HDR passthrough problems using external player

[blixt99 1]

Hey folks, I've got video files with HDR metadata on my server that play back just fine using MPC-HC64. The HDR data is sent directly to my 4K HDR monitor, no problems.

When I set MPC-HC64 as an external player in Emby Theater the file plays but no HDR data is sent to the monitor and the video stutters randomly.

I'm using the current version of Emby Theater.

[Luke 37183]

HI, maybe you need to configure mpc settings or the mpc command line in emby theater?

Is mpc getting the direct path from Theater, or a server stream url?

[blixt99 1]

I'm sorry, what has MPV got to do with using MPC-HC in ET? I'm only talking about direct play of videos from my Qnap server to my

monitor.

[Luke 37183]

I'm sorry I meant to say mpc.

[stevesb99 1]

On 11/22/2022 at 9:48 AM, Luke said:

 

HI, maybe you need to configure mpc settings or the mpc command line in emby theater?

Is mpc getting the direct path from Theater, or a server stream url?

Seriously? Do you really expect the typical Emby user to be willing or able to search for and experiment with command line arguments for Emby Theater or MPC-HC? All I want do do is have MPC-HC along with MadVR play back my library of 4K UHD HDR movies that I've ripped from disk to my Qnap NAS server. All I want is direct play of these files, no transcoding, no mobile devices synced, just straight playback on my 4K HDR TV or monitor. Seems like this would be easy peasy. 

Since your 11/22 comment I have set up Kodi using the Emby next gen add-on, and it is nice and works well with the Emby Server on my Qnap NAS. I've also been able to easily setup MPC-HC64 with MadVR as an external player in Kodi using the playercorefactory.xml file found in the Kodi Wiki and it works flawlessly to play back all of the 4K HDR files from my NAS no matter the format or encoding, just like MPC-HC does outside of any client. As I said previously I can get MPC-HC to kind of play back 4K HDR videos in Emby Theater but it will not passthrough HDR metadata and it stutters randomly, and some 4K videos will not play at all! definitely NOT acceptable.

This is obviously not a MPC-HC problem.  Of course the Electron/MPV built-in player in ET is useless for 4K HDR content. I would think that seamless playback of 4K HDR content would. be a priority for you guys considering that  so many people are now upgrading to 4K HDR TV's and like me, have ripped 4K UHD disks to an Emby server. Once again I'm just talking about direct  playback of 4K HDR videos to a 4K TV with Emby Theater and MPC-HC. Would a simplified version of Emby Theater with no built in Electron/MPV player and ability to have the user define the player to be used be possible? 

Also. I much prefer the Emby Theater interface to Kodi. It is much more user friendly and much easier to adjust settings such as Display Mode and Theme. I really want to stick with Emby Theater, but if I have to switch to Kodi in order to get proper playback of 4K HDR content I will do it, although not happily.

 

Thanks for your consideration.

Edited December 14, 2022 by stevesb99

[Luke 37183]

1 hour ago, stevesb99 said:

Seriously? Do you really expect the typical Emby user to be willing or able to search for and experiment with command line arguments for Emby Theater or MPC-HC? All I want do do is have MPC-HC along with MadVR play back my library of 4K UHD HDR movies that I've ripped from disk to my Qnap NAS server. All I want is direct play of these files, no transcoding, no mobile devices synced, just straight playback on my 4K HDR TV or monitor. Seems like this would be easy peasy. 

Since your 11/22 comment I have set up Kodi using the Emby next gen add-on, and it is nice and works well with the Emby Server on my Qnap NAS. I've also been able to easily setup MPC-HC64 with MadVR as an external player in Kodi using the playercorefactory.xml file found in the Kodi Wiki and it works flawlessly to play back all of the 4K HDR files from my NAS no matter the format or encoding, just like MPC-HC does outside of any client. As I said previously I can get MPC-HC to kind of play back 4K HDR videos in Emby Theater but it will not passthrough HDR metadata and it stutters randomly, and some 4K videos will not play at all! definitely NOT acceptable.

This is obviously not a MPC-HC problem.  Of course the Electron/MPV built-in player in ET is useless for 4K HDR content. I would think that seamless playback of 4K HDR content would. be a priority for you guys considering that  so many people are now upgrading to 4K HDR TV's and like me, have ripped 4K UHD disks to an Emby server. Once again I'm just talking about direct  playback of 4K HDR videos to a 4K TV with Emby Theater and MPC-HC. Would a simplified version of Emby Theater with no built in Electron/MPV player and ability to have the user define the player to be used be possible? 

