Emby Theater jerky playback 4K video.

[GrimReaper 3324]

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

but the ET Client seems pretty difficult to trip up and natively is playing everything I have thrown at it ... so I'm curious what is causing it to transcode

Therein lies the issue: it doesn't transcode, its DirectPlaying. Guess would be mpv implementation for whichever Linux flavor OP is running under, but I'm not familiar with ET inner workings besides broadest general sense. Maybe @generiqhas a hint or two. 

[marriedman 32]

I am using Manjaro on my desktop and laptops. I am testing a media centric spin of Ubuntu on HTPC hooked up to an old 4K smart TV that is no longer supported by any appstore.

[Q-Droid 661]

1 hour ago, GrimReaper said:

Therein lies the issue: it doesn't transcode, its DirectPlaying. Guess would be mpv implementation for whichever Linux flavor OP is running under, but I'm not familiar with ET inner workings besides broadest general sense. Maybe @generiqhas a hint or two. 

ET doesn't transcode but it still has to decode, right? If it can't use the hardware to do this then it could be a heavy workload for the machine it's running on.

[marriedman 32]

3 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Can you do a couple of screen captures of your 4K films - 1 where it's playing ok, and the other where there are issues ?

The only time I can get them to play smoothly is:

• the LG TV or Firestick where I can't do a screencaps.
• SMPlayer/VLC or any other video application I have installed. 

Neither of those scenarios will be helpful I am guessing. I went ahead and installed emby server on one of my i5-8400 boxes. Mounted the QNAP shares and tried playing the 4K movies that way. Same thing. Direct play video and audio. Really has me scratching my head.

I think I am going to install Kodi and then maybe Embycon on one of the machines and see what happens.

[rbjtech 4310]

8 hours ago, marriedman said:

The only time I can get them to play smoothly is:

• the LG TV or Firestick where I can't do a screencaps.
• SMPlayer/VLC or any other video application I have installed. 

Neither of those scenarios will be helpful I am guessing. I went ahead and installed emby server on one of my i5-8400 boxes. Mounted the QNAP shares and tried playing the 4K movies that way. Same thing. Direct play video and audio. Really has me scratching my head.

I think I am going to install Kodi and then maybe Embycon on one of the machines and see what happens.

Really odd I agree ..

[generiq 113]

For Theater, pull up the stats and post a picture of them while the issue is happening 

[generiq 113]

On 3/25/2023 at 5:35 PM, Q-Droid said:

ET doesn't transcode but it still has to decode, right? If it can't use the hardware to do this then it could be a heavy workload for the machine it's running on.

Correct. If the hardware supports the pixel formats, it will be utilized. Otherwise it will fall back to software decoding. 

The stats will show what's happening.

[marriedman 32]

Thank you all for being so patient waiting for me to return to this thread. Family issues, I'm sure you guys can understand. The Stats for nerds window was so detailed, I had to get two screen shots of it. 

Any more information you guys want, I'll be happy to provide!

[generiq 113]

In the video settings, change video output to gpu-next and also try setting hardware acceleration to auto

The rendering is very slow and is dropping frames 

Edited March 29, 2023 by generiq

[generiq 113]

It's also not truly directly playing. It's being streamed through the server. You should look at your library config and try to provide direct network access from the storage location to the playback device.

[rbjtech 4310]

8 hours ago, generiq said:

It's also not truly directly playing. It's being streamed through the server. You should look at your library config and try to provide direct network access from the storage location to the playback device.

@generiqThanks for this - As I'm not a big user of ET for Windows and there was no config in the 'Playback' setup for real 'Direct Play', I was not aware this was actually what it was doing until you pointed it out - I now see the 'stream' where I get just the filename.

On confirming, yes I see the direct file transfer from the CLIENT direct to the SMB file share in procmon..

So to @marriedman

You need to setup

1. The library 'optional' path - as this is what ET uses.

In my system - it then shows like this -

2. Your CLIENT (running ET) needs to then have permissions/access to the above UNC share.

The easiest way to check, is to simply try and access it via the operating system.  ie I type in \\MEDIA\Films   If all the folders can be read, then you are good to go.

3.  This is what I see in SFN with Direct File Play (ie emby is not involved with the streaming at this point, it's client direct to the file server)

Note - no mention of 'streams' in the Title section.

I hope this helps.

 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by rbjtech

[marriedman 32]

@rbjtech@generiqI know we are getting close, now the network path makes complete sense to me. I honestly did not understand why I would need that since my server and drives were the same machine, It didn't occur to me that was for direct play.  It's not working, but it might be because of something I am doing. 

I am on Linux if that makes a difference. I have tried it with //192.168.1.103/Public/Videos/Movies as the path as well as smb://192.168.1.103/Public/Videos/Movies and I still get the "stream=" in the title like you pointed out.

[GrimReaper 3324]

Reverse the slashes. 

[marriedman 32]

29 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Reverse the slashes. 

That appears to have no effect. I tried it with smb:\\192.168.1.103\Public\Videos\Movies and \\192.168.1.103\Public\Videos\Movies . I also restarted emby server just in case.

Also, in Linux, those paths would be invalid. I would not have thought to have tried that. I still believe this to be the root issue. I am wondering if it is a permission issue. I have those shares mounted normally, but if I type in the path smb://192.168.1.103/Public/Videos/Movies it always prompts me for a username & password. I have enable guest access to those shares, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

[rbjtech 4310]

2 hours ago, marriedman said:

That appears to have no effect. I tried it with smb:\\192.168.1.103\Public\Videos\Movies and \\192.168.1.103\Public\Videos\Movies . I also restarted emby server just in case.

