Why is Emby transcoding, no transcoding plays fine

[xDDxxDDx 0]

Hello!

Whenever I try to play a high-bitrate file on my device, the playback doesn't want to start. If I just randomly jump to any point in the movie, it starts buffering and stuttering the playback.

I thought this was a bandwidth-issue, since I am on WiFi, but when I disable the automatic transcoding in the options for the user, the file plays perfectly.

So I thought, okay the problem is the transcoding. But why does Emby try to transcode the file if it plays without transcoding just fine? I thought transcoding only activates when it's needed, but if the file plays fine with transcoding disabled, why does Emby think it needs to do that?

I can't just disable transcoding, because when I'm away from home, I sometimes watch stuff as well and then I need the transcoding feature.

Thank you for your help!

[Luke 37248]

 

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

 

[xDDxxDDx 0]

Thanks for the quick response!

I fetched the logs, attaching them now, I hope everything is correct!

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-remux-17c6d271-e326-48df-923e-7bd93e5b81d6_1.txt

[Luke 37248]

Hi, it is transcoding due to the truehd audio not being supported by macOS. Does that answer your question?

[xDDxxDDx 0]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, it is transcoding due to the truehd audio not being supported by macOS. Does that answer your question?

It does, a bit. Is the transcoding done on my Macbook or on the Server itself? And how come the file plays just fine when I turn of transcoding?

[Happy2Play 8356]

15 hours ago, xDDxxDDx said:

It does, a bit. Is the transcoding done on my Macbook or on the Server itself? And how come the file plays just fine when I turn of transcoding?

The server and it shouldn't play normal or should say are you sure you have sound as it is not supported.

&VideoCodec=h264,hevc,mpeg2video&AudioCodec=ac3,eac3,mp3,aac

&TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported

If it play normal it would suggest it is capable of TrueHD but do not know all the variables of your testing.

Edited May 6 by Happy2Play

[Luke 37248]

20 hours ago, xDDxxDDx said:

It does, a bit. Is the transcoding done on my Macbook or on the Server itself? And how come the file plays just fine when I turn of transcoding?

The embedded player has the ability to decode it, but we need to close that loophole and not allow it due to dolby licensing reasons.

[xDDxxDDx 0]

5 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

The server and it shouldn't play normal or should say are you sure you have sound as it is not supported.

I just checked again, with a different file, but still TrueHD sound, and it does play and has sound when I turn off transcoding.

1 hour ago, Luke said:

The embedded player has the ability to decode it, but we need to close that loophole and not allow it due to dolby licensing reasons.

Thank you, now I know. So that probably means when the playback is stuttering or not loading at all, my server is taking too long to transcode the audio?

[Luke 37248]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:59 PM, xDDxxDDx said:

 

Thank you, now I know. So that probably means when the playback is stuttering or not loading at all, my server is taking too long to transcode the audio?

In general that is one possibility, but in your case, it looks like you are getting good transcoding performance. Have you updated to Emby Server 4.8.6? Has that helped?

[Happy2Play 8356]

Another guess could be the subtitles delivery method also.

[xDDxxDDx 0]

16 hours ago, Luke said:

In general that is one possibility, but in your case, it looks like you are getting good transcoding performance. Have you updated to Emby Server 4.8.6? Has that helped?

it kind of did and did not. While surprisingly, now the movies with TrueHD sound are playing (so I assume the transcoding is working), the movies don't want to start playing on their own. If I jump to a random point within the movie, it plays fine. And the going back to the beginning, everything is fine as well. This extends to AC3 as well. But weirdly enough, not to E-AC3 or any DTS audios... I'm starting to wonder if my Mac is causing the problems.

Do you have any ideas why that is happening now?

16 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Another guess could be the subtitles delivery method also.

I tried disabling the subtitles BEFORE starting the movie, that didn't change a thing sadly

Edited May 9 by xDDxxDDx

[Happy2Play 8356]

3 hours ago, xDDxxDDx said:

I tried disabling the subtitles BEFORE starting the movie, that didn't change a thing sadly

Does not necessarily change HLS delivery method though.  

07:30:01.326 Stream mapping:
07:30:01.326   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
07:30:01.326   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (truehd (native) -> ac3 (native))
07:30:01.326   Stream #0:2 -> #1:0 (subrip (srt) -> webvtt (native))

I quest the question should be does an item that does not have subtitles do the same thing?

[xDDxxDDx 0]

21 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Does not necessarily change HLS delivery method though.  

07:30:01.326 Stream mapping:
07:30:01.326   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
07:30:01.326   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (truehd (native) -> ac3 (native))
07:30:01.326   Stream #0:2 -> #1:0 (subrip (srt) -> webvtt (native))

I quest the question should be does an item that does not have subtitles do the same thing?

Yes. I tried playing a file that doesn't have any subtitles, and that didn't change the new problem from my previous post

But I had a look at the protocol that I attached. It says "encoder x264" with every file that has these playback problems for me. Any TrueHD and AC3 file is recognized as x264, even tho I know for sure they are all x265 files. May that be a problem for transcoding?

ffmpeg-transcode-da3d5fc9-7c90-4586-b12e-079119166c21_1.txt

[Happy2Play 8356]

But the subtitles are cause both tracks to be converted.

15:52:46.744 Stream mapping:
15:52:46.744   Stream #0:0 (hevc) -> format:default (graph 0)
15:52:46.744   Stream #0:3 (pgssub) -> scale:default (graph 0)
15:52:46.744   overlay:default (graph 0) -> Stream #0:0 (libx264)
15:52:46.744   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (truehd (native) -> ac3 (native))

 

[xDDxxDDx 0]

On 5/10/2024 at 6:37 PM, Happy2Play said:

But the subtitles are cause both tracks to be converted.

15:52:46.744 Stream mapping:
15:52:46.744   Stream #0:0 (hevc) -> format:default (graph 0)
15:52:46.744   Stream #0:3 (pgssub) -> scale:default (graph 0)
15:52:46.744   overlay:default (graph 0) -> Stream #0:0 (libx264)
15:52:46.744   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (truehd (native) -> ac3 (native))

 

I can see what you mean. But the last point as well shows that the truehd sound seems to be transcoded to ac3 as well, right?

I tried playing a file that definitely has NO subtitles, and ac3 sounds. so far it's been loading for 5 minutes. but Emby doesn't show any ffmpeg log whatsoever, I try to find it but the last one is hours old.

[Happy2Play 8356]

1 minute ago, xDDxxDDx said:

But the last point as well shows that the truehd sound seems to be transcoded to ac3 as well, right?

Correct as Luke already pointed out will become a license issue if direct played.