Also. I much prefer the Emby Theater interface to Kodi. It is much more user friendly and much easier to adjust settings such as Display Mode and Theme. I really want to stick with Emby Theater, but if I have to switch to Kodi in order to get proper playback of 4K HDR content I will do it, although not happily.

 

Thanks for your consideration.

Hi, the typical emby user is not using external players. It is an advanced feature. Have you tried using the internal player?

[stevesb99 1]

As I stated above, "Of course the Electron/MPV built-in player in ET is useless for 4K HDR content." Of course I've tried using MPV for the 4K HDR playback and it

is abysmal and virtually useless. That is why I turned to MPC-HC/MadVR as an external player. Using MPC-HC as an external player in Kodi is not really an advanced feature.

The simple playercorefactory.xml file from the Kodi Wiki noted here, works like a charm playing back all 4K HDR content from my Emby Server on my NAS. It plays back my ripped 4K UHD movies and any 4K HDR videos I download from YouTube, including MP4 and Webm.

 <playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="MPC-HC" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>G:\Program Files\MPC-HC\mpc-hc64.exe</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
<warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
</player>
</players>
</playercorefactory>

If you can direct me to one person in this forum who is successfully playing back 4K UHD HDR videos using MPV then I would appreciate contacting them to learn

exactly how they do it.

playercorefactory.xml

[Luke 37183]

Did you try setting the video output in the app to gpu next? You may get a better hdr experience with that.

[generiq 113]

10 hours ago, stevesb99 said:

the Electron/MPV built-in player in ET is useless for 4K HDR content. 

This is completely untrue. 

[stevesb99 1]

Okay, then please tell me how to do it. A tutorial would be nice. Thanks.

[Luke 37183]

2 hours ago, stevesb99 said:

Okay, then please tell me how to do it. A tutorial would be nice. Thanks.

Try setting the video output option in the app to gpu-next and let us know how that compares. Thanks.

[stevesb99 1]

Believe me I've tried everything and I'm tired of failure, therefore I'm officially switching to Kodi with Emby next gen and the

MPC-HC/MadVR combo working PERFECTLY as the external player for ALL of the 4K HDR video that I can throw at it. Sayonara.

P.S. - Quick question, since Emby Theater is failing me in regard to 4K HDR playback do I get a partial refund of my lifetime Premiere

subscription? Just asking.

[generiq 113]

10 hours ago, stevesb99 said:

Believe me I've tried everything and I'm tired of failure, therefore I'm officially switching to Kodi with Emby next gen and the

MPC-HC/MadVR combo working PERFECTLY as the external player for ALL of the 4K HDR video that I can throw at it. Sayonara.

P.S. - Quick question, since Emby Theater is failing me in regard to 4K HDR playback do I get a partial refund of my lifetime Premiere

subscription? Just asking.

Instead of being an ass, try explaining what you've tried. mpv with HDR and 4k works perfectly. If isn't working for you, then YOU are doing something wrong!

[stevesb99 1]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:39 PM, generiq said:

Instead of being an ass, try explaining what you've tried. mpv with HDR and 4k works perfectly. If isn't working for you, then YOU are doing something wrong!

Generiq, you were absolutely right. I was being an ass. Sorry about that. My problem is I'm an extreme DIYer. I set my sights on a goal and I do whatever it takes

to accomplish the goal no matter how long or how much effort it takes . I'm not satisfied until I have completed the goal to my high standards. It's a curse. I've built

my own house, including plumbing and electrical. I tune and rebuild engines, build furniture in my shop. I've been building computers since 1989 and I've taken

computer programming classes in community college. In the last 15 years or so I've set about building a nice home theater setup and toward that end I settled on

Emby as the server on my Qnap NAS and Emby Theater on my HTPC as my client for playback of videos, including 4K HDR. So that is why I became frustrated when

I could not get MPV in ET to play back the 4K videos while passing the HDR metadata to my 4K HDR TV, and MPC-HC with MadVR would not work as an external player

As I stated in a post above I was easily able to get MPC-HC playing back ALL of my 4K videos in Kodi as an external player using the simple playercorefactory.xml file, which

is detailed in the Kodi Wiki. But I don't really like Kodi as much as I love Emby Theater for direct play of my media in my home theater. Since you called me out on

my assiness I looked at a whole lot of your  responses to posts by people who are having the kind of problems I was with playback of 4K HDR content in ET.

