Shield - how is it as an Emby client?

[ShoutingMan 95]

How is the Nvidia Shield as an Emby client? Does it support Dolby Atmos or DTS:X? Does it do refresh rate switching for proper 23.976Hz in movies, and such?

 

I’m having problems with Windows 10 automatically updating to newer drivers which break Emby Theater playback. I’m wondering if life would be easier if I switched to Shield as the main Emby client instead of constantly fighting with Windows for playback. The machine would remain as dedicated NAS and Emby server.

 

I appreciate any feedback!

[CBers 6771]

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/54018-appletv-4k-how-is-it-as-a-dedicated-emby-client/&do=findComment&comment=522465

[Buckaroo 6]

I've used a Windows HTPC, an Apple TV, and a Fire TV, and the Sheild TV is far and away the best all around Emby client I've ever used. Just about everything is direct streamed, and the Sheild client seems to pass through all of the HD audio formats fine. Additionally, The Sheild TV is a very good (not the most powerful and not the simplest, but a great combo) Kodi box I've used, so you can use that as an alternative to the AndroidTV app.

[kanipek 224]

The best I have used. Hands down.

[ShoutingMan 95]

With the Shield's price drop to $140, I bought one to try as a dedicated Emby Theater front end. The quirkiness of Windows 10 -- Intel IGP video driver issues, Windows screen res issues, Electron bugs, and etc -- push me to try a simpler dedicated front end player. I'd prefer to use an Apple TV (Apple ecosystem in my house, HTPC notwithstanding). But the aTV doesn't support DTS or Dolby Atmos. So, the Shield it is.

 

I re-programmed my FLIRC I had in the HTPC for the Shield, so the Shield is now controlled by my universal remote control.

 

At initial try, I'm really happy with the Shield Emby Theater front end. There are some minor UI issues I have to get used to, and it tends to crash if I toggle audio and video tracks a couple of times within a single movie. But, I can get trained on those details. And I lose 3D. But I'd pretty much given up on that. I can go back to Win10 if I want to watch the occasional 3D movie.

 

And having a dedicated player that does all the audio formats and frame rate switching, and none of the issues of trying to fake a dedicated movie app within the multi-tasking enviroment of Windows, is looking really good. I don't want to take away from the good work on Windows ET. But I'm getting sold on a full featured ET on a dedicated streaming box.

[CBers 6771]

At initial try, I'm really happy with the Shield Emby Theater front end. There are some minor UI issues I have to get used to, and it tends to crash if I toggle audio and video tracks a couple of times within a single movie.

Why not just use the Emby ATV app on the Shield?

[arrbee99 1560]

How do you put Theater on a Shield ?

[Guest asrequested]

I've used a Windows HTPC, an Apple TV, and a Fire TV, and the Sheild TV is far and away the best all around Emby client I've ever used.

 

Not even close. I can play/do FAR more with an HTPC than ANY other player. If you only have basic usage, sure, Shield almost gets the job done. But there's so much it can't do, that I need it to. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, matches a Windows HTPC. Shield has too many issues, and Nvidia are very slow to fix them. With an HTPC, I can make ANYTHING play, correctly.

[ShoutingMan 95]

Not even close. I can play/do FAR more with an HTPC than ANY other player. If you only have basic usage, sure, Shield almost gets the job done. But there's so much it can't do, that I need it to. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, matches a Windows HTPC. Shield has too many issues, and Nvidia are very slow to fix them. With an HTPC, I can make ANYTHING play, correctly.

As an Emby player, what does the Shield lack for you?

 

It’s missing 3D. But Emby itself doesn’t do 3D on a PC, though I can cobble it together with MPC-HC called as an external player.

 

But, the Shield doesn’t seem (so far) to have frame rate refresh bugs, or window resizing / Electron bugs, or Windows sceen resolution quirks, or unexpected reboots and broken software configurations from forced OS updates.

 

It’s not that Shield (or other streaming box) is hands down better than an HTPC. But they all have issues. And the Shield is looking like it might be the better set of compromises for Emby Theater in HD. (I don’t know about UHD; that upgrade is still about a year away.)

 

But I need more time and experience to see how welll it really works.

[phrostb 0]

i just tried emby for the first time last night.. i was confused why the subtitles were in the middle of the screen for Goodfellas bluray, but apparently Plex plays them the same way, so i guess they're hardcoded.. also i noticed that you get a lot of freezes if you use hardware acceleration (NVENC). i guess most people don't bother with hardware acceleration?

