bad_vista 2 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Hello everyone. I bought a FirveTV stick to finally solve my WiFi and LG media player problems. Almost worked. Now I have a new problem. Some videos only run with a black screen on the FireTV using Emby. During playback I can hear sound and do everything but all I see is the black screen without interface. I have tested all videos. And I have summarized it here with several examples (see image below). The playback of the videos marked in red only does not work in combination with FireTV and Emby. Other app on FireTV can do this. Another device like LG TV (emby for WebOS) and my PC with Emby app also play it correctly. Maybe it's due to some settings? Here is an excerpt from the server log. First I played a video with FireTV and then the same video with WebOS. MKV 51.3 GB.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37107 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Hi. Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares? https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14927 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Hi. Is it a Fire TV 4K Max? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Unfortunately emby cannot directly tell you if this is a HDR10+ enabled MKV file - you need to either download and use MediaInfo (or maybe use the Emby MediaInfo plugin). As ebr has alluded to - if this is a FireTV Stick 4K Max - then it has a specific issue (with Amazon) with DV8 + HDR10+ files only. Other DV combo's are ok - ie DV5, DV8/HDR10 - but note DV7 will not play on any Amazon FireTV stick. Unless you specifically need the 4K Max (maybe wifi 6?) then the 4K non-max will play DV/HDR10+ ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 1 hour ago, ebr said: Hi. Is it a Fire TV 4K Max? Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max Gen. 2 new version from October 2023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 16 minutes ago, bad_vista said: Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max Gen. 2 new version from October 2023 From what I read - that one doesn't work with DV8/HDR10+ either .. As long as it's plays Prime, that is all Amazon seem to care about ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 (edited) 21 hours ago, Luke said: Hi. Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares? https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html Thanks. I tested everything I could install on it: Emby for Android 3.3.58 Emby for Android TV 2.0.93g Emby for Amazon Fire TV 2.0.98a Same problem everywhere. I still have Plex on FireTV. This app, for example, plays everything correctly. Edited January 11 by bad_vista Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 (edited) 36 minutes ago, bad_vista said: I tested everything I could install on it: Emby for Android 3.3.58 Emby for Android TV 2.0.93g Emby for Amazon Fire TV 2.0.98a Same problem everywhere. I still have Plex on FireTV. This app, for example, plays everything correctly. Plex plays DV8/HDR10+ on the FireTV 4K Max ? (no black screen) Not according to the official github it doesn't - only Kodi plays it with some special modifications to re-write the bitstream .... Edited January 11 by rbjtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 1 hour ago, rbjtech said: Unfortunately emby cannot directly tell you if this is a HDR10+ enabled MKV file - you need to either download and use MediaInfo (or maybe use the Emby MediaInfo plugin). As ebr has alluded to - if this is a FireTV Stick 4K Max - then it has a specific issue (with Amazon) with DV8 + HDR10+ files only. Other DV combo's are ok - ie DV5, DV8/HDR10 - but note DV7 will not play on any Amazon FireTV stick. Unless you specifically need the 4K Max (maybe wifi 6?) then the 4K non-max will play DV/HDR10+ ok. But it can't be an Amazon Stick problem because Plex app on it plays all these videos correctly. And yes, Plex plays all of these 7 examples correctly with picture and sound on the same FireTV Stick. All above 7 videos marked in red in the same order detailed by MediInfo: mediainfo.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 Personally, I like Emby more. But as a second choice I always have Plex on every device. I've been doing this for months, whenever a video runs black on the FireTV with Emby I jump to Plex and watch it there. Works 100% for me. These are just 7 remaining examples, but I already had many more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14927 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Hi. Is the other app transcoding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 No, like with my Emby, this is always switched off, otherwise my NAS hangs up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37107 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 On 1/10/2024 at 2:20 PM, Luke said: Hi. Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares? https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html Thanks. Hi, were you able to try this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 9 hours ago, Luke said: Hi, were you able to try this? Yes, I downloaded all possible apk's. I was able to install two of them additionally (2.0.93g and 2.0.98a). Unfortunately they have the same problem on Fire TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14927 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 11 hours ago, bad_vista said: Yes, I downloaded all possible apk's. I was able to install two of them additionally (2.0.93g and 2.0.98a). Unfortunately they have the same problem on Fire TV. Hi. Neither of those versions would be the app that Luke linked to above. Can you try that one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 There has been activity on the github thread, but no resolution. In short - if you use Exoplayer - then I don't believe the 4K Max is going to work with DV/HDR10+ https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/issues/2630#issuecomment-1888944918 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad_vista 2 Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 (edited) 4 hours ago, ebr said: Hi. Neither of those versions would be the app that Luke linked to above. Can you try that one? So I'm not stupid, I even learned IT. I was able to install two of all 4 variants. Fire TV refused to do anything else. So I tried out a total of 3 different emby apps on the fireTV stick. None of them can do what their competitors can do. You always look for errors in the user instead of improving something in the system. Edited January 12 by bad_vista Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37107 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 7 hours ago, bad_vista said: So I'm not stupid, I even learned IT. I was able to install two of all 4 variants. Fire TV refused to do anything else. So I tried out a total of 3 different emby apps on the fireTV stick. None of them can do what their competitors can do. You always look for errors in the user instead of improving something in the system. OK here is a direct link: https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases/raw/master/android/emby-android-google-armeabi-v7a-release.apk Can you try this version? is there a black screen with 4k videos on it? What is the app version number? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicerDicer 2 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 I am having the same problem. Emby App on Fire Stick 4K Max 2nd gen shows "Dolby Vision" in top right corner, then the file plays with sound but completely black screen. The same issue persists with the Android APK from the link in Luke's post. The same video plays fine using the Emby App on the TV (LG C9), but I prefer using the one for the Fire Stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 (edited) If people read the thread I provided above, even Dolby themselves have looked at this and said it's with Amazon to fix. Google (for Exoplayer) could try and do a workaround, but they are reluctant to because this would mean re-writing the bitstream, not something they really should need to be doing. So unless Emby have done something to specifically address this issue (using Exoplayer), getting people to try different emby versions is imo just wasting their time. Three options are currently available - 1) Remove the HDR10+ metadata from the source file - leaving DV8/HDR10 only - this works fine as DV with fallback to HDR10 playback. (this is what i do). 2) Avoid DV8/HDR10+ combo source files in the first place - and use HDR10+ only or HDR10 only or DV8/HDR10 or DV5 only (but not recommended as they have no HDR10 fallback). 3) Replace the FireTV 4K Max (and possibly 4K non-max as well?) with another streaming stick known to work with a DV8/HDR10+ Combo. Shield Pro does, but that may be as a consequence of not even supporting HDR10+ in the first place. Edited January 13 by rbjtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14927 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 Can anyone confirm if using the "Playback Correction" option in the Android TV app will cause the item to play properly (basically, make it transcode)? if so, we may have to put in a workaround to transcode these until Amazon issues a fix. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 (edited) 1 hour ago, ebr said: Can anyone confirm if using the "Playback Correction" option in the Android TV app will cause the item to play properly (basically, make it transcode)? if so, we may have to put in a workaround to transcode these until Amazon issues a fix. I can test this - technically I don't see why this would not work - assuming you transcode/tonemap it to SDR. The issue however, is you can't see the screen to change it (you get no screen output at all, only sound) - so I'll have to memorise the button presses and see if I can activate it to force it to transcode ... Edited January 13 by rbjtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4287 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 So a down,right x 6,button,down x 4,button,button (remebering I can't see what I'm doing on the screen) - this should force playback correction but this does not appear to work - it stays as a black screen. Only backing out seems to reset it. Sound works fine. If you could possibly force a transcode before it even enters this screen mode - then that may work. Happy to help test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14927 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 On 1/13/2024 at 10:32 AM, rbjtech said: So a down,right x 6,button,down x 4,button,button (remebering I can't see what I'm doing on the screen) - this should force playback correction but this does not appear to work - it stays as a black screen. You would probably have to do that twice... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicerDicer 2 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 On 1/13/2024 at 1:35 PM, rbjtech said: 1) Remove the HDR10+ metadata from the source file - leaving DV8/HDR10 only - this works fine as DV with fallback to HDR10 playback. (this is what i do). I can now confirm that this worked for me to. If anybody else is looking for an easy way to accomplish this: The DDVT tool features this as an option. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now