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while direct playing to Fire TV, Emby Server is using 100% of my network


rekit
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I believe this started when Emby for Fire TV updated in early February. When direct streaming from the server, even when the video's bitrate is low (4000 kbps right now for example), the server is maxing out my network usage according to task manager (using close to 100 Mbps) and causing the video to stutter on the Fire TV. It'll play for a couple seconds, pause for a second, play a couple more seconds, etc.

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wawilmsn

What type of video.  And, what should the bitrate be?  If it is MPEG 2 video (e.g. off the air in the US) the Fire stick (and I assume the Fire TV) does not have an MPEG 2 decoder.  I have a fire stick, and since it will not decode MPEG 2 (especially not in hardware), the server will transcode to MPEG 4.  Unless you have a somewhat powerful server, it will not have enough power and will cause stuttering, exactly as you described.  Also, I am not sure what the 4 mbps means. If it is transcoding, the bitrate would be lower than the original, so it might not be a significant number.  I am assuming the above describes your problem. If not, if the original is a higher bitrate than what your FireTV will handle or receive over your network, or if the server is set to a lower max bitrate, the server will also transcode it to a lower bitrate.  As for bitrate, as an example, HD off the air for me is typically 10-12 mbps.  

If the original file is MPEG4, and the bitrate is low enough (4 mbps would probably be low enough), then I don't know why it is being transcoded by the server.  Just to emphasize -- bottom line is that the FireStick, Roku, and a lot of other devices (I think including Fire TV) do not play MPEG 2, and therefore will not play OTA US TV.

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It's not being transcoded, the server says direct streaming. I'm testing some other files and it looks like it might be something to do with the codec used to encode the file because some h264 MP4s will play fine, and some have the problem I described. A couple differences I've noticed is the problem files metadata says "codec tag: avc1" and the working files don't have a "codec tag" at all. Also the problem files are "profile: main" and "level: 40" while the working files are high & 41.

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  • Solution

I guess that was it. I re-encoded one of the files and it works fine. It must've been those particular encoding settings or the software. Weird!

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