Problem with Direct Play Stereo Audio Cutting Out

[BradPC 4]

Hi,

I am having an issue unique to my Samsung TV.  Testing the same media from the web client on my PC does not demonstrate the behaviors.  This also does not occur with surround/5.1 encoded material.

I have encoded a couple older shows where the original audio track is only in Stereo.

When I play these the files, the audio cuts out several times during an episode at repeatable times and the audio stays off until I pause and rewind/ff a small amount.  If I resume play right after the moment audio cuts out it works fine.  If I resume right before it will cut out again. 

All playback is direct play with no transcoding.

Model Code: QN65LS03AAFXZC
Firmware Version: T-NKM2AKUC-2111.1,BT-S
Emby Server 4.7.11.0
Samsung Emby Client Version: 1.5.2

I have also attached an image of the media info.

I can try re-building these files with an alternate  audio encoder if that might be better.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Luke 37071]

 

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

 

[BradPC 4]

I have attached the server logs from the time the issues occurred.

Problematic playback was in the session stating around 11pm .   I tested a different video at 11:43pm (this time with 5.1 encoding) just to make sure it wasn't a general (aka turn it off an on again type) of issue and had no problems.

In the logs you will notice I am alternating between a web client and the Tizen client as I was trying to determine if the video itself had an obvious audio problem.

In parallel I will try re-encoding one of the videos with an alternate audio setting just in case. (Might not get to this today)

 

So far other than this hiccup I am enjoying the app and will upgrade to premier soon to help support development.

Thanks,

Brad

embyserver-63818755200.txt

[BradPC 4]

Just thought I would follow up on a quick test I ran.

I re-encoded one video from the seriers with two audio tracks:

    1) AAC as per above (transcoded with handbrake)

    2) AC3 Stereo (the passthrough audio track under a handbrake encode)

I was able to stream the entire video with AC3 audio selected. No Audio dropouts.

The AAC audio track however experienced recurrent audio dropouts specific to the Samsung client. (Interestingly at repeatable but different time indices from the previous version of the same video)

I have attached  a server "now playing" screenshot with the successful playback audio settings.

I can also confirm that AAC 5.1 works perfectly for other videos with surround tracks.

Cheers,

Brad

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by BradPC

[BradPC 4]

If it makes any difference I should mention that on the tv side I am running an atmos soundbar with surround speakers connected by eARC in Qsymphony mode (TV speaker remain one with the soundbar) mode.

Cheers,

Brad

[BradPC 4]

Sorry to spread over so many posts.  I can't edit past ones apparently.

I tested changing the audio output to just the TV speakers with no change in behavior.

[SamES 890]

I don't have a good answer, other than that you seem to have proven that there is an issue specifically with the AAC track.  As you are direct playing, this must be a TV limitation.  You can try and confirm this by putting the file on a USB drive and connecting it directly to the TV and play the file using the TV's internal media player.  It would be interesting to know the result of this test.

If what you have found is actually the cause, then our only 'solution' would be to make the server transcode the audio stream, but as it is not all AAC tracks we would need to know exactly what to look for in the AAC stream, which I doubt we will be able to determine.

Your best option would be to encode them using a different audio format.  Are you converting these from DVD or other media?  What software are you using and do you have other audio track formats you can use?  Are there any config options on the AAC track that you can adjust?

Just be aware that handbrake is also reencoding the video track, so you might slowly be losing video quality.  That is unavoidable with Handbrake.  If you can fix this issue when mastering from the source then that is a better option, or use a tool that doesn't modify the video stream when re-encoding the audio.

[Luke 37071]

Quote

As you are direct playing, this must be a TV limitation.  You can try and confirm this by putting the file on a USB drive and connecting it directly to the TV and play the file using the TV's internal media player.  It would be interesting to know the result of this test.

@BradPC can you try this?

[BradPC 4]

Yes I have the file on a UBS ready to test. I just need the kids to go to bed early enough for me to test

I'll hopefully have a chance this evening.

 

Cheers,

Brad

[BradPC 4]

On 5/5/2023 at 4:25 AM, SamES said:

play the file using the TV's internal media player.  It would be interesting to know the result of this test.

I can confirm that the TVs internal media player also drops the audio on the same file at the same times.

So we can eliminate the Emby client as the source of the issue.

I tried a few bitrate options and no AAC Stereo codecs ran stably on my TV despite the codec supposedly being supported according to Samsung specs. (And 5.1 versions of AAC working perfectly)

Its a Frame 65 2021 for those that don't speak model numbers

Oh PS the really low video bitrate in this example relates to the program being a 1979 BBC sitcom so higher bitrates offered no real video benefit in this one.

Cheers,

Brad

Edited May 8, 2023 by BradPC

[Luke 37071]

Thanks for following up.

[MFKilian 0]

I also had this problem with sound cutting out on my Samsung Q60 while playing a video either from a network drive or a USB drive.   I found that AAC vbr didn't work (it would play for a while and then cut out at a repeatable point in the video).  I re-encoded the video with AC3 fixed bit rate of 192Kbs and it then played on the Samsung fine.  The downside is that while it works fine on my TV,  it does not play through my Chrome and Firefox browser (the vbr played just fine on Chrome and Firefox).  The AC3 version does play through VLC and Media Player -- Chrome and Firefox evidently don't support AC3.  

-- Mike

[Luke 37071]

4 hours ago, MFKilian said:

I also had this problem with sound cutting out on my Samsung Q60 while playing a video either from a network drive or a USB drive.   I found that AAC vbr didn't work (it would play for a while and then cut out at a repeatable point in the video).  I re-encoded the video with AC3 fixed bit rate of 192Kbs and it then played on the Samsung fine.  The downside is that while it works fine on my TV,  it does not play through my Chrome and Firefox browser (the vbr played just fine on Chrome and Firefox).  The AC3 version does play through VLC and Media Player -- Chrome and Firefox evidently don't support AC3.  

-- Mike

That's interesting about aac vbr. Thanks for the info.

[SamES 890]

3 minutes ago, Luke said:

That's interesting about aac vbr. Thanks for the info.

@Luke, can we detect when aac is vbr?