Emby on Fire CUBE Gen 3 issues

[mbguy 38]

Any other Cube 3 owners here?

I just got it and love the fast interface and most importantly the ability to support HDR10+ TVs which my Shield Pro is not capable of.

Emby works fantastically but there are a couple of issues I notice:

 

1. Instead of outputting Dolby Atmos 5.1 it sends Multi-channel PCM to my AVR instead.

• Fire Cube 3 does support Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus etc and all other streaming apps I tested like Netflix and Prime send proper Dolby Atmos 5.1 to the AVR. What is it about Emby that convert audio into Multi-channel PCM on the Cube?
• I don't think I have set forced transcoding on or anything because my Shield Pro sends proper Dolby Atmos 5.1 to my AVR, but it's worth checking.

2. Fuzzy, pixelated subtitles

• this is nitpicking, and I am not sure if this is Emby issue.
• Subtitles appear more pixelated than on my Shield Pro.

Edited November 2, 2022 by mbguy

[Luke 37250]

   @mbguy

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

 

[ebr 14959]

11 hours ago, mbguy said:

Instead of outputting Dolby Atmos 5.1 it sends Multi-channel PCM to my AVR instead.

• Fire Cube 3 does support Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus etc and all other streaming apps I tested like Netflix and Prime send proper Dolby Atmos 5.1 to the AVR. What is it about Emby that convert audio into Multi-channel PCM on the Cube?
• I don't think I have set forced transcoding on or anything because my Shield Pro sends proper Dolby Atmos 5.1 to my AVR, but it's worth checking.

What is the underlying audio format?  My guess is that it is True HD which the Shield supports but the Fire does not.

[VirulentPip 83]

It supports Dolby MAT transcoding for streaming services. But the developer spec is very vague on it. 

Dolby Digital (normal and Plus) 5.1 comes out as Dolby Multichannel PCM as intended. TrueHD atmos comes out as Multichannel PCM 7.1 which means the Dolby MAT isn't working.. Via the HDMI In with HDMI Passthrough on Dolby MAT works correctly for TrueHD Atmos.. But kinda defeats the purpose lol.  

[ebr 14959]

6 minutes ago, VirulentPip said:

It supports Dolby MAT transcoding for streaming services

No streaming service I'm aware of delivers True HD.  That is purely on Discs.  Online is all DD+.

7 minutes ago, VirulentPip said:

Via the HDMI In with HDMI Passthrough on Dolby MAT works correctly for TrueHD Atmos.. But kinda defeats the purpose

Why is that defeating the purpose?

[VirulentPip 83]

1 minute ago, ebr said:

No streaming service I'm aware of delivers True HD.  That is purely on Discs.  Online is all DD+.

Why is that defeating the purpose?

Because it means plugging a device into the FireCube to get TrueHD Atmos lol.. And by streaming services I also meant Apps on FireOS like Emby. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by VirulentPip

[mbguy 38]

52 minutes ago, VirulentPip said:

Dolby Digital (normal and Plus) 5.1 comes out as Dolby Multichannel PCM as intended.

Thanks for this information!  Is there a way to confirm if Dolby MAT is working in Multichannel PCM 5.1? My AVR doesn't give any indication.

Quote

TrueHD atmos comes out as Multichannel PCM 7.1 which means the Dolby MAT isn't working..

Why is it the for TrueHD Atmos, Multichannel PCM 7.1 means Dolby MAT is not working?

Quote

Via the HDMI In with HDMI Passthrough on Dolby MAT works correctly for TrueHD Atmos.. But kinda defeats the purpose lol.  

I am trying to understand, if Cube 3's HDMI In port has the capability to passthrough TrueHD Atmos, then why doesn't Cube 3's Emby app not provide passthrough TrueHD Atmos to AVR? Is this a bug or some kind of intentional crippling?

Edited November 2, 2022 by mbguy

[VirulentPip 83]

50 minutes ago, mbguy said:

Why is it the for TrueHD Atmos, Multichannel PCM 7.1 means Dolby MAT is not working?

It's supposed to say Dolby Multichannel PCM 7.1 or straight up Dolby Atmos (like it does with HDMI IN) .. Without either it's without the Atmos Metadata. 

