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Switch if VC1 gets transcoded


shorty1483

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shorty1483

A friend of mine gave my a FireTV Stick as a present and I installed Jarvis 16.1 with latest Emby Beta Addon. Everything is working very nice for such a small stick. Only thing bothering is the lack of VC-1 support. I read here and there in the forum but did not find a solution satisfying (manually bringing the server to transcode the VC1 by lowering Emby for Kodi bitrate setting beneath the original stream rate).

 

The only thing I found so far was this thread http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/25803-forece-transcoding-for-specific-codecs/ where @@Angelblue05 suggested the OP to ask in another forum section. But it seems this never happened.

 

Request:

So since there seem to be more devices with VC1 playback problems (not just FireTV), i want to request a switch/setting to turn transcoding VC1 on with the same effect already present in the FireTV Emby app (transcoding). I don't know if this needs to be inquired by the Emby for Kodi plugin to the server or if this needs to be a setting in the server itself perhaps based on the device type connecting.

 

 

If someone points me in a better direction or tells me that something is already existing ( @@ebr @@Luke ), I will of course withdraw my request :D

 

 

 

Thanks for your attention guys.

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These would be in-app settings, for each particular app to require transcoding for that format or not.

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shorty1483

These would be in-app settings, for each particular app to require transcoding for that format or not.

 

Thanks Luke for clarification.

 

@@Angelblue05 @@im85288 My dearest Kodi devs :wub:   :D  Any chance to get a VC1 force transcoding switch implemented into Emby for Kodi settings? 

 

PS: First day using Kodi after years of confusion, but with Emby it's awesome. Enjoy your Ko-Fi beer Angelblue05 ;)

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Angelblue05

Can you grab the media info in emby for the VC1 content? Thanks

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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shorty1483

Can you grab the media info in emby for the VC1 content? Thanks

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Sure m8

5799060cc7066_vc1_1.jpg579906159877e_vc1_2.jpg

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shorty1483

@@Angelblue05 After fiddling around for two days with Kodi, I realized some problems running Kodi on low power devices when they cannot be connected to an amp with audio passthrough. Luckily my bedroom TV is ac3 capable so I can passthrough it, but with DTS, the firetv stick goes down [emoji16] but except from that, Kodi with Titan skin runs flawlessly... Only solution so far is to lower the max streaming rate to force transcoding. But that's nothing for the wife [emoji16]

Since the working steps seem to be the same like with VC1 transcoding implementation, may I ask you a last favor?

Is it possible to also have a force transcoding setting switch for codecs dca and TRUEHD?

Or better, a so called low device profile, where VC1 and perhaps other video codecs are transcoded to h264 and all audio is transcoded to 2ch aac. Similar like the option in ebr 's FireTV app. In that way, also people with low end devices regarding the Playback itself are able to use their more powerful servers and the small powered Kodi device like FireTV stick just needs to play...

If something like that is gonna happen I'll gonna invite you another beer

your work on this is really appreciated!


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shorty1483

When playing a transcoded stream, I get prompted to choose subtitles. If I choose my external one, the playback start fails. Everytime.

 

Is this a knows issue or do I need to try to grab a lot?

 

Gesendet von meinem HTC One M8 mit Tapatalk

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shorty1483

@@shorty1483

 

Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, was stuck updating to win 10.

 

No it's not a known issue. Does it also crash when no subtitles is selected? Can you post your Kodi log: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/17599-how-to-report-a-problem/

 

OK, got the log :D, I hope the explanation is detailed enough. First I have to say this happens with every Emby server transcoded file, I tried various ones. With no subs it works (as explained down the page).

 

Settings: 

579b0c9407ad7_IMAG0005.jpg

 

 

Steps to reproduce:

 

1. Choose a movie with an external srt sub (named moviename.language.forced.srt) and set up a bitrate lower than the movie one to force transcoding on Emby Server.

 

2. Start the Stream

 

3. This pops up before stream starts:

579b0cc313061_IMAG0003.jpg

 

4a. Choose No Subtitles = Stream starts without problems

 

4b. Choose the external srt sub = Stream fails

ERROR: EXCEPTION Thrown (PythonToCppException)

579b0d22aadc6_IMAG0004.jpg

 

 

Kodi log attached.

 

 

Thanks m8!

kodi.log

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shorty1483

Awesome, subtitle problem's solved. Well done! Yay  :D

 

 

10 mins ago was the time to present Kodi to my wife. She really likes the optic (I guess anyone does ;) ) Looking forward to get something like the requested above and the show goes on...will upload then a proof of comcept video to the forum user vids section:D

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Angelblue05

@@shorty1483

 

Can you give this build a try?

