Quality issues depending on Android OS version

[golfboy 2]

Good afternoon!

 

Yesterday I tried to setup my very first media server, with Emby!

 

I think i have setup everything right now but unfortunately the quality on my android mobile phone and tablet aren't good. I have set this on auto.

Can somebody help me with this?

 

Some info about the movie file:

Container: mkv

Bitrate: 2,7 Mbps

Video codec H264 High

Video bitrate: 2,7 Mbps

Audio codec: AAC HE-AAC

Audio bitrate: 320 Kbps

Audio channels: 6

Audio Sample ratte: 48000 Hz

 

 

This is the Emby streaming video quality:

 

 

 

This is the local quality:

 

 

I just checked my internet speed, this is:

36 ping

180 Mbps downloading

18 Mbps uploading

 

Does anybody know how i can fix this?

log 06-05.txt

Log Planet earth.txt

Edited May 6, 2018 by golfboy

[Fratopolis 62]

What processor is in your system. Also under the trans-coding page what are your settings. Looks like you are using Quicksync.

[golfboy 2]

The processor is an i5 5250u. Around 4000 points in benchmark. Think it should be fine yo do at least 1-2 transcodes? (hoping for this)

 

Yup im using quicksync because the cpu supports it and I saw a video that you can run more streams at a time. Should I choose another option?

[Fratopolis 62]

Try turning Hardware acceleration to none and all other settings to their default values for now and see what happens. Just so you know hardware encoding though efficient will not produce the quality of CPU encoding.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Fratopolis

[Fratopolis 62]

Let me know what happens. If better then turn back on Hardware acceleration

 

Under 

 

Enable hardware decoding for: select only H264 and VC1 and uncheck HEVC, MPEG2 and also uncheck enable hardware encoding. This should let you get possibly two transcodes from that CPU.

 

 

This will save your CPU from some activity by letting the GPU decode the video at least but not encode it.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Fratopolis

[golfboy 2]

First of all thanks for helping me!

 

I tried it again while having the hardware acceleration on none but the quality has still those blocky pixels,I believe it was a bit better tho:(

 

I have never changed the other settings.

 

When activator hardware acceleration on quicksync and unchecking / checking those you mentioned its again blocky.

 

Is there something else i can try?

Edited May 6, 2018 by golfboy

[Luke 38491]

Can you try another kind of video file? This is an mpeg4 avi and those are always a little problematic. What you're seeing with this one file is not indicative of what you'll generally see.

[Fratopolis 62]

if that did not help then the other will not either. The second was just to squeeze as much as possible form the the system as possible if option A worked.

 

What client are your running the video on? Have you tried playing from a browser? Also are you trying this within your network or remotely?

 

EDIT: Ahh luke good catch, I remember seeing the avi container while on my phone from the log file but forgot by the time I sat at my PC to try an help. Duhhh

Haveing ADD does not help and too much coffee

Edited May 6, 2018 by Fratopolis

[Guest asrequested]

The OP says it's mkv h264 AAC, and has enough bandwidth to play directly. This isn't a transcode issue. It looks like the same issue I reported, a while back.

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/55920-video-colors-are-wrong/

Edited May 6, 2018 by Doofus

[Luke 38491]

The OP says it's mkv h264 AAC, and has enough bandwidth to play directly. This isn't a transcode issue. It looks like the same issue I reported, a while back.

 

The ffmpeg log says mpeg4.

[Guest asrequested]

The ffmpeg log says mpeg4.

Then one of those is wrong, either wrong log or OP.

[Guest asrequested]

When you play the video, pull up the stats for nerds. What does it say?

[golfboy 2]

Oh, I forgot to mention that everything in the first post was planet earth but the log was ant-man! I couldnt find the log of planet earth

 

The avi format is a lot worse, litterly everything is blocky.

 

How do I get a log of planet earth? It doesnt appear in logs. Or i can make some info table of ant-man with pics!

 

Sorry again that i forgot to mention!

Edited May 6, 2018 by golfboy

[Guest asrequested]

Is it transcoding?

[golfboy 2]

Its not transcoding (planet earth), I saw in the dashboard that its direct streaming.

 

But ant-man is transcoding.

 

Is the quality worse when you are direct streaming the movie instead when you watch the movie directly from a hard drive?

Edited May 6, 2018 by golfboy

[Luke 38491]

So without transcoding planet Earth should look the same as original, right?

[golfboy 2]

Okay, I made some new pictures. (Hope this helps a lot with what i mean, its the first time I use a media server app.)

 

Left side is from my mobile phone using android - Right side is using the same file on a local drive and playing it on my windows pc.

 

 

Ant-man - Transcoding (.avi file) - The log in the first post is of this movie!

 

 

 

Planet earth - Direct streaming (.mkv file)

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by golfboy

[Luke 38491]

If you're seeing this with a direct stream then it sounds like it's being caused by the  mobile device and not the output coming from Emby Server. I'm not sure what we can do about that.

[golfboy 2]

At least, when I go to the home page of the server. I can see who is watching and there is as status direct streaming.

 

The quality issue is on my tablet and phone. And they are not 10 years old or something... There is nothing that is left to do to hopefully fix this?

[Luke 38491]

So there's a remux log from the planet earth session?

[golfboy 2]

Right, where I thought it would be direct streaming is actually something else. Maybe playing now....

 

Planet earth was also transcoding, the log is in the first post included!

[golfboy 2]

So I will Just summarize the problem:

 

Both ant-man and planet earth doesnt have the right quality. There are so many pixel blocks in the movie on my phone and tablet.

 

The ant-man movie is a avi file while planet earth is a Mkv file.

 

Both are transcoding.

 

Somebody knows how to fix this issue or am i the only one ?

I tried to search for the same issue on the community but couldnt find something.

[Luke 38491]

I'm not able to reproduce this. Can you provide a sample video for testing? Thanks.

[Guest asrequested]

Play something that direct plays, and see what happens.

[Waldonnis 148]

I'm not sure this is a transcoding problem, especially if direct play/remux scenarios look the same way.  To me, it looks exactly like what I would expect to see if I reduced the bit depth of the video (to 265 colours).  In fact, I just grabbed a screenshot locally of Ant-Man at roughly the same point in the movie and converted it to a 256 colour palette - it showed exactly the same effect as the screenshot posted.  I'd suspect a transcoding problem if I saw macroblocking or weird banding in sections of the image, but I'm not seeing anything like that...just a uniform dithering pattern that reminded me of converting a photo of a sunset to a GIF.

 

Out of curiosity, what types of phone and tablet are you using and what app is being used for playback?  Not sure how much can be done, but worth checking into in case there's a hardware or software limitation involved that can be identified and/or worked around.