revengineer 122 Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Hi, Yesterday I ran into an issue with audio dropouts playing a TV show recorded with emby on my Roku Premiere+, which is connected to my home network through wired ethernet. I found that single word are muted on a cadence of about once per minute, and on two occasions the dropout was several seconds long. For one of the longer dropouts, I rewound the video 3 times, and the issue occurred at the same spot every time. The same TV shows plays without issues in the browser on my PC. The TV show was recorded with emby from my HD Homerun Prime, and the recording was automatically transcoded to MP4. The media info is shown below. The total bitrate (video+audio) is ~1000 kbps so network issues seem not to be the cause. To test whether the network is an issue, I played a movie in m4v format encoded with Handbrake. The total bitrate was ~2700 kbps. There were no issues with the playback, it was flawless. The media info for this file is shown below. Could it be that there is an issues on Roku with certain encodings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14903 Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 The browser was probably transcoding the item whereas the Roku was probably direct streaming it. If it happened at the same exact place when replaying the video it seems it may be an issue with the stream itself (notice it is mono). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revengineer 122 Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 If it's a stream issue then this is an emby problem because the TV show was recorded and transcoded to .mp4 by emby. I also tried playing the video on Fire TV Stick and that too worked without problem. It may be that the Roku is not compatible with the emby generated .mp4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revengineer 122 Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 In the browser, the "stats for nerds" shows DirectPlay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37009 Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 I would suggest trying a recording to mkv. Thanks ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revengineer 122 Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 Thanks, Luke. Made the change, will report back on the weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 I would suggest trying a recording to mkv. Thanks ! Roku has acknowledged this bug. It affects devices in different ways. For some it causes a 50% reduction in sound at these intervals rather than outright silence. This "wavering" audio has existed since 7.5 firmware. I do notice in the new 7.7 firmware the decibel level the audio starts at initially is much much higher now than it was before. I can now set my TV on 17 or 18 as volume, rather than 35 or 36. I still notice the audio wavering in decibel level, but you can still hear the people talking in the audio now, where before it was a serious issue having to turn up the TV to insane levels. We must wait on roku to fix their firmwares to fully fix the issue. The work-around using mkv may work in the interim, but I suspect the issue is deeper than that. I suspect it is the way the roku is manipulating AAC to fit in every flavor. The devices now decode AAC on the device and sends out its own version of it over hdmi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37009 Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Thanks @speeches ! I guess this comment needs revising If it's a stream issue then this is an emby problem because the TV show was recorded and transcoded to .mp4 by emby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revengineer 122 Posted July 31, 2017 Author Share Posted July 31, 2017 The symptom I was experiencing was different, my video went completely silent for several seconds at a time about every minute or two. It was not just a volume reduction. Having said that, it is of course possible that this is a Roku firmware issue. This did not occur to me because I did not experience this with my Roku 2. It is possible that the new Roku Premiere+ is a different story. Fortunately, I can confirm that using .mkv as the container solves the problem. Thank you for the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37009 Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 Thanks for the feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revengineer 122 Posted August 2, 2017 Author Share Posted August 2, 2017 Roku has acknowledged this bug. It affects devices in different ways. For some it causes a 50% reduction in sound at these intervals rather than outright silence. This "wavering" audio has existed since 7.5 firmware. I do notice in the new 7.7 firmware the decibel level the audio starts at initially is much much higher now than it was before. I can now set my TV on 17 or 18 as volume, rather than 35 or 36. I still notice the audio wavering in decibel level, but you can still hear the people talking in the audio now, where before it was a serious issue having to turn up the TV to insane levels. We must wait on roku to fix their firmwares to fully fix the issue. The work-around using mkv may work in the interim, but I suspect the issue is deeper than that. I suspect it is the way the roku is manipulating AAC to fit in every flavor. The devices now decode AAC on the device and sends out its own version of it over hdmi. Do you have a link to where this Roku issue is discussed? I could not locate this with a google search. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted August 2, 2017 Share Posted August 2, 2017 (edited) Do you have a link to where this Roku issue is discussed? I could not locate this with a google search. Thank you! General Discussion: Audio Dropout in 7.7: https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=104029&p=565976#p565811 Developer Forums: Video Crashes player in 7.7: https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=104589 The firmware threads are usually the best to spot these issues in. Edited August 2, 2017 by speechles 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revengineer 122 Posted August 3, 2017 Author Share Posted August 3, 2017 General Discussion: Audio Dropout in 7.7: https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=104029&p=565976#p565811 Developer Forums: Video Crashes player in 7.7: https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=104589 The firmware threads are usually the best to spot these issues in. Thank you, very interesting indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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