Problem with HDR with a 4K UHD movie (Emby vs Plex)

[bamaster 0]

Hello all,

 

I'm pretty new to Emby but I've been running Plex on a Windows PC for several years. I've been impressed with Emby's transcoding so I switched recently. Alas, I an into an issue with HDR with one video. I don't have a lot of UHD content, but I'm not able to watch A Quiet Place with HDR. Using Plex it looks great. But Emby shows a little washed out. Here are some photos.

 

A Quiet Place

 

 

My TV is the LG OLED 55B7V. Interestingly, the "HDR" logo pops up on the TV set indicating that it's receiving an HDR signal, but the movie isn't displaying it. So I thought Emby wasn't configured for HDR properly, however Planet Earth looks perfect in both Emby and Plex.

 

Media Stats

Video
Title: 4K HEVC
Codec: HEVC
Profile: Main 10
Level: 153
Resolution: 3840x1600
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Anamorphic: No
Interlaced: No
Framerate: 23.9760246
Bitrate: 25283 kbps
Video range: HDR
Color primaries: bt2020
Color space: bt2020nc
Color transfer: smpte2084
Pixel format: yuv420p10le
Ref frames: 1

Audio
Title: Eng TRUEHD 7.1 Default
Language: eng
Codec: TRUEHD
Layout: 7.1
Channels: 8 ch
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Bit depth: 24 bit
Default: Yes

Audio
Title: Eng Dolby Digital 5.1
Language: eng
Codec: AC3
Layout: 5.1
Channels: 6 ch
Bitrate: 640 kbps
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Default: No

Subtitle
Title: Eng
Language: eng
Codec: SRT
Default: No
Forced: No
External: Yes
Container: mkv
Path: D:\Movies\A Quiet Place (2018) [4K]\A Quiet Place (2018) [4K].mkv

Here's Planet Earth II, Episode 1. HDR looks great!

 

 

I do have "Enable Refresh Rate Switching" enabled, and "Prefer Exact Refresh Rate" enabled, too. I've tried turning it off, same result. Here's the Media Info:

 

Media Info
Video
Title: 4K HEVC
Codec: HEVC
Profile: Main 10
Level: 150
Resolution: 3840x2160
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Anamorphic: No
Interlaced: No
Framerate: 25
Bitrate: 32674 kbps
Video range: HDR
Color primaries: bt2020
Color space: bt2020nc
Color transfer: smpte2084
Pixel format: yuv420p10le
Ref frames: 1

Audio
Title: Eng DTS 5.1 Default
Language: eng
Codec: DTS
Profile: DTS-HD MA
Layout: 5.1
Channels: 6 ch
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Bit depth: 24 bit
Default: Yes
Container: mkv
Path: D:\TV Shows\Planet Earth II\Planet Earth II - S01E01 [4K].mkv

 

Can you spot an issue? Any guidance is appreciated! TIA!

Edited July 19, 2018 by bamaster

[Guest asrequested]

Did a quiet place, transcode? What Android TV device are you using?

[ebr 14913]

Says it is direct playing.  We've seen a couple of reports of this with no clue yet as to why it would work for some and not others.

 

I'm wondering if it might have to do with the display mode selection.

 

Is Planet Earth also at 23.976?

 

What happens if you manually change the display mode to one of the other refresh rates?

[bamaster 0]

Did a quiet place, transcode? What Android TV device are you using?

 

I don't think it transcoded. Looking at the Stats for Nerds in the screenshot above it shows "Play method: Direct".

It's playing from the Emby app on a NVidia Shield TV 2017.

 

Would the 7.1 TRUEHD audio cause issue? Or different aspect ratios?

[bamaster 0]

Says it is direct playing.  We've seen a couple of reports of this with no clue yet as to why it would work for some and not others.

 

I'm wondering if it might have to do with the display mode selection.

 

Is Planet Earth also at 23.976?

 

What happens if you manually change the display mode to one of the other refresh rates?

 

Planet Earth is playing at 59.94. When I change it to anything else, the colors are washed out. Funny, even when switching back to 59.94 the colors are washed out. I have to back out of the movie completely and restart it to get to load HDR.

 

I tried a few framerates with A Quiet Place but nothing. Wild guess, but I think the right framerate needs to be set when loading up the video.

 

I even switched the defaul audio track to 5.1 DD, no luck.

[ebr 14913]

I tried a few framerates with A Quiet Place but nothing. Wild guess, but I think the right framerate needs to be set when loading up the video.

 

So, if you disable our auto framerate switching and set your Shield to the framerate that works with PE, does that one also get HDR properly?

[bamaster 0]

Another piece to the puzzle. For grins I installed the Emby app from the LG store directly on the TV. It's not my preferred solution because the 4K file is too big to stream smoothly over wifi (yes, I can hardwire into the TV, but that's not what I want to do)... BUT it looks great! I can't see the framerate in this app, though.

 

Check it...

 

[bamaster 0]

So, if you disable our auto framerate switching and set your Shield to the framerate that works with PE, does that one also get HDR properly?

