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A couple of issues with Tizen app (UK)


matf

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First up, thanks so much for releasing this in the UK! Lovely job. Well, almost...

 

Samsung Model: UE40MU6400

Samsung Software: 1132.6

Emby App: 1.0.29 (I thought only 1.0.25 was released but hey-ho!)

Emby Server: 3.2.33.0

 

Two issues:

1) 90% of GUI copy is 'placeholder' copy i.e. 'ButtonSkip'. It's not actually a huge problem for me, just looks a bit messy.

 

2) Audio transcoding

As we know, for some bizarre reason Samsung has decided that you have to manually change the audio settings to switch between DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+ sources etc. There's no way my partner is going to do this, so I've chosen DD by default. However, that means whenever I play a non Dolby Digital format, the audio is transcoded (according to my AVR) to stereo PCM. 

 

So what I'd like to be able to do is transcode everything non DD to AAC/AC3 5.1 (this is what the Plex tizen app does I think and it works quite well). Is there a way I can do this on the Emby Server?

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Issue 1 is fixed in the next version which.

 

For Issue 2, it could be possible to add a user option to force transcoding of DTS to AC3 5.1 but not sure how many people would want take this option instead of switching to DTS

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I respectfully disagree.

Freesat HD in the UK is broadcast in DD. Amazon and Netflix are DD and DD+. So, much as I prefer DTS, it's easier for everyone in the house if the TV is set to DD.

Not everyone will want to (or even understand how to) see what format the audio is in, start playing the video, then leave the app, go into Samsung settings, go to Expert settings, change to DTS, come back out, in to the app, and play again. And then reverse the settings at the end when they want to watch TV.

It's a right pita basically. Hardly seamless, which is why I've bitten my tongue and just used DD in Plex. But I'd much rather have the option in Emby.

 

GoOd to know Issue 1 is fixed though, thank you.

Edited by matf
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Should say, I appreciate this is Samsung weirdness rather than an Emby issue, but it would be helpful if the app helped deal with it!

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  • 5 months later...
darknessgp

I'm a US owner of a MU6300.

 

for 1, I've noticed these place holders too, even now. I know it's a work in progress, but that seems like simple things.

 

for 2, I would LOVE a user option to force transcoding from DTS to AC3 5.1! Ideally, the TV would detect input properly, but here we are with Samsung claiming it works as intended with the fallback to stereo PCM. Basically everything else is pretty much DD source.

 

I know it's really a Samsung issue, but would be great to have Emby be able to work around it. A user option is the way Plex had gone (https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/244168/samsung-and-5-1-dts-playback), at least until recently when the option suddenly disappeared from their Tizen app.

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Maybe it disappeared because the tizen defect is getting resolved via firmware update?

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darknessgp

Maybe it disappeared because the tizen defect is getting resolved via firmware update?

I feel like that's really wishful thinking, as it's been on Plex's radar as an issue since the end of 2016 and even my own conversation with Samsung is them saying everything is working as intended with the fallback to PCM... Plus, I would think that they would remove the option after a firmware update is released and it is confirmed that it is no longer needed.

 

All that said, I would imagine that the level of effort on adding this is relatively low? Honestly, I've never worked with Tizen before, so IDK. I'd be more than willing to add it myself, but seems that the Tizen app is closed source?

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SamES

@@Luke, this might be worth considering for this platform.  I know it is a real headache and been an issue on the Tizen platform which Samsung always describe as being 'as designed'

 

Basically, you can select either DD or DTS as the HDMI out put format.  If you playback in any other format, it reverts to PCM.  There is no attempt made at switching output formats.  DTS is great, and when you want it, you have to change the TV settings, but for a family environment falling back to PCM is just plain ugly.

 

This isn't an app issue, and I wouldn't make this a default 'on' option, but user configurable would be useful to many people.

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FrostByte

Feel lucky.  I just ordered a 2018 TV and it appears they don't even support DTS so my better half couldn't change audio output even if she wanted (and she wouldn't either).

 

http://developer.samsung.com/tv/develop/specifications/media-specifications/2018-tv-video-specifications/

 

So yes, please add an option to override transcoding DTS.  

 

Also, if you're going to add user options to do that please consider adding user options to override the transcoding of HD audio for those that have sound bars and receivers which support it. 

 

I think most people who watch 4K movies now-a-day also want to hear the HD audio without it being transcoded.  The old Orsay app had user options similar to this because it couldn't/didn't auto detect external audio devices and if they supported certain audio formats.

 

I realize I could turn off transcoding at the server, but that isn't ideal for all clients.

 

It's really going to suck for us 2018 owners if that chart is correct and we can't bypass these restrictions and passthrough codecs which our receivers support :(

Edited by FrostByte
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FrostByte

This may effect any future design changes being considered in the app with audio input

 

Just saw Rtings did a review of the new 2018 NU8000 and not only is DTS 5.1 not supported, but it looks like DTS won't even be able to passthrough the ARC port to a receiver according to the review. 