[CBers 6771]

i just tried emby for the first time last night.. i was confused why the subtitles were in the middle of the screen for Goodfellas bluray, but apparently Plex plays them the same way, so i guess they're hardcoded.. also i noticed that you get a lot of freezes if you use hardware acceleration (NVENC). i guess most people don't bother with hardware acceleration?

Why is my media transcoding

[phrostb 0]

Why is my media transcoding

In the web player my video shows Bitrate 34084 kbps. when I open it in the shield app I go to settings -> Quality (110 Mb/s) and the options start at 40 Mb/s and go all the way down to 240 kb/s. So I'm not really sure what that means... is the app set to playback at 110Mb/s?

I just tried selecting 40 Mb/s and now I can't go back to 110 Mb/s... here's some logs I posted in another thread

 

"

i'm getting freezes every couple seconds (2017 nvidia shield). at first i had all the hardware acceleration options enabled using NVENC but then i disabled them and it still happens.. also when i load the file it looks like it loads 3 times slowly and then finally starts, and if i try to seek forward it takes about 30 seconds to actually seek. here are the log files i found

 

https://pastebin.com/edrp1267

https://pastebin.com/Pd4BtxVd

https://pastebin.com/1MSKusNp "

[CBers 6771]

The settings you have accessed are via the OSD ?

 

That changes the playback bitrate, in case you are having streaming issues.

 

In the ATV app settings, under "Playback Settings", what do you have the "Max Streaming Bitrate" option set to ?

 

Is your Shield hardwired or WiFi ? Is your content on the same LAN ?

 

What does "Stats for Nerds" saying during playback ?

[phrostb 0]

Oh sorry yes I was looking at the video settings, under Playback settings I have Max Streaming Bitrate enabled, yes.

I have wired ethernet with CAT6 cables and an ASUS RT-AC5300.

 

Plex works great on it..

Edited November 25, 2018 by phrostb

[CBers 6771]

Oh sorry yes I was looking at the video settings, under Playback settings I have Max Streaming Bitrate enabled, yes.

I have wired ethernet with CAT6 cables and an ASUS RT-AC5300.

 

Plex works great on it..

I'm sure Plex does ( ), but I can stream 4K videos with Atmos audio quite happily to my Shield without any transcoding/remuxing at all.

 

So your "Max Streaming Bitrate" option is set to AUTO or 100Mb/s ?

 

Mine is set to 100Mb/s.

[phrostb 0]

I'm sure Plex does ( ), but I can stream 4K videos with Atmos audio quite happily to my Shield without any transcoding/remuxing at all.

 

So your "Max Streaming Bitrate" option is set to AUTO or 100Mb/s ?

 

Mine is set to 100Mb/s.

it was set to Auto.. I just tried changing it to 100.. it still takes 3 attempts to load the file.. it still freezes every couple of seconds, still takes a really long time to seek forward...

 

if Plex is transcoding/remuxing everything, why does the video load instantly, not freeze, and seek instantly as well? i really like the emby interface and how it plays 5.1 FLACs.. but not too happy with the video performance

[Luke 37065]

Please see how to report a media playback issue:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/790-how-to-report-a-problem/?view=getnewpost

Thanks !

[phrostb 0]

Please see how to report a media playback issue:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/790-how-to-report-a-problem/?view=getnewpost

Thanks !

ok i posted it here.. hope i did it right https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/65714-problems-with-nvidia-shield-playback/

[Guest asrequested]

As an Emby player, what does the Shield lack for you?

 

It’s missing 3D. But Emby itself doesn’t do 3D on a PC, though I can cobble it together with MPC-HC called as an external player.

 

But, the Shield doesn’t seem (so far) to have frame rate refresh bugs, or window resizing / Electron bugs, or Windows sceen resolution quirks, or unexpected reboots and broken software configurations from forced OS updates.

 

It’s not that Shield (or other streaming box) is hands down better than an HTPC. But they all have issues. And the Shield is looking like it might be the better set of compromises for Emby Theater in HD. (I don’t know about UHD; that upgrade is still about a year away.)

 

But I need more time and experience to see how welll it really works.

