Emby Live TV w Direct Streaming: What "Display Mode" to Pick?

[davezter 0]

Hi, I'm an Emby Premier subscriber using Emby for occasional television show recording, but primarily for Live TV watching. My channels are direct streaming.

 

Does anyone have a recommendation for "Display Mode" setting to use when a US resident is watching Live TV direct-streamed into the Amazon Fire TV streaming box Emby app from a 4-tuner HDHR?

 

The setting is user accessible within the Fire TV app when you open the settings icon while watching a live program.

 

Sometimes I tend to notice a difference in picture quality between live shows in the Emby app VS the native HDHR Live TV app. The HDHR app doesn't have a "display mode" setting to fiddle with in the app. I'm wondering if I need to adjust the video playback setting within Emby to get the best playback quality.

I noticed that within the Emby app there is no Display Mode option to allow Emby to "Auto" choose the best option. So, a choice has to be selected and I'm stumped.  On some channels there will be an Asterisk (*) Next to 1080/30.  Since I'm trying to focus on the best setting for watching live TV, I should maybe mention again that Live TV is being Direct-Streamed without any transcoding and I'm in the United States.

My Setup is a 1080p capable 2yo Toshiba flat-screen, a latest generation Amazon Fire TV Streaming dongle box, and a 1 month old 4-tuner HDHR for the US.  The Fire TV box's settings menu has the display setting set to ["AUTO"matically use the optimal resolution for your TV] -- the other 2 options are "1080p/60hz or 720p/60hz."  The Television's Display mode setting is on "Standard".  The TV manual says that the TV is 1080p/60hz/LED...but does not tell me if this is only true if it is set to "PC Mode" or if this is always the case.

In the Emby Fire TV App "Display Mode" setting menu, there are a lot of choices and no guidance or explanation on what to select that I've found and I did try to check the wiki and did a search here before I posted. You can choose:

1080/23.98
1080/24.00
1080/29.97
1080/30.00
1080/59.94
1080/60.00
720/59.94
720/60
480/59.95
480/60.00

How exactly are you supposed to decide what to use?  Are you just trying to match the specs of your TV?  My TV is 1080/60hz capable, but do those numbers after the "/" in the Emby menu refer to Hz or the frame-rate?  Because if it's referring to frame-rate, then it's my understanding in the US, 1080i is 29.97.  So, would I choose "1080/29.97" to match the frame-rate of 1080i US live broadcasts, or, 1080/60 to reflect my Television's 1080p/60Hz max resolution (and is this even utilized if my TV is not specifically in "PC-Mode" ??).  It's very confusing.  And there are so many other options it almost makes me wonder if you are supposed to pick a setting for each Live-TV broadcast channel.... do you set it for 720/59.94 when watching FOX and then set it for 1080/29.97 when on NBC? Are these "Global" changes to all the channels or should you always pick the best one based on what channel you are watching? I just have no idea what I'm trying to match these numbers to -- each TV Channel? my Television? Fire TV Streaming Box? 

 

Please help, and thank you!

[cbdudek 15]

I can tell you how I figured things out.  I am sure that someone else will chime in on what works for them or to go into better detail technically on what I did.

 

I had a 15+ year old LCD TV and when I purchased a new TV, I noticed that the video wasn't smooth upon playing movies.  That is when I realized that matching the resolution of the video to the TV is vital.  If the show is recorded in 1080/24 and your TV is set to 4k/60, then the TV will try to compensate which caused what appeared to me as dropped frames.  In my Nvidia Shield, I go into the settings and I set it to match the resolution of the TV to what I am watching.  There is a tick box that you will see in the settings that will set this option.

[ebr 14948]

For primarily watching TV, I suggest leaving the settings alone and let your TV run at defaults.

 

You can try turning on the "Auto refresh rate switching" in the playback settings but, this will introduce a delay to every playback start and may not produce any better picture.