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Slow h/w transcoding on DS416 and extreme lag in video playback


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Hi all,

 

I´m new to Emby/Synology so please bare with me if I ask any dumb questions... :rolleyes:

 

I recently bought a new DS416 in order to consolidate all media (movies, photos, music, etc) and coming from PC/MediaPortal I have decent knowledge of how things work in general. However, I´ve ran into some issues with my Emby setup and hopefully someone else out there has experienced the same problem(s) and has a magical solution... :P

 

My DS416 runs on 4 Western Digital Red NAS 3TB harddrives (SHR) with DSM version 6.1.1-15101 Update 4. Emby Server is recently upgraded to version 3.2.19.0 and is setup according to Embyserver for NAS and Synology : Setting Up Your Media Library Share. After this I´ve imported all my videos and everything seems ok except the playback which sucks... <_<

 

My friend who recommended Emby said something about subtitles, i.e. Emby tries to transcode certain types and therefor the CPU is constantly on ~99% (where mono eats about 49% and ffmpeg about 49%). I´m not sure what to do about that more than I´ve done below..?!?

  593e8cf1f0aac_emby_subtitles.jpg

 

So, any help here is greatly appreciated.

 

He also mentioned that native apps are better than 3d part, i.e. browsers, but regardless if I try to watch a movie on my Ipad (native app), my Sony Bravia (native app) or from Firefox, the playback is lagging in 90% of the cases. If/when I disable the subtitles the playback usually gets better but regardless filetype (avi, mkv, mpeg) there´s always a lag and when I check the Emby Dashboard for active devices, the playback is almost always in Transcoding Mode instead of Direct Play or Direct Streaming.

 

Every single movie that´s lagging through Emby, works perfect with VLC from my old (network attached) computer regardless if I use subtitles or not. Besides my old computer, everything else is connected wireless, i.e. my TV, all devices, etc. I´ve also tried to use hardware acceleration; VA API and Intel Quick Sync but no change at all.

 

My router (Asus RT-AC87U with MerlinWRT) is setup with port-forwarding and Emby has both an in-home and remote address which are tested and working. The general WiFi throughput on the LAN side is between 150-500Mbit depending on the connected device and that is sufficient for casting a 720p movie to a Chromecast on the 2d floor without any lag.

 

I don´t intend to use the DS416/Emby to stream to multiple devices, I just want to be able to watch a 720/1080 video at home, from my Sony TV, with smooth playback and subtitles.

 

So, my questions are:

1. Anyone else having the same problem?

2. Have I missed something in the setup?

3. Is there any other/newer ffmpeg version that´s better for my DS416?

 

Like I said, I´m new to DS416/Emby but I know my way around computers/network/routers/etc and I´m more than willing to try out any solution that might fix my problems.

 

 

Tnx in advance.

 

Cheers,

Edited by Gogge
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sonny_life

Hello,

DS416 have poor video transcoding capabilities. I suggest you to avoid video transcoding at all.

It order to do that you have to set player quality to Auto and try to use mkv or mp4 files instead of avi. Avi files will force almost any media server to transcode.

I hope this helps.

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As I wrote in my first post, "...but regardless filetype (avi, mkv, mpeg) there´s always a lag..."

 

Hello,

DS416 have poor video transcoding capabilities. I suggest you to avoid video transcoding at all.

It order to do that you have to set player quality to Auto and try to use mkv or mp4 files instead of avi. Avi files will force almost any media server to transcode.

I hope this helps.

 

Regarding the playback quality, I´ve tried almost every setting, from Auto down to barely visible.

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Hi @@Luke and tnx for the reply.

 

Like I wrote earlier, my main app is from the Bravia TV and that version is 1.4.17g. If/when I try from Firefox that version is 53.0.3 (32-bit).

Hi there @@Gogge, what Emby app were you trying to play from? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue.

 

Also keep in mind the advice from above, that your device has limited transcoding capability.