I think full Dolby MAT only works with the HDMI In.. For if in example someone plugs in a 4K Blu Ray player. 

This is how it's listed on the Dev Spec site

Device Specifications: Fire TV Cube | Amazon Fire TV

• Dolby MAT trancoding for Streaming application and HDMI Input
• Dolby MAT Input to Dolby MAT Output for HDMI Input

I mean for starts there's a spelling mistake lol. but seems Dolby MAT transcoding and Dolby MAT input to Dolby MAT Output are different. Otherwise, it would just need to be listed once as having Dolby MAT support. It's all very confusing. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by VirulentPip

[mbguy 38]

35 minutes ago, VirulentPip said:

It's supposed to say Dolby Multichannel PCM 7.1 or straight up Dolby Atmos (like it does with HDMI IN) .. Without either it's without the Atmos Metadata. 

I think full Dolby MAT only works with the HDMI In.. For if in example someone plugs in a 4K Blu Ray player.

Ah, got it!

In this case, my AVR definitely doesn't show Dolby Multichannel PCM 7.1 or Dolby Atmos so we can conclude that Cube 3 is not working properly

But then, according to the dev spec, it seems to say HDMI Input has to be used to get Dolby MAT, which defeats the purpose of a streaming box, like you said.

In any case, I will load Plex or Kodi on the Cube 3 to test if they can output Dolby MAT to rule out Emby as the source of the issue.

@Lukewhich section of the log do I need to look for Audio codec/type output?

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by mbguy

[mbguy 38]

On second thought, maybe I should just return the Cube 3 and get the new ATV 4K Gen 3, it's supposed to have Dolby MAT too. Maybe Emby will work properly on the new ATK 4K

[VirulentPip 83]

20 minutes ago, mbguy said:

On second thought, maybe I should just return the Cube 3 and get the new ATV 4K Gen 3, it's supposed to have Dolby MAT too. Maybe Emby will work properly on the new ATK 4K

I was thinking the same, but ATV doesn't seem very good for Emby atm from what I have read and for me no AV1 support is a no buy. 

[VirulentPip 83]

1 hour ago, mbguy said:

In any case, I will load Plex

Audio - Transcode (TrueHD - OPUS)

Transcode Reason - TrueHD audio is not supported by the device. 

So not an Emby issue. Just Dolby MAT doesn’t work as intended or well as presumed.  

Edited November 3, 2022 by VirulentPip

[mbguy 38]

32 minutes ago, VirulentPip said:

Audio - Transcode (TrueHD - OPUS)

Transcode Reason - TrueHD audio is not supported by the device. 

So not an Emby issue. Just Dolby MAT doesn’t work as intended or well as presumed.  

I don't know anything about coding, but is it possible that Emby or Plex hasn't been coded to take advantage of Dolby MAT? After all, Cube 3 is only out for a week.

Edited November 3, 2022 by mbguy

[ebr 14959]

16 hours ago, mbguy said:

so we can conclude that Cube 3 is not working properly

I don't think you can conclude that.  it just doesn't do what you thought it did.  There is no reason for Amazon to support a True HD audio input for any source other than some external device plugged into that input port because no services deliver that audio format.  Therefore, the device does not support it for apps running on the device.

[mbguy 38]

5 hours ago, ebr said:

I don't think you can conclude that.  it just doesn't do what you thought it did. 

Sure I can conclude that Cube 3 is not working properly. I have observed many illogical behaviors. For example:

1. When Settings > Audio is set to "Best Available", which is supposed to support DD, DD+ and Atmos, only content with "Dolby Atmos" played by Emby is sent to AVR properly. This means if a video has an audio track that is not Atmos, such as DD+, then audio is sent incorrectly as "Multichannel PCM" without Dolby MAT.

2. When Settings > Audio is set specifically to "Dolby Digital Plus", when playing a file with DD+ on Emby, AVR will correctly identify as Dolby DD+, but all other tracks like Atmos 5.1 and 7.1 etc will be recognized as Multichannel PCM 2.0 or 5.1 by the AVR, so this is not a mode to leave on.

Again, not sure if this is Cube issue or Emby issue or the interaction between the two, because Dolby MAT does work for some audio encoding types but not others.

