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FireTV - no video


arrbee99

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arrbee99

Fairly recently, though don't know from which version, 1st gen FireTV won't play some 720p MKV video's. It plays DVD rips, plays Bluray rips, will play some 720's but not others. Didn't work on 1.2.11 and also not on the new version released on 16th July.

 

The first below plays, the second doesn't, for example...

 

578c1bde9265d_EmbyFireTVThe100info.jpg

 

578c1c0faeb48_EmbyFireTVPugininfo.jpg

 

Also see that latest version no longer indicates whether it is transocding / direct playing / anything at all (did show on 1.2.11).

 

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BeppoMonkeyBoy

The direct/v trans/v display is visable if you enable the debug options, realized that last night

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Can you please describe "doesn't play"?  What, exactly, happens?  Is a transcode log created?

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arrbee99

Yes debug shows whether it is direct playing / transcoding. It used to show it without that setting though, would be better if it went back to that I think.

 

Also, sorry, forgot to say, not playing means sound but no video, hence first image above has video and sound, second image above has sound but no video.

 

Have just (hopefully) sent some logs from the FireTV when I tried playing the beginning of two videos - the first was sound, no video and the second had video and sound.

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What was the Emby user name and what did you play?  Which one worked and which one didn't?  Was the one that didn't work also recorded with iPlayer?

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arrbee99

Emby user name, if you mean the one I click on when I open the web start page, its (now don't tell anyone) thebigschoolers. Can't remember which ones I played while the FireTV had debugging on and which were presumably sent to you (can always do it again though). It does seem to be a problem with iPlayer mp4's, as non seem to play on FireTV, but PlayOn mp4's all seem to be fine. Iplayer mp4's and PlayOn mp4's both play fine in Chrome and ET.

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Are all the ones that fail also 25fps?

 

Can you please reproduce the issue and send a log with just that in it and then tell me when you sent it and what you played. Thanks.

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arrbee99

Had a quick look and the iPlayer stuff all seems to be 25fps. The PlayOn stuff is 30fps and works. Other 25fps stuff plays but they are DVD / BR rips and are mkv's while the iPlayer stuff is mp4.

 

Have hopefully sent a FireTV log to you - Britain's Flying Past, 25fps, says Direct playing, sound but no picture, sent 17:19 New Zealand time.

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VLC is reporting a hardware acceleration error trying to play that item.  I'm not sure if we can identify anything about the video that would cause that though.  About the only thing I can think to do is to try and trap that error and re-start the video via transcoding.

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Okay, if you can get into the beta and try 1.2.25, I think it will recover and attempt to play these items in a different manner.

 

Please see Android Open Beta Testing on how to join the program for Amazon.  Please be sure to enable marketing communications first. Thanks.

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arrbee99

Went to the amazon page as instructed and everything seems to be enabled already. Hopefully you can send me an invite ? Ta.

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arrbee99

So put the beta 1.2.25 version on the FTV and it now says 'Player error encountered. Will retry...' which it does, and then the video (and audio) plays well. Awesome stuff. Server also says its Direct Playing.

 

Have only tested it on 2 files so far, will try to do more.... when I can actually get near the TV.

 

Any idea if its a VLC thing if they'll fix it ? Should I report it to them as well ?

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Whatever it is it is pretty specific to those files.  If you re-encoded them it might fix it.

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arrbee99

Would you know if you are going to leave that fix in, as it works well so far, or is it breaking something else ? If it stays then I guess re-encoding would be optional as I can live with that pop-up message.

 

Otherwise would you or anyone happen to know of any re-encode that might work (I have Handbrake) that would fix without compressing ? Thanks.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Jibest

I have noticed this behaviour with iplayer mp4 files in the Android Emby app on my phone & tablet. Will this be fixed in a future update to the app? Is there a beta version where this is resolved as with the Firetv?

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I have noticed this behaviour with iplayer mp4 files in the Android Emby app on my phone & tablet. Will this be fixed in a future update to the app? Is there a beta version where this is resolved as with the Firetv?

 

Hi, can you provide a sample file for testing? thanks.

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Yes, unfortunately it looks to be a problem in libvlc, which hopefully will be resolved the next time we update. Everything is normal during playback, no error messages from libvlc, just no video. For now you'll have to lower the quality setting to force it to transcode

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Vlc 2.02 mentions resolving a black screen, so there is a chance that when we update libvlc, that fix will resolve your issue. I can't say when we'll be doing that but it's on our radar.

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arrbee99

Just to mention, this seems to have started again, for the same files (apparently 25fps iPlayer mp4 files) using the FireTV beta app. Definitely the latest beta, not sure about the previous few versions. It says its going to try again playing the file, but instead of succeeding it fails again and says something like 'to many tries. Giving up'.

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Just to mention, this seems to have started again, for the same files (apparently 25fps iPlayer mp4 files) using the FireTV beta app. Definitely the latest beta, not sure about the previous few versions. It says its going to try again playing the file, but instead of succeeding it fails again and says something like 'to many tries. Giving up'.

 

I believe that is different from the issue they were discussing as, with his file, there was no error reported.  Plus, your items appear to also not play in the Google player so updating libvlc isn't necessarily going to help those.

 

If you force those items to transcode, I believe they will play.

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arrbee99

Don't know if its different or not, just saying your solution to the problem I originally reported was to tell it to retry but with transcoding (though the server did still say it was direct playing or maybe direct streaming even after your fix), as per your post #9, and it worked really well, now its back again in later beta versions. I can still tell them to transcode (can I do that specifically for that type of file or folder) if it wasn't already ?

 

Also, saw this ' Fixes for splitted RAR, MKV segmented, mp4 and Real media files playback. ' in the vlc 2.02 page, so maybe it'll help.....

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