Will this work? (ATSC 3.0 from HDHomeRun + Emby + Roku)

[RonRN18 0]

I seem to be getting mixed signals as to whether what I'm looking for will work for me. I was hoping to make sure it was possible before wasting hours working on something that is known to not work. I am hoping to find a way to be able to watch ATSC 3.0 content with a DVR like interface. Most of my experience has been with Plex Media Server but I KNOW that Plex ignores AC4 audio and will not send it on, even if transcoding is disabled. I believe I saw that while Emby also can't transcode the AC4 audio, it will pass it along if transcoding is disabled... is that true? I've already tried using SiliconDust's own DVR server but it has a terrible interface and very unreliable. 

As to my hardware, I have a HDHomeRun CONNECT 4K receiver. If I install Emby, it would be on a Ubuntu 22.04 server machine that while it is already running a few dedicated servers, they are essentially using only a fraction of the machine's resources (Intel i7-12700F with 64 GB RAM). I then have a variety of Roku devices in the house; three are built-in to the TV and the rest are the Roku Ultras (4802R). SiliconDust has a Roku app but unfortunately there is no capability to select which audio stream you want to listen to; for some crazy reason, the first audio stream by our ATSC 3.0 broadcaster on NBC, CBS, ABC, and MyNetwork is Spanish while the second audio stream is English... FOX only has a single, English audio stream so it works OK with the Roku app. 

What I am HOPING is that Emby might send the stream but the Roku could play the AC4 and allow me to select which audio channel to play. 

[TMCsw 123]

Yes,

emby will trans-code AC-4 or pass-thru if the device supports it.

my Roku streaming stick+ plays this fine, my fire tv 4k max stick does has some problems.

DVR recordings work!

Don't really know about the language problems you see, but i get English by default (can select others).

 

But i would suggest to try a 1 month subscription to test this out for yourself, as a former Plex user I find emby sooo much better.

[ebr 14940]

13 hours ago, RonRN18 said:

I believe I saw that while Emby also can't transcode the AC4 audio, it will pass it along if transcoding is disabled... is that true?

No, that is not true.  You should not disable transcoding as that will cripple Emby's ability to convert when it needs to.  I don't think any Roku devices support AC4 so the audio will need to be converted but the server should be able to do that.

[Happy2Play 8319]

8 hours ago, ebr said:

I don't think any Roku devices support AC4

Looks like it does in these containers.

• MP4, MOV, M4V

  • supported video codecs: AVC, HEVC
  • supported audio codecs: AAC, AC3, EAC3, AC4, ALAC, MP3, PCM

Streaming specifications | Roku Developer

[ebr 14940]

15 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Looks like it does in these containers.

• MP4, MOV, M4V

  • supported video codecs: AVC, HEVC
  • supported audio codecs: AAC, AC3, EAC3, AC4, ALAC, MP3, PCM

Streaming specifications | Roku Developer

Yes, it appears some of the newer ones do now.  However, we're still testing how reliable that actually is.  In any case, disabling transcoding is definitely NOT the answer .