Dolby Vision not recognized on MP4 directplay

[Familia Chapin 11]

I am having an issue with Emby playing my Dolby Vision videos. I read somewhere that indeed Emby doesn't process Dolby Vision data so under direct play, it should just pass through untouched and the TV should recognize. I also read that a good test is to see if the TV recognizes it if played directly through a USB drive. So I played 3 different files. The 2 newer files started as direct play (had the off color greenish, and then Emby began to transcode within a few seconds because of VideoRangeNotSupported. Of course the Dolby Vision sign didn't pop up. When I play these directly using a usb drive, the colors are correct and the Dolby Vision sign pops up.

For the third file, this one is older and always worked properly through emby and still does. I just have this one as a potential reference point?

In any case, I had the app send logs around 11:04 pm EST. The user was Familia. I played Polite Society, then Venom, then Paw Patrol the move. I messed up and used mov subtitles for Venom so you'll see that but the last attempt was the official one. Polite Society and Venom both had the issues. Paw Patrol works fine. Here are server and transcode logs as well

embyserver 5.23.txt ffmpeg-transcode-1d156906-73a0-4b34-8207-29d31ce17bf7_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-84e36c5b-c5eb-4b6c-b708-e20e660b7fe0_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-a3f32bb9-6fc5-4b43-b582-9b2d1ce19dd6_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-dfce1907-e02a-40eb-be4b-57b7dfb37757_1.txt

[Luke 37109]

Hi, it’s transcoding due to the subtitle format not being supported by Roku.

 Try turning off the subtitles prior to playback and see how that compares, or try a video that doesn’t have any subtitles just for comparison purposes. Thanks.

[Familia Chapin 11]

Hey there.

So i turned off subtitles for all of them. I did make an error for venom (maybe twice) where i left them on. But at least one of those logs and the one for polite society should show transcoding without subtitles. If i need that up i can replicate and send more logs

[speechles 1920]

The video is transcoding. The subtitles are being converted into webvtt on the fly.

The problem you have is SRT is not supported inside MP4 and cannot be played on the Roku. What ends up happening is every subtitle has to be converted into WebVTT to play on the Roku.

22:59:58.943   Stream #0:0 (hevc) -> scale_cuda:default (graph 0)
22:59:58.943   setsar:default (graph 0) -> Stream #0:0 (h264_nvenc)
22:59:58.943   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)
22:59:58.943   Stream #0:2 -> #1:0 (mov_text (native) -> webvtt (native))
22:59:58.943   Stream #0:0 -> #1:1 (copy)
22:59:58.943   Stream #0:3 -> #2:0 (mov_text (native) -> webvtt (native))
22:59:58.943   Stream #0:0 -> #2:1 (copy)
22:59:58.943   Stream #0:4 -> #3:0 (mov_text (native) -> webvtt (native))
22:59:58.944   Stream #0:0 -> #3:1 (copy)
22:59:58.944   Stream #0:5 -> #4:0 (mov_text (native) -> webvtt (native))
22:59:58.944   Stream #0:0 -> #4:1 (copy)

The bigger issue is with transcoding being caused by the "Video Range is not supported" and the video stream not being copied. It must use HLS to sidecar these subtitles. So it must be converted to a new container with these subtitles. But because the video range is not supported this means it wont copy the video stream which means it will not work no matter what you do. We have to update the Roku application for this to work. Apologies. Please stay tuned. Thanks.

Edited May 24, 2023 by speechles

[ebr 14927]

Hi.  Is this a TV with Roku built in or are you using an external Roku device?

[Familia Chapin 11]

Sorry for the late reply, Like 3 visitors are staying with us for a while, so trying to be a good host.

 

This is on a TCL Roku Series 6 TV.  I think Speechless' update means i just need to wait, but i uploaded a new log with a different video file. I also played this file directly using a USB on the TVs native media player and it worked with Dolby Vision. When I played, I selected subtitles off from the details page to try and avoid any transcoding. Didn't work. I suppose my question is, does the presence of a subtitle in the file cause this regardless of if i choose to use it or not (keeping in mind it worked using USB)?

All of this may be covered in Speechless' updated response so if so disregard and dont waste time responding to me. But here are some logs i just pulled in case this scenario helpsI also took a screenshot and text of the MediaInfo of the file itself (I also have an external SRT sub). There as a log sent via the TV around 1:42 PM EST and the user was Familia. I played Yellowjackets S01E05.

 

Let me know if y'all need anything else

embyserver 5.29.txt ffmpeg-transcode-176eeed0-26a6-455a-affa-2d6b9702e385_1.txt Yellowjackets.S01E05.Blood.Hive.2160p.SHO.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.DV.MP4.x265-DVSUX.mp4.txt

[Luke 37109]

Quote

I suppose my question is, does the presence of a subtitle in the file cause this regardless of if i choose to use it or not (keeping in mind it worked using USB)?

In this case, no, that's not the reason it is transcoding. It's transcoding due to dolby vision.

