4K HEVC playback no video no sound

[TaurohtaR 0]

Recently bought H96 Max TV-Box and trying to find best media streaming solution for it.

TV-Box based on RK3399 processor that claims full H265 hardware decoding support and I know it does because built in players can handle this file without problem with smooth playback.

Already tried Plex but has problems with some random simple mkv files. So started to look for alternatives and first choice for Emby.

Emby behaves way better than Plex. It plays all random files that I had problem with Plex.

But it has one exception that Plex doing better

I have few 4K HEVC movied and it is not possible to watch them with Emby Android TV application. After playback start just black screen, no video, no sound.

Below Emby info for one of problematic files. Also server logs included.

As server I'm synology NAS DS214+, so to avoid transcoding I set all bitrates to maximum. In that way server should just Direct Play this fie.

Also tried to install usual Android application. It at least able to start showing something but playback is very bad with this method and it is impossible to watch with this method.

Is it possible to get native get smooth hardware decoding with Emby at this device and how it can be achieved? 

 

emby-server-logs.zip

Edited June 6, 2018 by TaurohtaR

[ebr 14923]

Hi.  Support on these off-brand boxes is always a challenge.  What version of Android is it running?

 

From the ffmpeg logs, it looks like we are trying to direct play the item but that is producing an error so we switch to transcoding but transcoding HEVC 4k takes serious horsepower which your server does not have.  If you waited long enough you might see some frames coming through but the transcode is going so slow that the item just isn't even starting.

[TaurohtaR 0]

It is Android 7.1.2

I don't see it transcoding because there is no CPU burning on NAS.

Also if I enable Nerds Info it shows Direct Play.

Edited June 7, 2018 by TaurohtaR

[ebr 14923]

The log I looked at was trying to transcode it but it was moving extremely slowly (less than 1 frame per second):

frame=    2 fps=1.0 q=0.0 size=N/A time=00:00:00.21 bitrate=N/A speed=0.104x    
frame=    2 fps=0.7 q=0.0 size=N/A time=00:00:00.21 bitrate=N/A speed=0.0708x    
frame=    4 fps=1.0 q=0.0 size=N/A time=00:00:00.29 bitrate=N/A speed=0.0747x    
frame=    4 fps=0.8 q=0.0 size=N/A time=00:00:00.29 bitrate=N/A speed=0.0608x    
frame=    6 fps=1.0 q=0.0 size=N/A time=00:00:00.38 bitrate=N/A speed=0.0643x   

[TaurohtaR 0]

yes, you are correct

I also looked into logs and see the same but don't know why client shows such nerd info.

Is there way to disable transcoding and try to use hardware capabilities of the TV Box.

I had and issue with MX Player Pro and posted this issue 

https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/mx-player/hardware-decoding-h96-max-t3748992

and they added option to try hardware encoding even if device doesn't advertise them, as result smooth playback of this movie file with that player.

[ebr 14923]

You can try turning off transcoding for that user on the server but, looking at the logs, it looks like we are trying to direct play it already but it is failing.

 

A new version of the app will be released very soon.  There is an outside chance it will have an impact here so watch for it and give it a try.

[TaurohtaR 0]

Don't you have Android and Android TV versions synchronized?

Because as I said mobile version of application really produces some video but it is very slow, but Emby for Android TV just black screen.

I bought premium for month to evaluate this. Hopefully it will be fixed and I can buy Lifetime Premium.

Edited June 7, 2018 by TaurohtaR

[ebr 14923]

Don't you have Android and Android TV versions synchronized?

Because as I said mobile version of application really produces some video but it is very slow, but Emby for Android TV just black screen.

 

Its the same issue in both but the two different apps are optimized for the different platforms (for instance, the mobile app won't support HD audio but TV app will).  For whatever reason, the transcode is even slower when you played it from the TV app.  The transcode only produced about 4 frames of video before you stopped it so there just wasn't anything to show yet .