Also, in Linux, those paths would be invalid. I would not have thought to have tried that. I still believe this to be the root issue. I am wondering if it is a permission issue. I have those shares mounted normally, but if I type in the path smb://192.168.1.103/Public/Videos/Movies it always prompts me for a username & password. I have enable guest access to those shares, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

The authentication challenge is good.  It means it has acknowledged the share.  You won't be be able to use anonymous (guest) access - so try setting up a 'service account' - just with user emby and password emby if you like and apply the permissions on the unix smb share.   On the windows client, then just goto \\192.168.1.103\Public\Videos\Movies (in the search box) and it should prompt for the Auth - enter emby/emby - save this and you should be good and not need to enter it again.

Edited March 30, 2023 by rbjtech

[generiq 113]

Once you get the network access figured, if it's still dropping frames with gpu-next and hardware acceleration selected, post another screenshot of the stats. There are several things we can try to speed up the rendering. Unfortunately, electron adds to the processing, so that is what slows it down further. 

[generiq 113]

If you guys don't know how to read the mpv stats, I can make a post and break it all down and explain it, if you guys want that?

[generiq 113]

16 hours ago, rbjtech said:

@generiqThanks for this - As I'm not a big user of ET for Windows and there was no config in the 'Playback' setup for real 'Direct Play', I was not aware this was actually what it was doing until you pointed it out - I now see the 'stream' where I get just the filename.

On confirming, yes I see the direct file transfer from the CLIENT direct to the SMB file share in procmon..

So to @marriedman

You need to setup

1. The library 'optional' path - as this is what ET uses.

In my system - it then shows like this -

2. Your CLIENT (running ET) needs to then have permissions/access to the above UNC share.

The easiest way to check, is to simply try and access it via the operating system.  ie I type in \\MEDIA\Films   If all the folders can be read, then you are good to go.

3.  This is what I see in SFN with Direct File Play (ie emby is not involved with the streaming at this point, it's client direct to the file server)

Note - no mention of 'streams' in the Title section.

I hope this helps.

 

 

Personally, I wouldn't even use the optional path. I would use the direct network path as the folder path. Then the server will use it by default.

Edited March 31, 2023 by generiq

[marriedman 32]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

On the windows client

I have nothing Windows in the house. 

24 minutes ago, generiq said:

Personally, I wouldn't even use the optional path. I would use the direct network path as the folder path. Then the server will use it by default.

That sounds strange to me. The QNAP is the emby server, and the media shares are physically located in the QNAP. so instead of 192.168.1.103, I would have to use localhost. The path I have in my screen shot is not a SMB share that is mounted, it is literally the file path on the QNAP.

[generiq 113]

3 minutes ago, marriedman said:

I have nothing Windows in the house. 

That sounds strange to me. The QNAP is the emby server, and the media shares are physically located in the QNAP. so instead of 192.168.1.103, I would have to use localhost. The path I have in my screen shot is not a SMB share that is mounted, it is literally the file path on the QNAP.

Oh, with a QNAP then that's a bit different. I thought you had a full Linux server.

[marriedman 32]

@generiqThat's the goal here soon. I just need to buy some hard drives for the server I built. I'll then migrate all my video files to that server and regulate the QNAP to documents and photos.

I would like to figure this out though. If only on principle.

[rbjtech 4310]

8 hours ago, marriedman said:

I have nothing Windows in the house. 

ok - doesn't really matter - just using the UNC share name should bring up the media folders.  Mount it via the CLI - or use the linux GUI desktop if that's what you have.

8 hours ago, marriedman said:

I have nothing Windows in the house. 

That sounds strange to me. The QNAP is the emby server, and the media shares are physically located in the QNAP. so instead of 192.168.1.103, I would have to use localhost. The path I have in my screen shot is not a SMB share that is mounted, it is literally the file path on the QNAP.

Yes you need to use the UNC share name, as these are not local paths.

The Shield and now ET need to see this setup in Emby as the 'optional' UNC path as I showed above - if it's not setup, it does not work (on my setup anyway).

Edited March 31, 2023 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 4310]

9 hours ago, generiq said:

If you guys don't know how to read the mpv stats, I can make a post and break it all down and explain it, if you guys want that?

Hi @generiq- I'm fine with what they all mean - but I'm sure others would appreciate you expanding on them.

Adding the part about direct file play would be useful as well (I can add that if you like?) - as I was not aware of this due to its 'auto' selecting that method if available.  For 4K Remux users on low powered NAS boxes, that in itself could be a game changer (as we hope the OP will be as soon as they get it working ..)

Maybe @cayarscan add to the Knowledgebase rather than bury in this thread.. 

[Q-Droid 661]

Linux doesn't recognize UNC paths so if you think it's worth trying then mount the shares on the client host and enter those client side paths in the optional field. 

This might do it IF Emby passes the value to the client and doesn't try to validate or muck with it in some way. 

[generiq 113]

6 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Hi @generiq- I'm fine with what they all mean - but I'm sure others would appreciate you expanding on them.

Adding the part about direct file play would be useful as well (I can add that if you like?) - as I was not aware of this due to its 'auto' selecting that method if available.  For 4K Remux users on low powered NAS boxes, that in itself could be a game changer (as we hope the OP will be as soon as they get it working ..)

Maybe @cayarscan add to the Knowledgebase rather than bury in this thread.. 

I'm fairly certain the slow rendering is the issue and not network related. libmpv with copy-back sucks! Everyone should be using gpu-next and leave hardware acceleration on auto. libmpv clashes with electron and forces mpv to use copy-back hardware acceleration. And I suspect that the display refresh rate is 60hz which adds a lot more rendering. For some reason on Linux the stats doesn't show the refresh rate (compare your stats with his). @Luke is this just an oversight that it's omitted on Linux?