Repetitive Loading

[Erik 120]

So from previous issues with transcoding files i upgraded the transcoding directory to its own 1TB drive to try and find a solution.

 

Today I had 2 family members tried to watch 2 different shows on 2 seperate roku ultra equipped TVs. One played fine (transcoding / Narnia) and the other (remux / Home) would stop playing every 5 seconds or so of playback and show the roku "loading" screen for a good 10 seconds before repeating 5 seconds of playback then "loading". The transcoding drive was obviously not full, only 20GB or so of files so that's not the issue now it seems.

 

So something else is going on, i have PM'd the server log and 2x ffmpeg logs if you have any idea what may be causing an issue.

 

Thanks,

Erik

Edited April 13, 2018 by Erik

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  You are going to need to tell the person who experienced the buffering to lower the quality setting in the app.

 

That was a 33Mb/s file and simply could not be delivered/processed fast enough over the network or on the device.

 

I would suggest setting it to 20Mb and then moving up or down from there until smooth playback is achieved.

 

Thanks.

[Erik 120]

Ok, Thanks @@ebr

 

I will test the 20Mb over the next couple of days. Maybe you can answer this, but i loaded the Avatar movie (34509kbps) on a usb and play it using the "roku media player" app it plays flawlessly (just without audio as that's why its direct streaming using the emby app). Any idea why its fine via USB and not via hard wired to the emby server? 

 

Thanks again,

Erik

[Luke 37068]

direct usb will always be faster than going through the network connection.

[Erik 120]

Ok, but I'm sure a wired network can deliver 35Mb consistently...it's cat6 over 40' from roku to Unifi switch and 6' to the server all gigabit capable.

 

USB may be faster but it's not anywhere close to its capability.

[speechles 1919]

Ok, but I'm sure a wired network can deliver 35Mb consistently...it's cat6 over 40' from roku to Unifi switch and 6' to the server all gigabit capable.

 

USB may be faster but it's not anywhere close to its capability.

 

if the roku could understand network paths it would be easier to stream without emby as a man-in-the-middle approach.  It doesn't, the roku can only stream http endpoints.

 

Just fyi, when using roku media player over USB this works easily because that is a direct path. This is no congestion possible.

 

There are two scenarios:

 

#1. If your emby server, and your media collection reside on the same machine this lessens congestion. Since the path to the media is the same as the machine emby server runs on there is no additonal bandwidth expense fetching media. There is only throughput lost to dispatching to the roku. A 35mbit stream from the server impacts bandwidth 35mbit. If there were, say 3 of these streams on a 100mbit connection, 3 x 35 = 105, which is >100 so clients would start to experience issues somewhere eventually.

 

#2. If your emby server, and your media collection reside on two individual devies (say a NAS for the media, and a NUC for the emby server) you will have throughput going through two devices. From the NAS to emby server, then from emby server to your roku. So your 35mbit stream in reality requires 70mbit in this scenario. If there were 2 streams running at this bitrate it would cause problems for the clients, 2 x 70 = 140. The client with the worse ping/distance/latency would be the one getting its packets delayed. One client may get perfectness with no stutter, the other constant buffering/stuttering making their experience awful.

 

Am I correct in assuming in this case, your system is setup like scenario #2? If so the only alternative is to set the max bandwidth lower on the client getting its packets delayed.

Edited April 15, 2018 by speechles

[Erik 120]

Hi @@speechles

 

Thanks for the detailed info: My setup is actually like scenario #1 as its a dedicated Emby Server (i5 Processor, 32GB Ram) and all the media is stored locally on 5 (3-4TB) drives (no pooling, just different media folders per drive). Connected by a gigabit connection to the gigabit switch and then the roku (obviously limited to 100Mb by the Roku)

 

Using my Unifi controller i can see during playback (I'm the only one on the network right now) playing avatar (with the roku set to auto quality) its about 20Mbps to it and the server is transmitting 18-21Mbps and receiving 4Mbps. And i get the "loading" every 30 seconds and lasts for 10 seconds.

 

So that's why i think its related to the roku. I believe it was just a couple of months ago i did watch avatar for example on this exact setup (no network changes) and this problem didn't exist.

 

Thanks again,

Erik

[speechles 1919]

@@Erik in that case....let me roll back to your earlier comment.

 

 

 

One played fine (transcoding / Narnia) and the other (remux / Home) would stop playing every 5 seconds or so...

 

What you need to do is switch these two ultras and move each where the other is located. Does the problem roku now become problem free and the other becomes the issue?

 

Trying to see if your issue is location based(cabling, bad switch, etc) or roku based(firmware needs updating, some setting within the app needs changing, or the settings for that user in the server dashboard need adjustment).

 

Having you swap the two roku devices will immediately reveal which it is.

Edited April 15, 2018 by speechles

[Erik 120]

@@speechles

 

Funny enough, just started testing and i can reproduce on both just playing avatar (again as a high bitrate test), it just happened to be that the narnia movie was only 5262kbps (DVD/480i). 

 

Since the 34509kpbs (avatar) is causing loading, i forced the quality to 30Mbps on the roku (tested both) and i get no repetitive loading problems. I'm not sure how much that little bit actually changes the video/audio as its only about 3Mbps less i would assume (not sure on the inner workings of a transcode...just assuming it would go to 30000kbps).

 

I even used the "roku media player" to play the file by using the emby media server (over the network not local this time), and the video plays flawlessly (doesn't even show up in the emby server dashboard, log just says "transmitting" the file), again just without audio as it cant decode it...So the roku can do it all by itself (without audio) buy cannot do it through emby remux/stream.

[Luke 37068]

Anytime a conversion is needed of any kind, it is going to be significantly more complex than direct playing would be. This is the discrepancy compared to roku media player.

 

As part of the remux, we're using the HLS streaming protocol, and the server will chop up your video file into 6-10 second segments, from which the roku video player will download each one at a time. So it's no longer streaming one large continuous file and that makes a big difference.

[Erik 120]

Fair enough, i am being simplistic in my test i guess then. However, as i said, this was working fine a couple of months ago and now its not so just trying to find a solution that doesn't force transcoding everything when it shouldn't be required. I'll keep trying.

 

Thanks.

[Erik 120]

@@Luke

 

Just an update, been still having these issues until today. I updated to 3.4.0.0 and tested all the media again and even simultaneously with both Roku devices and so far they are working flawlessly! Not only the buffering ("loading") issues are gone so far, but the initial load and seeking is much faster. I'm not sure what has changed to effect it, but its good.

 

Thanks for the hard work.

Erik

[Luke 37068]

Thanks for the feedback.