 

If this holds up for all 2018 premium models including Qleds TVs then any work around for 2018s and the AC3/DTS issue mentioned above is pointless and I'll have to turn audio transcoding back on at the server.  The 2018 BD players though are listed as still supporting DTS.

 

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/nu8000

 

http://developer.samsung.com/tv/develop/specifications/media-specifications/2018-tv-video-specifications

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SamES

Wow, no wonder we can't get them to support automatically switching to DTS if this was on their roadmap.

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Consumers march towards the lowest price like zombies. From their point of view it's one less license to pay for which is savings they can pass on.

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FrostByte

Wow, no wonder we can't get them to support automatically switching to DTS if this was on their roadmap.

 

That was the one thing I always like about Orsay over Tizen, not having to deal with manually changing the audio output.  Samsung :(

 

Guess I won't have to worry about that now though

Edited by FrostByte
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vangeliis

 

 
First up, thanks so much for releasing this in the UK! Lovely job. Well, almost...
 
Samsung Model: UE40MU6400
Samsung Software: 1132.6
Emby App: 1.0.29 (I thought only 1.0.25 was released but hey-ho!)
Emby Server: 3.2.33.0
 
Two issues:
1) 90% of GUI copy is 'placeholder' copy i.e. 'ButtonSkip'. It's not actually a huge problem for me, just looks a bit messy.
 
2) Audio transcoding
As we know, for some bizarre reason Samsung has decided that you have to manually change the audio settings to switch between DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+ sources etc. There's no way my partner is going to do this, so I've chosen DD by default. However, that means whenever I play a non Dolby Digital format, the audio is transcoded (according to my AVR) to stereo PCM. 
 
So what I'd like to be able to do is transcode everything non DD to AAC/AC3 5.1 (this is what the Plex tizen app does I think and it works quite well). Is there a way I can do this on the Emby Server?

 

 

 

Hi @@matf,

 

Just tried the Emby app on my UE40MU4670 (UK model) and just like you I see a lot of "placeholder" text in the GUI. Overall the Emby team have done great with this app and that was one of the reasons why I bought a Samsung TV.

 

One thing I have noticed is navigating back does not work very well. For example, I'm watching a film then I stop it and hit the back button on my remote. When Emby returns to the film page the whole screen if shifted upwards (please see attached photo) with the PLAY, RESUME bottoms are almost not visible. Do you have the same?

 

With regards to the way newer Samsung TVs are handling audio passthrough I'm also very disappointed. Why on earth they implemented a manual audio switch is beyond me. My 5 year-old LG TV was doing this automatically. Anyway...

Perhaps the Emby Team could feed this back to Samsung and ask them to add an "AUTO" audio setting in a future firmware update? They won't listen to end-users but they may listen to developers?

 

Many thanks,

Vangeliis

 

post-244638-0-58379400-1522651848_thumb.jpg

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vangeliis

Consumers march towards the lowest price like zombies. From their point of view it's one less license to pay for which is savings they can pass on.

 

 

Hi @Luuk,

 

Just wondering can you make Emby handle the audio passthrough overwriting TizenOS's configuration? I know Infuse for AppleTV can do this while tvOS dos not support audio passthrough.

 

Thanks,

Vangeliis

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SamES

This is something we have looked into, but there is no method to override this option by an app.

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vangeliis

This is something we have looked into, but there is no method to override this option by an app.

 

 

Thanks @@SamES

 

Just wondered what happens when you hook up a Samsung soundbar to the telly. Does audio switch automatically then? If not have they handicapped their own products as well?

Edited by vangeliis
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SamES

Thanks @@SamES

 

Just wondered what happens when you hook up a Samsung soundbar to the telly. Does audio switches automatically then? If not have they handicapped their own products as well?

 

Good question, I've not tried with a soundbar but I'm sure someone has 

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FrostByte

@@SamES couldn't you add a switch to override transcoding of audio as a option in the app?  Others have said if you go over to the server and turn off transcoding of audio then the problem goes away and the app receives it without transcoding no matter what the TVs audio setting is.  Surely that can be done, it's basically what the old app from cmcg did

 

Edit: problem with the server option is that it makes it true for all client apps is the problem

Edited by FrostByte
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SamES

@@SamES couldn't you add a switch to override transcoding of audio as a option in the app?  Others have said if you go over to the server and turn off transcoding of audio then the problem goes away and the app receives it without transcoding no matter what the TVs audio setting is.  Surely that can be done, it's basically what the old app from cmcg did

 

Edit: problem with the server option is that it makes it true for all client apps is the problem

 