[Seanmac6 4]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

In this case, no, that's not the reason it is transcoding. It's transcoding due to dolby vision.

I thought roku supported dolby vision though? or only certain roku does?

[Familia Chapin 11]

40 minutes ago, Seanmac6 said:

I thought roku supported dolby vision though? or only certain roku does?

My TV supports it. When i play via USB drive it plays correctly recognizing the dolby vision (it shows the watermark on the top right for a few seconds at the beginning of the video)

[speechles 1920]

3 hours ago, Seanmac6 said:

I thought roku supported dolby vision though? or only certain roku does?

Only certain Roku TV/STB will support Dolby Vision. The entire HDMI chain must support Dolby Vision.

 

3 hours ago, Familia Chapin said:

My TV supports it. When i play via USB drive it plays correctly recognizing the dolby vision (it shows the watermark on the top right for a few seconds at the beginning of the video)

If your Roku TV/STB supports Dolby Vision it will pass this through to your TV.

 

Please stay tuned. There will be an update very soon to correct this Dolby Vision issue. We will make a post about the new update in this thread. In the meantime, apologies.

 

https://developer.roku.com/docs/specs/hardware.md
Open the above link and scroll down to the section labeled "Current Roku models" and you can see which models support HDR10/10+, HLG, and DolbyVision.

Edited June 2, 2023 by speechles

[Familia Chapin 11]

9 minutes ago, speechles said:

Only certain Roku TV/STB will support Dolby Vision. The entire HDMI chain must support Dolby Vision.

 

If your Roku TV/STB supports Dolby Vision it will pass this through to your TV.

 

Please stay tuned. There will be an update very soon to correct this Dolby Vision issue. We will make a post about the new update in this thread. In the meantime, apologies.

 

https://developer.roku.com/docs/specs/hardware.md
Open the above link and scroll down to the section labeled "Current Roku models" and you can see which models support HDR10/10+, HLG, and DolbyVision.

No apologies needed. You all do great. Things will always pop up because technology advances. You already said this was being worked on so sorry my follow up sparked more conversation.

 

Standing by..

[ebr 14927]

Hi.  The next version of the server should correct this.

Thanks.

[flashls82 4]

On 6/2/2023 at 7:03 AM, ebr said:

Hi.  The next version of the server should correct this.

Thanks.

Just curious, does this mean 4.8 when it’s out of beta or a point release on 4.7?  Been wondering about this same issue myself. 

[Familia Chapin 11]

Mine works now even on the non beta version. I'll look at the version of the app later today but no issues with Sony vision anymore

[flashls82 4]

15 hours ago, Familia Chapin said:

Mine works now even on the non beta version. I'll look at the version of the app later today but no issues with Sony vision anymore

Does Emby actually detect it as DV (like in the video info)? 

[Familia Chapin 11]

When i start the video, the Dolby Vision watermark comes up on the top right of the screen because the TV recognizes the format and the colors are all accurate (no greenish tint). If i look at stats for nerds, it also says Dolby (don't remember the entire technical naming but i few more words) in the codec.

In short, i get full DV performance. It is important to not that there can be no transcoding for this to happen because Emby cannot transcode into DV. Also, the file has to be MP4 because the Roku tv doesn't support DV in a mkv container.

[flashls82 4]

8 hours ago, Familia Chapin said:

When i start the video, the Dolby Vision watermark comes up on the top right of the screen because the TV recognizes the format and the colors are all accurate (no greenish tint). If i look at stats for nerds, it also says Dolby (don't remember the entire technical naming but i few more words) in the codec.

In short, i get full DV performance. It is important to not that there can be no transcoding for this to happen because Emby cannot transcode into DV. Also, the file has to be MP4 because the Roku tv doesn't support DV in a mkv container.

Ah, that must be the issue for me (MKV vs. MP4). Do you end up just moving stuff to MP4 manually in general? I know Emby can do it on the fly (without actually transcoding) but I'm guessing it doesn't detect this as a use case where it would need to.

[Familia Chapin 11]

1 hour ago, flashls82 said:

Ah, that must be the issue for me (MKV vs. MP4). Do you end up just moving stuff to MP4 manually in general? I know Emby can do it on the fly (without actually transcoding) but I'm guessing it doesn't detect this as a use case where it would need to.

So if the container is MKV and the file is DV, you will have an automatic issue with the colors. Regardless of transcoding because the Roku itself can't process DV in MKV. If you have MP4 with DV, that will be fine as long as there is no transcoding.. Keep in mind, subtitles in MP4 also isn't supported so that won't work. But what i do is just put an SRT file (or any subtitle eligible format for Roku) in the folder. Like you stated, no transcoding would take place for eligible external subs played with MP4 (DV or non-DV otherwise). This is what I usually do and am currently successful.

 

If your only source provides DV in MKV, you'll have to find a way to encode them to MP4 using some tools. I'm still researching that, albeit slowly, but it's not as simple as just changing the file extension lol. Since DV is proprietary, it looks like there aren't as many options as others. I found a few things but still haven't had a positive test but are promising. I'll post here if i find success