There is no reason for Amazon to support a True HD audio input for any source other than some external device plugged into that input port because no services deliver that audio format.  Therefore, the device does not support it for apps running on the device. 

If one doesn't count "consumer demand" as the reason for Amazon to support TrueHD for apps then yes one would come to the conclusion "There is no reason."

In any case, after further testing, Cube's HDMI In does support Dolby MAT for lossless TrueHD 7.1 if I run Emby on Shield Pro and route it through Cube's HDMI In port, even though Emby app on Cube itself does not support Dolby MAT. This is by design, but it's still "screwed up."

Unfortunately despite Dolby MAT support on Cube 3 via HDMI IN, Cube 3 still can't pass DTS-X or DTS-HD from Emby on Shield Pro to the AVR via Cube's HDMI out. This is a limitation of Cube 3 though because I don't believe Cube 3's spec sheet specifies DTS support.

Edited November 3, 2022 by mbguy

[mbguy 38]

21 hours ago, VirulentPip said:

I was thinking the same, but ATV doesn't seem very good for Emby atm from what I have read and for me no AV1 support is a no buy. 

Why is ATV "doesn't seem very good for Emby"?

At the very least, I think there would be proper Dolby MAT support for content played on Emby?

I will get one to test if it's available at an Apple Store.

Edited November 3, 2022 by mbguy

[ebr 14959]

17 hours ago, mbguy said:

If one doesn't count "consumer demand" as the reason for Amazon to support TrueHD for apps

The consumer of this device is playing content from online streaming providers.  Apps like Emby are not something they are anticipating and there is no source other than a BD for True HD audio.  So, from their perspective, there isn't a market for it in the internal system.

[mbguy 38]

12 hours ago, ebr said:

The consumer of this device is playing content from online streaming providers.  Apps like Emby are not something they are anticipating and there is no source other than a BD for True HD audio.  So, from their perspective, there isn't a market for it in the internal system.

Thanks for providing your insights on how Amazon works. If it is true, then Amazon is wrong. But then who am I to judge? Amazon seems to be copying Apple's playbook on ATV and Apple is a successful company.

However, given the state of the current Cube, it's not even delivering the features it promises (as stated in my posts above, I am not referring to TrueHD lossless), eg. DD+ and Dolby Atmos (not 7.1 TrueHD), unless of course the playback problems came from Emby. I will test with more controls and come back here if everything else has been ruled out.

[mbguy 38]

On 11/4/2022 at 6:17 PM, mbguy said:

However, given the state of the current Cube, it's not even delivering the features it promises (as stated in my posts above, I am not referring to TrueHD lossless), eg. DD+ and Dolby Atmos (not 7.1 TrueHD), unless of course the playback problems came from Emby. I will test with more controls and come back here if everything else has been ruled out.

I have done further testing and can confirm the issue of Cube not sending DD and DD+ to AVR, when Sound settings is set to "Best Available", is not unique to Emby, other apps like Netflix and Prime have the same bug.

[Dizzy49 94]

Got my Gen3 set up today.  I played lots of files trying to see how the audio worked.  Any TrueHD Atmos was displayed as "Dolby Mat" on my soundbar.  Dolby Plus Atmos displays as "Dolby Atmos Mat".

Dolby Mat gives me sound from the front and sides, but not the back.  Dolby Atmos Mat gives me  sound to the rear speakers as well.

The ONLY reason I got this was because it says it supports Dolby Atmos.  I'm trying to decide if it is a complete half-ass implementation, or a bug... And if it will likely get fixed via firmware update (or if a fix is even possible via firmware).  I'll be keeping a close eye on my return window.

I picked up a really nice Atmos soundbar, and sadly it looks like I may not be able to truly utilize it since we own all of TWO 4k movies on disc, and don't really use streaming services.  Emby has been our go-to for many years now.

I do not understand the technical aspects, but is there no way to Direct Stream and have it go direct to an AVR or Soundbar w/o the TV or ATV trying to change the signal?

[VirulentPip 83]

Via any app TrueHD Atmos will just be converted to PCM. Atmos is only supported with apps when Dolby Digital Plus, to which it will use Dolby MAT to send over and for the AVR to decode. TrueHD only works when using the HDMI IN unfortunately.