Plus, I have visited other forums that deal with MPV related  problems with HDR passthrough. Well, I'm happy to admit that you are absolutely correct, MPV

in ET does playback 4K content and can pass HDR metadata through to an HDR TV.

Hooray! 

Here's how I accomplished this feat...

1. As you advised others, I set Video output in Video settings to gpu-next, because I have an RTX 2080 gpu.

2. I set Hardware acceleration mode and Output range to Auto

3. I set Enable deinterlacing to No

4. I check marked Enable display refresh rate switching, Enable OpenGL high quality profile and Enable interpolation

5. I set Home network quality to 4K - 160 Mbps

6. The final component in the process was configuring the mpv.conf file. Below are the commands I needed to complete the task

        log-file="C:\Users\SteveB\AppData\Roaming\mpv\Theater_mpv_log.txt"
        vo=gpu-next 
        target-colorspace-hint=yes 
        gpu-api=vulkan

There are a couple of quirky but tolerable things that have cropped up as a result of getting MPV set up and functioning:

         MPV will play my downloaded 4K HDR videos from YouTube which are either in mp4 or Webm format but if I pause or

         stop the video it completely freezes up ET and I have to use task manager to shutdown Electron. This does not happen

         with my 4K HDR mkv movies. As a fix I have converted these videos to MKV using HandBrake and then they play back

         with no problems.

         Also, and this is really strange, when a 4K HDR video has finished playing or I have stopped it manually, I can not

         start playing another video until the TV/monitor takes itself out of HDR mode. This usually takes about 20 seconds.

         If I don't wait for the TV/monitor to get out of HDR mode and then try playing another 4K HDR movie or video the resulting

          image is washed out and just plain ugly. It's like HDR mode has been applied twice. I don't know if this is an Electron problem or not.

Like I said these quirks are tolerable, but if you have any idea why they might happen, let me know.  Thanks for your patience. Bye.

Edited December 18, 2022 by stevesb99

[Bandits 12]

To your original issue with using an external player, there is one place I would look for an easy solution. Check your library paths on your server. If MPC-HC cannot reach the same path that your server libraries can, your server will stream your content to MPC-HC instead of it being played directly. Your libraries should be network paths \\NAME\FOLDER not drive paths D:\FOLDER.

The easiest way to test is open MPC-HC, go to File > Open Directory > put library path in the address bar. Just because you can reach the video on the server and in MPC-HC, doesn't mean you are taking the same path.

BTW, I hate the internal player as well. MPC-HC+madVR is a far better player.

[stevesb99 1]

6 hours ago, Bandits said:

To your original issue with using an external player, there is one place I would look for an easy solution. Check your library paths on your server. If MPC-HC cannot reach the same path that your server libraries can, your server will stream your content to MPC-HC instead of it being played directly. Your libraries should be network paths \\NAME\FOLDER not drive paths D:\FOLDER.

The easiest way to test is open MPC-HC, go to File > Open Directory > put library path in the address bar. Just because you can reach the video on the server and in MPC-HC, doesn't mean you are taking the same path.

BTW, I hate the internal player as well. MPC-HC+madVR is a far better player.

You're right. When I originally created my Libraries I made sure to use a network path pointing to the folders of media on my Qnap NAS.

I have, in the past, been able to setup MPC-HC as an external player in Emby Theater and it functioned fine and passed HDR metadata through to my 4K HDR monitor with no problems. It played the MP4 and Webm 4K HDR videos too, with no problem.

 

******BREAKING NEWS******

On a nostalgic whim, I just now setup MPC-HC as an external player in Emby Theater and by some miracle it's working again!!!!!!

One thing I did after the setup was to sign out of Emby Theater and then sign back in and MPC-HC just worked! It had not been

functioning properly at all lately, as I stated in an earlier post above. It plays all 4K HDR movies as well as the MP4 and Webm videos 

I have on my server.                  "IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE"                             there's no other explanation.     

 

P.S. One thing I didn't mention in my "I'm sorry" post to generiq was that I also configured my Nvidia RTX 2080 in a certain way. Here are

screenshots showing my settings in   NVIDIA Control Panel. I don't know if these settings have an affect on MPV playback of 4K HDR, but

they certainly don't hurt.      