I don't see this.  If the TV has DD selected as the Digital Output Audio Format, and a DTS track is played, there is no transcoding, but the TV outputs PCM (unless you manually select DTS as the output format) 

 

The server is not doing anything to the stream, it is DirectPlaying.  With cmcg's app, the Orsay models would auto switch to the correct format, but Tizen has never done this.  It is a real pain, but I don't see anyway around it, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

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FrostByte

I don't see this.  If the TV has DD selected as the Digital Output Audio Format, and a DTS track is played, there is no transcoding, but the TV outputs PCM (unless you manually select DTS as the output format) 

 

The server is not doing anything to the stream, it is DirectPlaying.  With cmcg's app, the Orsay models would auto switch to the correct format, but Tizen has never done this.  It is a real pain, but I don't see anyway around it, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

 

 

In the user options of the old app it had a few audio settings to override the audio supported by the TV.  For instance if you had a soundbar which didn't support DTS, but your TV did support DTS.  The app had a setting where you could turn off (or on) the transcoding of audio no matter if the Orsay TV supported the codec and auto switched, the app would do what the setting had.  You could do the same for AC3, DTS, and AAC in the old app and the TV would passthrough the audio through ARC.  I believe CBers used this in his old TV/soundbar

 

So, as an example in the current app.  If you have a soundbar which supports TrueHD (and the TV doesn't we know) then you could tell the server to not transcode the track to AC3 and the server would not and then the TV passes through the audio to the soundbar as TrueHD using the ARC port.  There's been at least two people that have said they can essentially do this on the server now by turning off audio transcoding (but it effects all clients).  You're saying though that doesn't work and instead it's coming out PCM :(

Edited by FrostByte
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SamES

In the user options of the old app it had a few audio settings to override the audio supported by the TV.  For instance if you had a soundbar which didn't support DTS, but your TV did support DTS.  The app had a setting where you could turn off (or on) the transcoding of audio no matter if the Orsay TV auto switched, the app would do what the setting had.  You could do the same for AC3, DTS, and AAC in the old app and the TV would passthrough the audio through ARC.

 

So, as an example in the current app.  If you have a soundbar which supports TrueHD (and the TV doesn't we know) then you could tell the server to not transcode the track to AC3 and the server would not and then the TV passes through the audio to the soundbar as TrueHD using the ARC port.  There's been at least two people that have said they can essentially do this on the server now by turning off audio transcoding (but it effects all clients).  You're saying though that doesn't work

 

Correct, this is sort of the opposite problem.  It had the option to force transcoding (or not) to override the output switching.  In this case, there is no auto switching.

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FrostByte

Correct, this is sort of the opposite problem.  It had the option to force transcoding (or not) to override the output switching.  In this case, there is no auto switching.

 

 

Tizen :(

 

Is that the same if you have a TrueHD track and the TV is set at Dolby then?  Would the TV still convert to PCM if the server is told by the app to not convert it to AC3 like it does now?   If so, then the others must not have been able to tell the difference

 

I know that doesn't fix the current problem, but it would allow people to play HD audio from the app if they manually switched the TV to match the core codec

Edited by FrostByte
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vangeliis

And to make matters worse I'm not 100% convinced that Tizen does pass through audio correctly even if you manually switch audio settings.

The reason I'm saying that is because when I play files with DD-EX my Onkyo A/V connected to TV via HDMI-ARC recognises them as plain DD, while the same files were recognised as DD-EX with my old LG TV. The same stands for DTS-ES audio. I don't have a rear middle speaker so does not affect me, but still so disappointing. Now I have to spend more money to get a Shield TV.

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SamES

 

Tizen :(

 

Is that the same if you have a TrueHD track and the TV is set at Dolby then?  Would the TV still convert to PCM if the server is told by the app to not convert it to AC3 like it does now?   If so, then the others must not have been able to tell the difference

 

I know that doesn't fix the current problem, but it would allow people to play HD audio from the app if they manually switched the TV to match the core codec

 

 

Yes, I think that's correct.  As best as I can find, you cannot (officially) send TrueHD (lossless) via ARC due to bandwidth limitations.  DD+ (lossy) is fine.  eARC should support TrueHD, but not sure when eARC will be available in the model ranges.

 

On the LG forum there have been some claims of being able to play TrueHD by disabling transcoding on the server.  I have not been able to confirm this, but what I have found is that if there is a secondary audio track, the LG internal player will automatically switch to it if the TrueHD track is selected.  I tested this with a TrueHD primary track, and a secondary commentary track.  No matter what I did, with transcoding disabled I would only get the commentary track.  In stats for nerds, it is still DirectPlaying, and it thinks it is playing the TrueHD track, but it clearly isn't.  I expect this is what people are seeing.  I'm curious if anyone has actually seen their receiver switch to TrueHD, to be honest I doubt it given the ARC limitation.

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