Emby now [badly] transcoding movies it used to directstream

[tgoodchild 3]

The other day I noticed a lot of pixelation in a 1080p movie I just added to Emby as an mkv from the disc (using makemkv). I checked and it is being transcoded when it plays. I've never seen that much pixelation before in anything I've played on Emby, but I thought it might be something weird about source material.

Today I played an mkv I've played many times before and it was also badly pixelated in several places. It's never done that before. I checked and it is also being transcoded. I can't be sure but I don't think it used to transcode this movie.

I reproduced this issue on my Roku STB 4800X and the web player. It transcodes and pixelates when played on both.

The Roku "stats for nerds" says "Converting video to compatible codec"

The web player says "Reason for transcoding: container not supported"

Not all 1080p movies are transcoding.

A few weeks ago I upgraded my Synology from DSM 7.0 something to Version: 7.1-42661 Update 4.

Looks like my Roku is on Software version 11.5.0 build 4235. But since it is happening on both the Roku and web player it's probably not the roku.

 

[Luke 40111]

 

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

 

[tgoodchild 3]

Here are the logs from where I just played the beginning of The Shining in the web player which is both transcoding and exhibits some pixelation.

Thanks!

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-a763896b-b19f-4daa-b312-2c6f9eca5f64_1.txt

[Happy2Play 9446]

@tgoodchild Can you upgrade to the current server version as troubleshooting 4.6.7.0 is somewhat impossible.

You will most likely have to update manually via download page or from Github.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Happy2Play

[tgoodchild 3]

I installed the latest version, reproduced the problem and attached the logs.

Thanks.

hardware_detection-63802925624.txt embyserver.txt

Edited November 1, 2022 by tgoodchild

[Happy2Play 9446]

This issue is specific to VC1/AC3 in mkv correct as most browsers don't support any of them and will require full transcode.

[Luke 40111]

Ah yes how did i miss that before. No browser supports vc1 and neither does Roku. 

Based on this, do you think the title of this topic needs to be revised?

[tgoodchild 3]

Quote

Based on this, do you think the title of this topic needs to be revised?

Sure

Is there a way to improve the transcoding / reduce the pixelation?

Which client supports the most common formats? 

Thanks

 

[tgoodchild 3]

Update:

I used the convert option to transcode the movie offline. It still pixelates the same when I play that file. I've attached a screen shot of an example of the blocky pixelation. It mostly happens when a pictures changes from light to dark or vice versa.

I understand what you are saying about VC1 being a difficult codec. However, I remember streaming this same mkv with emby in the past without video artifacts. I realized it must have been when I was running emby server from my Windows PC.  I started my old emby server on my Windows PC and sure enough it plays fine, no pixelation. It does transcode of course, but there are no noticeable video artifacts.

There is something about how the movie is transcoded on my Synology NAS (even when I used the emby convert feature to transcode it offline) that produces seriously inferior picture quality to what emby does on my Windows PC. Obviously the hardware is different.  I understand how hardware differences would affect the speed of transcoding, but should hardware differences affect the quality of transcoding? 

Thanks

 

 

[Luke 40111]

Quote

but should hardware differences affect the quality of transcoding? 

@tgoodchild, yes the implementation of the hardware decoder for VC1 will impact this. If you disabled it in Emby Server transcoding settings, then I'm sure that would resolve this, although VC1 decoding is extremely resource intensive so your server might not be able to handle it.

Can you please attach an ffmpeg log example from the latest release of the server? @softworkz will take a look at this, and I know he'll want to see that. Thanks !

[tgoodchild 3]

Quote

the implementation of the hardware decoder for VC1 will impact this. If you disabled it in Emby Server transcoding settings, then I'm sure that would resolve this

Yes that worked. CPU is about 80% and seems to keep up though I've not watched all the way through.

I am attaching the logs with hw transcoding set to Yes and No from the synology (syn_*). I installed the latest release before generating these logs.

Also attaching logs with hw_transcoding set to Yes from the windows machine (win_*). The log shows It's using an Nvidia decoder (I have a 1050 Ti installed). This is still running an old release of emby.

Thanks

 

win_hw_transcoding_Yes_ffmpeg-transcode-ea2db0b7-1c0e-44cb-814f-a39da2e42d12_1.txt syn_hw_transcoding_No_ffmpeg-transcode-2f0f6ee6-8915-4a5a-bbc7-d367601354fb_1.txt syn_hw_transcoding_Yes_ffmpeg-transcode-4c4316d3-decb-4fb6-a4be-5db9a2f2222a_1.txt

[Luke 40111]

Great, thanks for the update.

[tgoodchild 3]

Update - I changed transcoding options to Advanced and checked the box next to "QuickSync GeminiLake UHD Graphics 600 - VC-1". (The other option which, per the log, was being selected automatically is "VAAPI GeminiLake UHD Graphics 600 - VC-1"). This seems to fix the problem too. CPU dropped about 8%-ish vs hw transcoding disabled.  I have not compared the video output of QuickSync hw transcoding vs. no hw transcoding in detail. Both certainly look much better than the output of  "VAAPI GeminiLake UHD Graphics 600 - VC-1."

 

[Luke 40111]

Thanks for the feedback !