Possible fix for incompatible stream error with 4k video on LG OLED.

[CrappyUserName 14]

So this isn't really an Emby issue but I wasted all morning on this crap so someone should get benefit from that and it might avoid a few posts in here with people complaining that a video will not play.

So this is for an LG65OLEDB6 (it's getting old...).

I ripped my first 4k disc using MakeMKV and after encoding I couldn't get it to play. I got the dreaded incompatible streams error. I use Vidcoder which is just a GUI for Handbrake.

The file was within spec for the TV and I have other 4k videos I've downloaded that work with much higher bitrates too, I couldn't see anything obviously wrong. I tried LG's built in video player and that also wouldn't play the file so I knew it wasn't Emby.

I extracted the first 2 min and used that to test a bunch of encoding options but nothing worked. It was bizarre.

 

I ended up using mkvtoolnix which is a free app.

Place the busted video in the mkvtoolnix folder and run the following from the command line -

mkvextract.exe tracks bustedvideo.mkv -f 0:bitstream.265

This will extact the video track to a file - bitstream.265

Open up mkvtoolnix-gui

Select the multiplexer tab on the left.

Drag the brokenvideo.mkv file into the window. It will list all the tracks in the file at the bottom.

Drag the bitstream.265 into the window.

When the prompt appears, select add as new source files to the current multiplex settings.

At the bottom of the screen, untick the original video track which should be the top one.

Click start multiplexing.

The file it creates should play hopefully.

 

After comparing them with MediaInfo, these are the only differences I could see.

The original broken video had the following tag that was not present in the fixed video.

Original frame rate:   23.976(24000/1001)FPS

The broken video had the following tags related to HDR -

Maximum Content Light Level:   602

MaxCLL_Original:   602 cd/m2

Maximum Frame-Average Light Level:   184

MaxFALL_Original:   184 cd/m2

 

The fixed video only had these tags but had the cd/m2 suffixes.

Maximum Content Light Level 602 cd/m2

Maximum Frame-Average Light Level 184 cd/m2

All other tags were identical between the 2 files.

You can remove the MaxCLL and MaxFALL tags with mkvtoolnix’s header editor. It didn’t solve the issue and I couldn’t find any way to remove or modify the other tags. I’m assuming LG doesn’t like “Maximum Content Light Level” and “Maximum Frame-Average Light Level” missing the cd/m2 suffix. At least that's the only reason I can come up with.

 

Hope that helps someone.

edit: 24000/1001 not 2400/1001

Edited January 31, 2023 by CrappyUserName

[Luke 37060]

Thanks for sharing.

[FredrikT 22]

4 hours ago, CrappyUserName said:

So this isn't really an Emby issue but I wasted all morning on this crap so someone should get benefit from that and it might avoid a few posts in here with people complaining that a video will not play.

So this is for an LG65OLEDB6 (it's getting old...).

I ripped my first 4k disc using MakeMKV and after encoding I couldn't get it to play. I got the dreaded incompatible streams error. I use Vidcoder which is just a GUI for Handbrake.

The file was within spec for the TV and I have other 4k videos I've downloaded that work with much higher bitrates too, I couldn't see anything obviously wrong. I tried LG's built in video player and that also wouldn't play the file so I knew it wasn't Emby.

I extracted the first 2 min and used that to test a bunch of encoding options but nothing worked. It was bizarre.

 

I ended up using mkvtoolnix which is a free app.

Place the busted video in the mkvtoolnix folder and run the following from the command line -

mkvextract.exe tracks bustedvideo.mkv -f 0:bitstream.265

This will extact the video track to a file - bitstream.265

Open up mkvtoolnix-gui

Select the multiplexer tab on the left.

Drag the brokenvideo.mkv file into the window. It will list all the tracks in the file at the bottom.

Drag the bitstream.265 into the window.

When the prompt appears, select add as new source files to the current multiplex settings.

At the bottom of the screen, untick the original video track which should be the top one.

Click start multiplexing.

The file it creates should play hopefully.

 

After comparing them with MediaInfo, these are the only differences I could see.

The original broken video had the following tag that was not present in the fixed video.

Original frame rate:   23.976(24000/1001)FPS

The broken video had the following tags related to HDR -

Maximum Content Light Level:   602

MaxCLL_Original:   602 cd/m2

Maximum Frame-Average Light Level:   184

MaxFALL_Original:   184 cd/m2

 

The fixed video only had these tags but had the cd/m2 suffixes.

Maximum Content Light Level 602 cd/m2

Maximum Frame-Average Light Level 184 cd/m2

All other tags were identical between the 2 files.

You can remove the MaxCLL and MaxFALL tags with mkvtoolnix’s header editor. It didn’t solve the issue and I couldn’t find any way to remove or modify the other tags. I’m assuming LG doesn’t like “Maximum Content Light Level” and “Maximum Frame-Average Light Level” missing the cd/m2 suffix. At least that's the only reason I can come up with.

 

Hope that helps someone.

edit: 24000/1001 not 2400/1001

Thanks for sharing this find! My father has a brand new LG TV and we can't get any videos to play. Other devices at his place works flawlessly.

This is too much work for my entire library, but next time I'm there I'll try a few different files and try to analyze them afterwards.