Playback of TV recordings is totally out of sync

[chjohans 32]

My apple TV is the "Apple TV HD" (4th generation - before the 4K models were released ).

My TV recordings are done through Emby, with the NextPVR plugin and NextPVR as the backend. The recordings ends up as 1080i H264 encoded .ts files. I can play back these with no issues whatsoever on Emby Theatre on Windows. It will play as "Direct Play" with no transcoding.

When I play the same recordings on Emby on my Apple TV the sound will be normal, but video looks like "slow motion" and is totally out of sync. This is with Playback set to "Auto" in Emby on the Apple TV. If I set the playback settings to something else it will playback fine, but of course then my server will do transcoding, which is not at all preferred for local clients.

Is Emby for Apple TV really not capable of playing back a simple 1080i H264 stream without being totally out of sync?

I can playback 1080p H264 in the apple TV just fine without transcoding. Is it the fact that it's 1080i that is causing this?

And, can this issue please be fixed?

 

[chjohans 32]

@Luke, is this a known issue? TV Recordings are unplayable on my Apple TVs unless I enable transconding, which is not preferred as it takes a heavy toll on my CPU usage.

 

Can anything be done to improve 1080i playback on Apple TV?

[chjohans 32]

@Luke, could you please have a look at this?

[Luke 37062]

 

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

 

[chjohans 32]

Ok @Luke, please see the attached server log from the time I started playing a totally out-of-.sync recording

These are the "Emby attributes" (from the .nfo) for this recording:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<episodedetails>
  <plot><![CDATA[CNA correspondents bring you the top stories of the day with 'live' reports and interviews to keep you up-to-date on the day's events.]]></plot>
  <outline />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2022-10-13 00:00:00</dateadded>
  <title>Episode S1 E1013</title>
  <year>2022</year>
  <sorttitle>Episode S1 E1013</sorttitle>
  <runtime>66</runtime>
  <episode>1013</episode>
  <season>1</season>
  <aired>2022-10-13</aired>
  <fileinfo>
    <streamdetails>
      <video>
        <codec>h264</codec>
        <micodec>h264</micodec>
        <bitrate>7186593</bitrate>
        <width>1920</width>
        <height>1080</height>
        <aspect>16:9</aspect>
        <aspectratio>16:9</aspectratio>
        <framerate>25</framerate>
        <scantype>interlaced</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
        <duration>66</duration>
        <durationinseconds>3989</durationinseconds>
      </video>
      <audio>
        <codec>aac_latm</codec>
        <micodec>aac_latm</micodec>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <channels>2</channels>
        <samplingrate>48000</samplingrate>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </audio>
      <audio>
        <codec>aac_latm</codec>
        <micodec>aac_latm</micodec>
        <language>qab</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <channels>2</channels>
        <samplingrate>48000</samplingrate>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </audio>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>dvbsub</codec>
        <micodec>dvbsub</micodec>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>dvbsub</codec>
        <micodec>dvbsub</micodec>
        <language>zho</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>dvbsub</codec>
        <micodec>dvbsub</micodec>
        <language>MSA</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>dvbsub</codec>
        <micodec>dvbsub</micodec>
        <language>TAM</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
    </streamdetails>
  </fileinfo>
</episodedetails>

 

Playback of this in Emby is just horrible, with sound and video totally out of sync and also the video stutters as bit. 1080p content play back just fine, this seems to affect 1080i content only.

embyserver.txt

[chjohans 32]

@Luke. please see the info you asked for in myh post above. Thanks for your time and effort!

[chjohans 32]

@Luke, I uploaded what you asked for quite some time ago. Do you have any further insight into this?

Should I just expect playback to be this bad?

By the way, I've tried with the "native player" and the "MPV Player", it makes no difference to this. I found a blog article from 2020 highlighting the "native player" as the best option, but for me I have better overall playback for the "MPV Player" option checked.

Anyhow, please have a look at 1080i playback on the Apple TV.

Edited October 20, 2022 by chjohans

[Luke 37062]

Hi, we are looking into it. Thanks.

[chjohans 32]

@LukeYou have been "looking" for quite some time now, and this has not gotten any better. And it's not just broken on the APple TV client. Might as well don't have the "Live TV" function when it's near impossible to watch it. That is, on any client other EMby Theater on a full fledged PC 1080i playback seems completely broken, just stuttering and totally out of sync. Now this is a very common format from TV cards, and it usually can't be changed, so it's not like I chose this format on purpose.