Edited December 18, 2022 by stevesb99

[generiq 113]

14 hours ago, stevesb99 said:

Generiq, you were absolutely right. I was being an ass. Sorry about that. My problem is I'm an extreme DIYer. I set my sights on a goal and I do whatever it takes

to accomplish the goal no matter how long or how much effort it takes . I'm not satisfied until I have completed the goal to my high standards. It's a curse. I've built

my own house, including plumbing and electrical. I tune and rebuild engines, build furniture in my shop. I've been building computers since 1989 and I've taken

computer programming classes in community college. In the last 15 years or so I've set about building a nice home theater setup and toward that end I settled on

Emby as the server on my Qnap NAS and Emby Theater on my HTPC as my client for playback of videos, including 4K HDR. So that is why I became frustrated when

I could not get MPV in ET to play back the 4K videos while passing the HDR metadata to my 4K HDR TV, and MPC-HC with MadVR would not work as an external player

As I stated in a post above I was easily able to get MPC-HC playing back ALL of my 4K videos in Kodi as an external player using the simple playercorefactory.xml file, which

is detailed in the Kodi Wiki. But I don't really like Kodi as much as I love Emby Theater for direct play of my media in my home theater. Since you called me out on

my assiness I looked at a whole lot of your  responses to posts by people who are having the kind of problems I was with playback of 4K HDR content in ET.

Plus, I have visited other forums that deal with MPV related  problems with HDR passthrough. Well, I'm happy to admit that you are absolutely correct, MPV

in ET does playback 4K content and can pass HDR metadata through to an HDR TV.

Hooray! 

Here's how I accomplished this feat...

1. As you advised others, I set Video output in Video settings to gpu-next, because I have an RTX 2080 gpu.

2. I set Hardware acceleration mode and Output range to Auto

3. I set Enable deinterlacing to No

4. I check marked Enable display refresh rate switching, Enable OpenGL high quality profile and Enable interpolation

5. I set Home network quality to 4K - 160 Mbps

6. The final component in the process was configuring the mpv.conf file. Below are the commands I needed to complete the task

        log-file="C:\Users\SteveB\AppData\Roaming\mpv\Theater_mpv_log.txt"
        vo=gpu-next 
        target-colorspace-hint=yes 
        gpu-api=vulkan

There are a couple of quirky but tolerable things that have cropped up as a result of getting MPV set up and functioning:

         MPV will play my downloaded 4K HDR videos from YouTube which are either in mp4 or Webm format but if I pause or

         stop the video it completely freezes up ET and I have to use task manager to shutdown Electron. This does not happen

         with my 4K HDR mkv movies. As a fix I have converted these videos to MKV using HandBrake and then they play back

         with no problems.

         Also, and this is really strange, when a 4K HDR video has finished playing or I have stopped it manually, I can not

         start playing another video until the TV/monitor takes itself out of HDR mode. This usually takes about 20 seconds.

         If I don't wait for the TV/monitor to get out of HDR mode and then try playing another 4K HDR movie or video the resulting

          image is washed out and just plain ugly. It's like HDR mode has been applied twice. I don't know if this is an Electron problem or not.

Like I said these quirks are tolerable, but if you have any idea why they might happen, let me know.  Thanks for your patience. Bye.

I'm glad you were able to get what you needed, also with an external player.

As for using mpv in Theater, it's just had a series of updates. Make sure you're running 3.0.19. Softworkz is building the version of mpv that emby is using. As I understand it, he's customized the ffmpeg that mpv is built on. So that might account for some of your 'quirks'. That's just a guess though. For your mpv.conf, setting the gpu-api will have no effect in Theater. Regardless, if you're using Windows, you'll need to use d3d11. But it sounds like your preferred choice is using the external player. 

[generiq 113]

10 hours ago, Bandits said:

MPC-HC+madVR is a far better player.

There really isn't a 'better' player, anymore, only preference. Development in this field is so advanced these days, that all of the major players are pretty even. The main differences are how they operate. mpv is a command line player, pretty much no UI. So it has a steep learning curve, compared to VLC and MPC. Personally, I appreciate the lack of a UI. But as I said... preference. The one area that mpv is now above most others, is the support for Dolby Vision. Thanks to haasn's work with libplacebo.

But, each to their own.

Edited December 18, 2022 by generiq