 

Thanks !

 

When you say that my device has limited transcoding capabilities, does that equal NONE or at least one stream (if necessary)? The funny thing is that 95% of all movies I play from my S7 Edge, over the Internet, are shown as Direct Play in Emby and are actually working, but when I play the same movie from my TV or Firefox, on the LAN, it goes into Transcoding Mode.

 

I just wanna make sure that everything in Emby is correct before I give up on this p-o-s NAS and return to my htpc and run everything from there... ^_^ 

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@@Gogge, can we please look at a specific example? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue.

 

Thanks !

 

Sure thing, here are both server- and transcode logs from a few minutes ago.

 

For comparison; When I play this movie from Firefox, the ffmpeg process on the NAS is ~90% and the lag is obvious regardless if the subtitles are active or not. When I play the exact same movie from my S7 Edge, the ffmpeg process is ~15% and the playback is smooth without any lag with subtitles active.

 

And here´s the mediainfo for the movie.

593f95fc3a533_emby_mediainfo.jpg

ffmpeg-transcode-b77ba203-002a-4bcf-8af6-d1654097718a.txt

server-63632908800.txt

Edited by Gogge
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At @@Gogge it looks like you are just not getting fast enough transcoding in order to make this playable. firefox does not support ac3 audio so there will always be some ffmpeg involvement, but with some tweaking you can avoid the video conversion. try adjusting the quality setting. If it's not on Auto, try setting it to Auto. If it's already on Auto, try setting it to 10mbps, which is higher than the video and will allow us to just copy it. If the network connection can't handle the 10mbps, then you may need a faster cpu.

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@Luke: I ran some new tests this morning and the results are quite amazing... and really don´t make any sense at all! B)

 

I played the same movie again, "13 Hours The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" from work, i.e. over the Internet, in my Edge browser, with subtitles active there was NO lag whatsoever. CPU usage on the DS416 was ~40% with one ffmpeg process active. Then I played another movie, "John Wick 2" which has similar codecs (AC3) from my Firefox browser with subtitles active and this movie played without any lag aswell. According to Emby dashboard, both films were Direct Streaming. The CPU went up to ~65% with two ffmpeg processes active.

 

So to stretch things to the limit, I opened up a Teamviewer session to my computer at home (the one I ran the tests on yesterday) and fired up Firefox and ran "13 Hours The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" simultaneously, with subtitles, and that movie also played without any lag. CPU on the DS416 was then at ~99% with three active ffmpeg processes. The movie is even viewable through Teamviewer without any major lag or sound discrepancies.

 

Like I wrote before, these two movies both have identical AC3 audio codecs, whereas "John Wick 2" has an SRT subtitle codec and "13 Hours The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" has an SUBRIB subtitle codec.

 

The ONLY thing I changed from yesterday until now, besides upgrading Emby to 3.2.20.0, was to change Audio boost when downmixing from 2 --> 1.

 

From not be able to play even ONE movie, on the LAN, to be able to play THREE movies from two different locations, it just doesn´t make any sense to me... Can you please help me understand how this is possible? I´ve attached the serverlog and all three ffmpeg logs.

 

ps. My internal network is capable of pushing way beyond 300Mbit wireless and approx. 900Mbit wired, so I don´t think the network connection(s) are the bottleneck here. ds.

 

 

Tnx.

server-63632995200.txt

ffmpeg-remux-a804a65f-f43e-4bbd-b6b8-cea394c3f5c8.txt

ffmpeg-remux-eeac8c9c-e3b3-448d-8314-5a7a64c4ed96.txt

ffmpeg-remux-b22e7f7c-3185-4a1a-9b0a-32fde010bf9e.txt

Edited by Gogge
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So you want to know what was the issue in the past? I'm not sure, I think that's going to be hard to say. Maybe the machine had something else going on at the time. But none of these ffmpeg processes are converting video so 3 simultaneous sounds reasonable to me.

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