My Apple TVs, Roku sticks, Android TVs, iPads, and Android tablets, all with the Emby clients, fail at playing live TV. Not very impressive.

The hardware is capable as Kodi will play my Live TV stream just fine on my Android TV, and so will VLC.

Can this get some attention please?

Edited May 17, 2023 by chjohans

[Luke 37062]

We are working on improving it. Thanks for the feedback.

[chjohans 32]

@LukeLive TV is important to me, and the reason why I've paid for the Emby Premiere for two locations. So I'm sure you can appreciate my disappointment when that does not work properly unless I change all my streaming clients to full-fledged Windows machines. That kind of defeats the purpose of the client-server architecture Emby is built upon, and I would have been better off sticking to my previous Kodi-based setup.

All my streaming clients will playback 1080i just fine with the right software, just not the Emby clients on anything but Windows.

It has been like this for years, so at this point neither "we are looking into it" nor "we are working on improving it"  gives me any confidence that this will be solved.

Could you please elaborate on this and give some sort of rough time schedule, or at least say something about what priority this will be given, if any?

[Scott D 62]

I had similar issues a short time ago.  I found a quick solution with an added benefit.  I hope this helps.

What I do:

1.  Set recordings of Live TV as normal within Emby.  Client does not matter if user has proper privileges.

2.  Run the .ts recording through MCEBuddy and strip out the commercials.  At the same time have it package in .mp4 format.  Most of the default options with MCEBuddy do the trick without much of a learning curve to use it.  I have since made changes to the profile to reduce the bit rate to be more in line with what the transcoding for remote playback uses.  This save a bunch of space and there is no loss of quality.

3.  This solved all of my problems and provided a much more enjoyable experience for my family.  

Good luck.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Scott D

[chjohans 32]

Thanks @Scott D, I really appreciate your solution, but that doesn't really help one bit with live TV.

I have used the Emby server built-in "Conversion" function to automatically re-encode everything in my "Recorded TV" share, but it's not optimal that the server has to perform this additional task on top of everything else it's doing. But that works for recorded TV programs, sort of.

It's a pain with existing metadata since the filename will be new (original + in my case " - custom" added to the name. And, it totally breaks the "Keep versions" functionality for recordings, so nothing will be automatically deleted as per what I specified for each recording. So at least for me, this breaks as much as it fixes, or maybe even more.

The only good solution would be if the dev team could fix playback of 1080i, or just stop charging for Live TV as a "premium feature" when it does not work.

I'm pretty annoyed over "lip service" only when nothing happens, that I can do myself - for free!

Edited May 24, 2023 by chjohans

[Luke 37062]

Have you tried again with Emby for Apple TV 1.7.3?

[chjohans 32]

Yes, it's just as bad in Emby for Apple TV version 1.7.3.

And please take note that the same playback issue with 1080i exists with every single Emby client that I've tried, except for Emby Theater on Windows. And the same hardware plays back the same stream just fine with a different player (VLC and Kodi will play this just fine).

 

[Luke 37062]

OK we're looking into this. Thanks.

[chjohans 32]

@LukeExactly what does "we are looking into this" mean? Timeframe? Priority? Please elaborate!

I'm sure you can appreciate my lack of faith when you *again* say "we're looking into this", after you have already "looked" for more than 7 months.

[chjohans 32]

@LukeAny further comment on what to expect here? If I'm beating a dead horse here then please be upfront about it!

[Luke 37062]

Hi, we are working on improving it. Thanks.

[chjohans 32]

Great, I'm looking forward to an improved version sooner rather than later! :)

[Kocane 5]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:25 PM, chjohans said:

@LukeAny further comment on what to expect here? If I'm beating a dead horse here then please be upfront about it!

You can expect to wait years

Is Luke an actual human or is the user a chatbot?

Edited February 18 by Kocane

[jaycedk 379]

@Kocane Here is your answer

 

[chjohans 32]

1 hour ago, Kocane said:

You can expect to wait years

Is Luke an actual human or is the user a chatbot?

Yup, I have given up on Emby on my Apple TV and "retired" it (the Apple TV that is). But at some point both Live TV and Live TV recordings playback was improved and works great now when using Emby on my Android TV. My Android TV is not all that powerful either, but playback through Emby on is still silky smooth. Except for 4K content, that's a totally different story. But something was improved a lot for the Emby for Android client, even HD content encoded as X265 will playback silky smooth now, and that was jerky as h*** a few months ago. So I do see improvements, just not for the Apple TV client.