screenshot, please.
pmac 143 Posted January 28, 2023 Author Posted January 28, 2023 2 hours ago, generiq said: Set it to auto and post a screenshot, please.
pmac 143 Posted January 28, 2023 Author Posted January 28, 2023 Is there a way to automatically force transcode only HEVC content on just that device? Rather than having to manually lower the quality until it's just below the source bitrate? I'd like to be able to watch HEVC content on this device (I've started to switch a lot of my media to this from H264 to save space); because I'd love to find a simple way to play all of my media on here without transcoding, if possible; rather than needing to buy a new client machine or convert all of my media to H264 or something else that this device can play. But if there were a way to force transcoding of just this format, and only on this machine - I suppose that would be satisfactory enough for now.
generiq 259 Posted January 28, 2023 Posted January 28, 2023 It's still blank. Hmmm... Either there's an error in the scripting, or something is broken. Do you have an mpv.conf? If yes, do you know how to produce an mpv log? If not, start with deleting the folder that Theater is installed in, and run a clean installation.
generiq 259 Posted January 28, 2023 Posted January 28, 2023 3 minutes ago, pmac said: Is there a way to automatically force transcode only HEVC content on just that device? Rather than having to manually lower the quality until it's just below the source bitrate? I'd like to be able to watch HEVC content on this device (I've started to switch a lot of my media to this from H264 to save space); because I'd love to find a simple way to play all of my media on here without transcoding, if possible; rather than needing to buy a new client machine or convert all of my media to H264 or something else that this device can play. But if there were a way to force transcoding of just this format, and only on this machine - I suppose that would be satisfactory enough for now. Not in any easy way. I don't recommend pursuing that.
pmac 143 Posted January 28, 2023 Author Posted January 28, 2023 3 minutes ago, generiq said: Do you have an mpv.conf? If yes, do you know how to produce an mpv log? If not, start with deleting the folder that Theater is installed in, and run a clean installation. I do remember doing something with mpv at one point, but I honestly can't remember if it was on this machine or not. Could you remind me what folder I'd look in for that? I do have '.../AppData/Roaming/mpv/', but it's empty.
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