Atmos 7.1 audio forces transcode and freezes after a short while

[rob77 8]

Hi

I was playing a 4k movie tonight and it froze after approx. 6 minutes. I fast forwarded the movie and it played again until after 6 minutes and it froze again. The movie was a 4k HDR rip with Atmos TrueHD 7.1 audio. The video was direct playing and the audio was transcoding to AC3. My TV is an LG G1 Oled.

I checked another movie with 7.1 Atmos sound and that froze too after the same length of time. I tried the same movie on Android which I forced to transcode the Audio and it played okay on that. I also have a a few DTS 7.1 titles which transcode the audio on the TV and they play okay also.

I can provide logs but is anyone experiencing the same issue? I am running the latest emby app on the TV and latest beta server version on linux.

Many thanks

Rob

[Luke 37090]

 

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

 

[SamES 891]

2 hours ago, rob77 said:

Hi

I was playing a 4k movie tonight and it froze after approx. 6 minutes. I fast forwarded the movie and it played again until after 6 minutes and it froze again. The movie was a 4k HDR rip with Atmos TrueHD 7.1 audio. The video was direct playing and the audio was transcoding to AC3. My TV is an LG G1 Oled.

I checked another movie with 7.1 Atmos sound and that froze too after the same length of time. I tried the same movie on Android which I forced to transcode the Audio and it played okay on that. I also have a a few DTS 7.1 titles which transcode the audio on the TV and they play okay also.

I can provide logs but is anyone experiencing the same issue? I am running the latest emby app on the TV and latest beta server version on linux.

Many thanks

Rob

Does the movie already have an AC3 track in the file?  You are better off selecting that before playback and avoiding transcoding. The built in track will probably be a better quality anyway. 

[rob77 8]

Thanks for the replies

I can get a log later on when I get home.

One of the movies does have a 5.1 track on there and that plays okay. One doesn't though so it's constantly freezing. 

[SamES 891]

54 minutes ago, rob77 said:

One doesn't though so it's constantly freezing. 

I'm assuming you're running the standard release (not beta) server.  It's possible that this issue has improved in the next server release, but the other option is to use either the convert option on the server to create a version with an AC3 track, or you can use ffmpeg to add an AC3 track to a copy of the existing file if you're comfortable trying that.

You can use a command like this one :

ffmpeg.exe -i input.mkv -map 0:v -map 0:a:0 -map 0:a -map 0:s?  -c:v copy -c:s copy -c:a copy -c:a:0 ac3 -disposition:a:0 default -disposition:a:1 0 output.mkv

 

[rbjtech 4276]

It's probably better if you encode to an eac3 track these days - as almost all equipment can play these just as well as AC3 and of course, the quality is far better.  The number of Channels using ffmpeg will unfortunately still only be 5.1 

But going back to the original post - why 6 minutes ?  Are you transcoding to a small ssd perhaps or a ramdrive that is filling up ?   As it's audio only, it seems odd that this is causing things to stall.

That being said - my honest advice for problem free direct playback of HDR/Dolby and HD Audio formats - is to just invest in a Shield Pro - as it will play 99.9% of '4K rips' without issue - be they DV5, DV7 or DV8 - DTS-HD or True-HD. MKV or MP4 etc  - it will play them all ... 

17 hours ago, rob77 said:

Hi

I was playing a 4k movie tonight and it froze after approx. 6 minutes. I fast forwarded the movie and it played again until after 6 minutes and it froze again. The movie was a 4k HDR rip with Atmos TrueHD 7.1 audio. The video was direct playing and the audio was transcoding to AC3. My TV is an LG G1 Oled.

I checked another movie with 7.1 Atmos sound and that froze too after the same length of time. I tried the same movie on Android which I forced to transcode the Audio and it played okay on that. I also have a a few DTS 7.1 titles which transcode the audio on the TV and they play okay also.

I can provide logs but is anyone experiencing the same issue? I am running the latest emby app on the TV and latest beta server version on linux.

Many thanks

Rob

 

[rob77 8]

44 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

It's probably better if you encode to an eac3 track these days - as almost all equipment can play these just as well as AC3 and of course, the quality is far better.  The number of Channels using ffmpeg will unfortunately still only be 5.1 

But going back to the original post - why 6 minutes ?  Are you transcoding to a small ssd perhaps or a ramdrive that is filling up ?   As it's audio only, it seems odd that this is causing things to stall.

That being said - my honest advice for problem free direct playback of HDR/Dolby and HD Audio formats - is to just invest in a Shield Pro - as it will play 99.9% of '4K rips' without issue - be they DV5, DV7 or DV8 - DTS-HD or True-HD. MKV or MP4 etc  - it will play them all ... 

 

I've actually got a shield pro I use and your right it plays almost anything direct. My lad just finds using the app on the TV easier so wondered if there was a fix. 

I not sure why it's 6 minutes but can do some testing tonight. I can transcode 2 films simultaneously and they play flawlessly when playing remotely so I don't think it would be running out of space. It's probably around a 32gb container I have given emby and it's always been enough. It usually deletes temp files when running out of space.

[SamES 891]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

But going back to the original post - why 6 minutes ?  Are you transcoding to a small ssd perhaps or a ramdrive that is filling up ?   As it's audio only, it seems odd that this is causing things to stall.

I've seen this is in the past.  Over time the LG TV appears to struggle with large HLS streams.  It's cumulative, so the longer you play, the more frequent the glitches get. Maybe their player has a small memory leak?  There probably isn't anything you can do other than to avoid the transcode.

I've noticed improvements in HLS playback in beta server releases over recent months.  Files that gave me quite severe freezing on Samsung now play fine.  I expect we have improved how the segments are created, which is helping the TV player.  When the next stable release is available I'll be interested to know if this issue is any better for you.

[rob77 8]

I have checked which of my files were truehd 7.1 only with no alternative 5.1 track and have redone them. They no longer need to transcode and work sweet now.