 

 

Well, of course everything comes down to what you use it for and what you require it to do. In my case, for the bedroom TV, HDR tone mapping is required. The shield doesn't tone map. HTPC (mpv) does. And I just don't like how the android UI, works. I'm clicking my brains out. For my home theater, I need to be able to transcode raw audio to AC3, on the fly. At present, the ATV app can't play half of my HDR stuff. I have no use for refresh rate switching, but I imagine the shield might be more stable than Theater. I play everything at 59Hz in Theater and everything plays, perfectly! So I guess the main difference is if you have basic use and simply want to set it and forget it, and don't require HDR playback, shield is the choice. But if you want more control and want to be able to play ANY video or audio, you need an HTPC. I just replaced my shield with a Beelink Gemini X45 mini PC. Unfortunately the GPU struggles with 4k HDR (tone mapping) at 59Hz (drops frames), 4K SDR is just fine. But everything else plays, very nicely, and I get to have more remote control functionally with a more user friendly UI (at least for me).

[CBers 6771]

Not that @ is being over-critical of the Shield

 

I'd never go back to a HTPC.

 

Shield TV's FTW

[Guest asrequested]

Not that @ is being over-critical of the Shield

 

I'd never go back to a HTPC.

 

Shield TV's FTW

 

lol...I'm actually not. It is a good device, it's just incapable of doing some things that I require. They do need to fix the tone mapping, though. Android is just too limited, for my requirements.

[ShoutingMan 95]

Well, of course everything comes down to what you use it for and what you require it to do. In my case, for the bedroom TV, HDR tone mapping is required. The shield doesn't tone map. HTPC (mpv) does. And I just don't like how the android UI, works. I'm clicking my brains out. For my home theater, I need to be able to transcode raw audio to AC3, on the fly. At present, the ATV app can't play half of my HDR stuff. I have no use for refresh rate switching, but I imagine the shield might be more stable than Theater. I play everything at 59Hz in Theater and everything plays, perfectly! So I guess the main difference is if you have basic use and simply want to set it and forget it, and don't require HDR playback, shield is the choice. But if you want more control and want to be able to play ANY video or audio, you need an HTPC. I just replaced my shield with a Beelink Gemini X45 mini PC. Unfortunately the GPU struggles with 4k HDR (tone mapping) at 59Hz (drops frames), 4K SDR is just fine. But everything else plays, very nicely, and I get to have more remote control functionally with a more user friendly UI (at least for me).

Makes sense. 4K, specifically HDR on projectors, is something of a mess from what I’ve read. I don’t know what I’ll do when I upgrade.

 

I haven’t seen the excess clicking you do: the layout of Shield Emby is functionally the same as Windows Emby Theater and takes no more clicks on one or the other.

 

I’m finding Shield isn’t as attractive as Windows and is missing various small niceties. There are no video backdrops. And Extras don’t have thumbnail previews. Playback controls aren’t as robust due to the simple remote scheme, and do require more clicking for some basic things.

 

But, so far, I like not worrying about whether Emby Theater will be broken when I start it on the Shield. On Windows, too often, there’s an ET or Electron or Windows update that breaks something. And I’m finding it in real-time when friends are over for a movie.

 

I also want simplicity to hopefully get a player that my wife will use. ET on Windows is too fussy and random in its behavior that my wife just doesn’t use it. And she gets annoyed at the HTPC system when it randomly breaks and I have to fix it before we can watch a movie; doubly so with guests over.

 

So, I think I’m willing to give up some gloss to get a robust player.

 

I’ll have to figure out UHD when I get there, maybe this time next year.

 

In the near term, I really just want back audio track labels and subtitle labels!

[Guest asrequested]

I haven’t seen the excess clicking you do: the layout of Shield Emby is functionally the same as Windows Emby Theater and takes no more clicks on one or the other.

 

I've got a harmony hub and remote. I've mapped the buttons to give me one button press for things like TV guide, recordings etc. Much nicer.

[ShoutingMan 95]

I've got a harmony hub and remote. I've mapped the buttons to give me one button press for things like TV guide, recordings etc. Much nicer.

Ah. I don’t use the DVR stuff (TiVo for that), only the movies and TV libraries from ripped discs.

 

I have a universal remote setup. For Movies, as far as a I can tell, the library interface is basically the same on PC and Shield. The extra clicking is only for chapter skip type things where the Shield doesn’t have player-transport buttons. But getting to and playing a movie is the same either way.

[CBers 6771]

@@ShoutingMan You're using the unofficial ET app on the Shield, or do you mean the official Android TV (ATV) app?

 

Please clarify.