 

I've added the option to force transcode movies and episodes. To access the option, open the context menu on the movie/episode > Emby options > Play Transcoded

 

Let me know how it works out for you. I will have to think about how to implement the codec transcode profile... but at least you should be able to view your content now.

plugin.video.emby-2.2.20~alpha.zip

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shorty1483

@@Angelblue05

 

3 Usecases:

 

1. Default bitrate limit 100Mbps

  • non h264 Video is transcoded by server to h264 with the same bitrate as source Small-checkmark.png
  • h264 Video is stream copied Small-checkmark.png
  • Audio is transcoded by server to AC3 5.1 384 kbps Small-checkmark.png

 

2. Default bitrate limit e.g. 20 Mbps, Movie bitrate under bitrate limit

  • non h264 Video is transcoded by server to h264 with the same bitrate as source Small-checkmark.png
  • h264 Video is stream copied Small-checkmark.png
  • Multichannel Audio is transcoded by server to AC3 5.1 384 kbps Small-checkmark.png
  • 2.0 Audio is stream copied Small-checkmark.png

 

3. Default bitrate limit e.g. 20 Mbps, Movie bitrate over bitrate limit

  • Video is transcoded by server to h264 20 Mbps Small-checkmark.png
  • Multichannel Audio is transcoded by server to AC3 5.1 384 kbps Small-checkmark.png
  • 2.0 Audio is stream copied Small-checkmark.png

 

So basically this seems to work at first try. Yay  :D

 

Suggestions:

  • Can the server be forced to transcode audio to 2.0 AAC? atm my small device still needs to downsample the audio from 5.1 to 2.0 because 5.1 is nonsense when not using an AMP. This seems to create also a higher CPU load (but the load is at least not as heavy than with DTS streams :D ). On the Fire TV / Stick I think a lot of CPU load which leads to buffer issues is due to Audio Processing.
  • Can the Play Transcoded option be shown in the same manner like the external subtitle selection with transcoding on when simply hitting the Play Button? Another solution could be that the transcode option is always on optionally (perhaps a settings switch in Emby Plugin settings). This would be more reliable for usual no techy users like my wife since the current option also does not work on movie details screen.

 

Thanks for your support until now! This time chocolate sent as announced previously.

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shorty1483

 

  • Can the Play Transcoded option be shown in the same manner like the external subtitle selection with transcoding on when simply hitting the Play Button? Another solution could be that the transcode option is always on optionally (perhaps a settings switch in Emby Plugin settings). This would be more reliable for usual no techy users like my wife since the current option also does not work on movie details screen.

 

 

I forgot to mention, I think positive side effects of an implementation like above would be the respectation of watching status and resuming videos, which would currently not work since the transcoding process always starts at the beginning of the video when using the option via Emby Options->Force Transcoding.

 

Furthermore the usability to start videos from widgets on homescreen would then be back again.

 

 

I'm willing to test everything you give me :D

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shorty1483

 I will have to think about how to implement the codec transcode profile... but at least you should be able to view your content now.

 

After further tests, I just added another differentiation to the above usecases (Multichannel Audio vs. 2.0 Audio in Files).

 

I know that the technical realisation is not as simple as theoretical planning, but depending on the behaviour after your .20alpha I would suggest to simply set a "Low Profile" switch between max bitrate field and the streaming subtitles switch. When enabled, it activates permanently exactly the behaviour triggered like going into movie and choose play transcoded.

 

In this way everything that needs to be transcoded gets transcoded, but things like already present 2.0 Audio gets direct streamed. Only change to your present implementation should be a forced multichannel audio transcoding to 2.0. I already tried to change forceTranscode to True inside the plugin python files for myself, but that gives me a playback error.

 

Cheers

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Angelblue05

Yeah, I will take what you suggested into consideration. This was just to get you by for now, because playback needs to be overhauled to accommodate new emby playback features. I do not have the time to code it right now, but once I get to that point, I'll have more for you to test.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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shorty1483

Recognized if I play a non h264 movie (e.g. VC1) which gets transcoded by the server into h264, Kodi changes the MediaInfo also to h264. When syncing items from time to time Kodi takes again the info from Emby that it is VC1. But in meantime this makes it difficult in sessions to identify if the user needs to use the "Play Transcoded" menu or if he can direct play the movie. I know all of my movie codecs, but my wife is happy if he remembers a movies name :D

 

 

 

PS: @@Angelblue05 I returned my FireTV stick since I was not fully satisfied. Wednesday I get the FireTV 4K which will be connected hardwired. Enough said, I just want to explain that this topic here will be still actual since all Androids are not well designed for VC1 and the I think reducing device load (e.g. downmix sound) is always actual. Even the FireTV 4K runs perfect I will still be your guinea pig the next months when you got time to code  ;)

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xnappo

Hmm - wonder if we can 'Play from DLNA' instead of 'Play from HTTP'..?

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