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1080p HEVC Playback on Android Mobile


D3lta3

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D3lta3

Hi All,

 

I've got a problem with playback of 1080p HEVC content on Android Mobile in combination with Emby Server on Windows.

 

Server specs:

CPU: i7 4770

GPU: 1050ti

 

I bought the 1050ti specifically to be able to transcode HEVC content for streaming to my Android tablet (First gen Galaxy TAB S 10.5), the tablet is a couple of years old and therefore isn't capable of direct playing HEVC.

 

4k HEVC 10bit content

Playback of 4k HEVC 10bit content works really well using NVENC hardware acceleration. The tablet off course has a sub-4k resolution and therefore the server transcodes to a lower resolution and from HEVC to h264. After a little jittering at the start of playback the rest of the video plays flawlessly.

 

 

1080p HEVC

Playback of HEVC content with a resolution/bitrate however causes problems. I tried it with a 1080p, HEVC, 4mbit source. To my understanding the server should transcode this source from HEVC to H264 because the client isn't capable of direct playing HEVC content.

 

Weirdly the server says the video is direct playing on the android client and playback of the video is actually pretty good. Occasionally there is some stuttering but its very watchable.

 

Problem is that battery consumption on the tablet is very high (more then it can get from charging, so after three hours the battery is drained), which makes me think the client is somehow transcoding HEVC to H264.

 

Question: Is there a way to force the server to transcode HEVC content if the Client isn't able to direct play HEVC content?

 

 

 

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Ok, please try again with the next app update and let me know if this is improved. Thanks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got an update of the android app a couple of days ago, but unfortunately it hasn't improved. The android client still says it's direct playing with playback of an HEVC file.

 

The only thing that seems to trigger transcoding is when the bitrate of the original file is above the cutoff set in the android client. I've also got some 4k content with a bitrate of 8.0 Mbps, when trying to play this on the tablet it also shows as direct playing. Playback for that file is choppy for a couple of seconds before it crashes completely.

 

I would expect the server to transcode if the client:

- has a lower resolution then the source

- is in a codec that isn't supported on the client

- has a higher bitrate then set in the android client

 

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

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That's exactly what we do. We use an Android api to determine if hevc is supported by the device.

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