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Unable to play transcoded video on Nexus Player


dingtech

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dingtech

I am running the latest Emby client on Nexus Player (Android 6.0) and Emby server Version 3.0.5724.6 on PC. Direct video play works fine but none of the videoes that requires transcoding works. Nexus player just displays the loading circular icon. I could see multiple ffmeg.exe on server machine and even after I exited the Emby client, those ffmeg.exe were still there and had to be manually killed.

 

Does anyone else have the same problem? Thank you in advance.

 

Log files attached.

transcode-log.zip

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That's a 20Mb/s video with HD Audio in 7.1 and it looks like your server simply cannot transcode it fast enough.

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dingtech

Thank you for your help. So if the server cannot transcode fast enough, the client just stucks in loading mode? Because in this case the video never started on client, it would be nice if the client can at lease show something even if just the choppy ones. The bigger problem though is that even after I exited the Emby client, ffmeg.exe were still running on server and had to be manually killed.

 

I also noticed when this occurs, CPU usage on server is not very high (5%) but the network traffic is very high, 500Mb/sec download speed (retreiving the movie file from NAS)? When transcoding works, CPU is high but network is mild (20Mb/sec).

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I think there is a situation where, if you try to exit playback while it is still trying to load the file, the server can get confused and not release the ffmpeg process (perhaps you are quitting before the process actually starts).

 

I've only seen this happen with Live TV when it won't stream due to bad signal and then I've had to go manually kill the ffmpeg processes on the server to get it going again.

 

You may have gotten into a situation like this by repeatedly trying to play this item and building up processes on the server until it was just saturated.

 

You might try re-starting your server and then trying to play this item and just let the player do what it needs to to get started.  If you were also trying to display subtitles this could delay the start up quite a bit as well.

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dingtech

I compared the log with the one that transcoding works and noticed the main difference was the failed one tried to load subtitle in ffmpeg while the success one did not:

-copyts -vf "subtitles='//whs2011/Videos/HD_Video/ABC.mkv:si=2',setpts=PTS -0/TB"

 

so I went to settings and disabled the subtitles and now the transcoding works on both files. So the problem appears to be related to subtitles.

 

When subtitle was enabled, the video never started on client (at least not before 5 minutes). The server showed very high download traffic (500Mb/sec) but low CPU usage. My video files are on a NAS, not sure if that makes any difference.

 

I have been using Emby since the 1st version of Media Browser on Windows Media Center and love it. It will be great if I can make subtitles work on other devices as well.

 

Thank you very much!

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Extracting subtitles from such a high-bitrate video is going to be painful.  If you could get that content to where it doesn't need to transcode, it would work just fine.  Or, if you could get the subs in an external file, that also would probably be fine.

 

But the process of attempting to extract them on the fly is going to potentially be a problem.

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dingtech

Thank you very much for the quick response. I did a couple more tests and what I found is:

1. External .srt subtitle: seem to be the only type that works reliably, with either direct or transcoding

2. Embeded subtitle: always fails (video never starts) regardless direct or transcode mode. Even when a video doesn't need to be transcoded without subtitle, enabling the subtitle causes it to be transcoded.

3. External non SRT subtitle (.sub): always transcode and video can start but audio and video is totally out of sync.

 

Also in 2 and 3, back button/exiting client doesn't stop ffmpeg.exe on server. Have to manually kill them from task manager.

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Thank you very much for the quick response. I did a couple more tests and what I found is:

1. External .srt subtitle: seem to be the only type that works reliably, with either direct or transcoding

2. Embeded subtitle: always fails (video never starts) regardless direct or transcode mode. Even when a video doesn't need to be transcoded without subtitle, enabling the subtitle causes it to be transcoded.

3. External non SRT subtitle (.sub): always transcode and video can start but audio and video is totally out of sync.

 

Also in 2 and 3, back button/exiting client doesn't stop ffmpeg.exe on server. Have to manually kill them from task manager.

 

We're looking at these, although for the 3rd one, the server currently does not support transcoding of the external idx/sub format. It's on the to do list.

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2. Embeded subtitle: always fails (video never starts) regardless direct or transcode mode. Even when a video doesn't need to be transcoded without subtitle, enabling the subtitle causes it to be transcoded.

 

 

What kind of embedded subtitles?

 

Have you disabled VLC?

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dingtech

Following is the output from MediaInfo:
Text #2
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : UTF-8
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                            : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

 

I started the movie without subtitle and the screen shows "direct/v" mode, but once I selected the subtitle, it said "Burning subtitle may take a few minutes..." and switched to transcode mode. Attached are the server logs.

 

No, I didn't disabled VLC. I think Emby is using the builtin VLC player?

transcode-log.zip

Edited by dingtech
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That subtitle format is not one we recognize as being able to be embedded.  In fact, I'm not familiar with it at all.  Where did it come from?

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dingtech

Thank you very much!

 

I tried the new beta version (1.1.17) and embedded UTF-8 text subtitle worked great now. One minor thing: there is ghosting on all the texts. See attached picture.

 

Another stability issue: I used Home key to exit while the Emby was playing a video and after a while when I tried to open Emby again, all I got was a blank screen. I had to restart Nexus Player to make it work again.

 

Displaying embeded subtitle in transcode mode still doesn't work, saying "Burn in may take a few minutes" and never starting. But I guess that is expected.

It would be nice though if Emby can ask the server to stop ffmpeg.exe after I click on the back button or exit the app. Right now I still have to go to server to kill those ffmpeg.exes.

 

Again thank you for the quick response!

post-81577-0-55973700-1445827473_thumb.jpg

Edited by dingtech
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"Never" is a long time :).  I imagine if you waited long enough, the stream would eventually start.  In my testing of trying to burn in embedded subs in hi-def content, I think I saw one take nearly five minutes to start.

 

As for the ffmpeg issue - The app does tell the server to stop when you exit that screen.  I imagine the problem is that the server is still in the middle of starting the stream so there is nothing to stop when the request is made.  Something we'd need to see if we can improve somehow on the server end.

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dingtech

I guess I was not patient enough to wait for the video to start. The fact that my files are on a different NAS machine probably makes it worse.

 

Yes, it would be nice if the server can detect the app is no longer streaming and kill ffmpegs.

 

Thank you guys for the great works!

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