 

I disabled the framerate switching.

 

The Shield's native framerate for this set is 59.94. PE works fine as before. AQP no workee.

I changed the Shield's framerate to 23.976. PE still works fine. AQP no workee.

[ebr 14913]

Okay, so it isn't related to our mode switching and both files are direct playing.

 

That leaves me completely stumped...

[Guest asrequested]

I'm thinking it has to do with decoding. Possibly container splitting. I wonder what happens without hwa, or a different decoder.

[bamaster 0]

To really mess with your head... the TV thinks it's getting an HDR signal. LG gives this icon with HDR content. But the colors are washed out.

 

It displays this icon in the LG app, too. But HDR works through that.

 

[Guest asrequested]

So that means it's actually signalling the display it's HDR, but something is happening to the metadata, either in transport or at the decoder/splitter level. Try using an external player that will play HDR content. Not mpv, that won't do that. Maybe MX? The file is PAL, correct?

[bamaster 0]

So that means it's actually signalling the display it's HDR, but something is happening to the metadata, either in transport or at the decoder/splitter level. Try using an external player that will play HDR content. Not mpv, that won't do that. Maybe MX? The file is PAL, correct?

 

So I installed Emby Theater on my PC and MX Player on the Shield. And since I'm a new install I have the Emby Premier trial going on.

And guess what? It works!

 

So what does that mean?

[Guest asrequested]

So I installed Emby Theater on my PC and MX Player on the Shield. And since I'm a new install I have the Emby Premier trial going on.

And guess what? It works!

 

So what does that mean?

That would imply that Exoplayer has a glitch in the decoder.

[Guest asrequested]

I also have an issue with the decoder and some 4k HDR movies on the shield. It's presenting differently, (I've reported it to Nvidia) but I'm wondering if it's related. Mine will play correctly, with every other decoder.

[bamaster 0]

Thank you both, Doofus and EBR.

 

I'm not sure what the benefit/penalty is with using an external player is, but it seems to work. I'm happy with the Shield, especially with its transcoding voodoo. The Emby app only has one hiccup with only one file, hardly a problem. The problem is that paying for premier just to use the external player to solve this one problem isn't worth it.

 

Emby is a compelling product. For now I'll keep it along with Plex.

[Handl3vogn 6]

Looks like we have similar issues. Like @@xenu pointed out in the other tread looks like we have problems with hdr and 3840x1600 resolution.

 

Everything works fine when playing media from Kodi. It only happens in the emby for Android TV app

 

Link to other thread

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/60362-shield-atv-hdr/

Edited July 31, 2018 by Handl3vogn

[Guest asrequested]

I've just sent the links to these threads to Nvidia and added them to my problem report.

[pclausen 41]

I have a 4K TV (older 2014 84UB9800 84" model) that does NOT support HDR.  I also have an Nvidia Shield and was wondering how Emby on the shield deals with HDR rips playing back on TVs that don't support HDR.

 

Will the colors look washed out, or will they look correct (albeit without HDR of course).  In other words, will the colors look the same as when playing back a non HDR title/regular 1080p BRD rip?

[Guest asrequested]

I have a 4K TV (older 2014 84UB9800 84" model) that does NOT support HDR.  I also have an Nvidia Shield and was wondering how Emby on the shield deals with HDR rips playing back on TVs that don't support HDR.

 

Will the colors look washed out, or will they look correct (albeit without HDR of course).  In other words, will the colors look the same as when playing back a non HDR title/regular 1080p BRD rip?

 

The shield should tone map. It does on my HD TV.

Edited August 5, 2018 by Doofus

[pclausen 41]

So I picked up 5th Element which I already have on BRD and the colors looks very washed out on the 4k version (but image is much sharper).

 

BRD version:

 

 

4K HDR version:

 

 

Video info from Emby:

 

 

4K content from Netflix and Amazon plays back fine on my Shield, but I don't know if any of it is HDR to begin with.

 

My signal path is Shield -> Denon AVR-X6200W -> LG 84UB9800

 

Is there a way to bring up "Info for Nerds" during playback from the Shield?  I wonder if that might provide a clue as to what's going on.

Edited August 9, 2018 by pclausen

[Smuggnat 11]

Just to add to this I am experiencing the exact issue described by op. I have a LG (uj6300) 4k HDR capable tv with the Nvidia Shield and using the Emby app to play a large number of my 4k hdr files (not all) results in the TV triggering HDR mode (the odd time it won't trigger at all) but not actually playing the file in HDR. I also tried the LG Emby app and the movies play perfectly as expected, HDR and all. Definitely seems like this started happening after the shield updated to android 8.0 in June I believe it was. 

[ebr 14913]

Hi. There are already two other topics in here on this. At this point, it appears to be an issue with the nvidia decoders but only with some content.

[Guest asrequested]

All you guys experiencing this issue should be telling Nvidia about it. I've told them, but the more people that do, the higher they will raise it's priority.

[iKryten 0]

What do we actually tell Nvidia though? Do we have specifics on what encoder settings trigger this problem? Do the nvidia forums have any related posts?