Emby not transcoding, only direct streaming

[filewalker 0]

First of all, i am not quite sure, if this is the correct subforum, but i will try to explain:

 

- Emby Server (with premium subscription) stable 3.5.3.0 (.net Core) running on Debian, latest Release with all updates applied

- nginx Server (with several Services/php/html sites on different subdomains) acting as a proxy for redirection to emby server locally to port 8096. Nginx handling ssl, force https instead of http,... emby running on subdomain (https://emby.mydomain.com)

- i am not quiete sure why emby server and apps are always wanting a port to connect to, so i set it to 443. in the server setting i use standard local http and https port, public http 80 and https 443, external domain to emby.mydomain.com, own ssl cert (do i have to set all this, because my nginx should handle this)

- emby server is on remote location, so every acces with app or browser discribed below ist external via internet

 

Searching the library and watching some videos within the webbrowser (tested on chrome and firefox) works like a charm. Very responsive, amazing fast and realy quick loding times when pressing play. Everything working as excpected

 

Using Emby for fireTv (streaming bit rate via app settings set to 4MBit) gives me some problems: searching the databse is quiete fast, watching any content below 720p 4MBit/s (bad internet connection here) is working as expected (again short loading times when pressing play). If i try 720p content with 5MBit/s i get the spinning circle. in the server dashboard i can see my ftv connected and it says it is already playing the file via direct play (i can see the actual progress). After about 30sec i get the "is your Video exhibiting Playback issues?" Message on my FTV, i click yes, and on the Server Dashboard i can see the Video is now transcoding and after some seconds the video starts on FTV. If i try this with eg 1080p content and higher bitrate, the behavior is the same except for after saying "yes, i have playback issues", the dashboard reads again direct play and shows progress, but no video on FTV. after another 30sec this message concerning Playback issues pop ups again. Saying yes starts the progress shown in Server Dashboard again while on the FTV the spinning circle stays.

 

i tested this with Emby Theather for RPi aswell, same behavior. Only difference: the loading after pressing play takes much longer! Even with playable content it takes about a minute to play.

 

I also tested Kodi with embycon (set video mode to transcode): works fine, every content works now.

 

 

Do you have any idea what is goin on there? Is there any hidden option to force transcoding (serverside there was an option the set max Internet streaming rate but i am not able to find it anymore)

 

 

Thank you!

[chali 11]

if your using 5mb for 720p im guessing you might exid the bitrate of the movie,  and you can get some strange behavior.

for exempel none of my 720p movies uses lager bitrate then 1,5mb/s  if i use a higher value i get playback problems.

when i get the "are you having playback problems" and i click no or what normally the movie start to play.

but again, i only get this if i set a bitrate higher then what the movie has original.

Edited October 7, 2018 by chali

[Luke 37230]

Yea it really depends on the quality setting in the app compared to the bitrate of the original video. If the original bitrate can fit within bitrate setting of the app, then it may not need to transcode. Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[pir8radio 1293]

- i am not quiete sure why emby server and apps are always wanting a port to connect to, so i set it to 443. in the server setting i use standard local http and https port, public http 80 and https 443, external domain to emby.mydomain.com, own ssl cert (do i have to set all this, because my nginx should handle this)

 

- emby server is on remote location, so every acces with app or browser discribed below ist external via internet

 

1.) because most apps don't handle a 30X redirect.   So you must specify the port, plus by default emby uses port 80XX so that's where the clients will check first for most users, it can be any port so the client needs a starting point.

 

2.) If the other users answers above don't solve things for you, share your nginx config, lets make sure the emby server doesn't think all nginx requests are actually local.

[filewalker 0]

Sry for not replying. Had a very busy time and all of a sudden the problem went away (i thought it had been solved with emby 4.0.0), but as i have some time now to test my server i found the problem to be there again...
 

same Setup, emby behing nginx on Debian machine. all clients connected remotely. In the emby server backend i can see the movies are direct playing withput transcode. Bitrate Limit in Server is set to way lower quality then the movie actually provides. Also quality setting in different apps is set.

Playback from Browser works as expected but every app is only direct streaming.

I had the idea that emby server recognizes my apps as local clients, so i set the local ip adress range to something different from my local net (192.168.20.0 - my local adress is 192.168.0.100)

 

my nginx config (i copied it some time ago from the wiki or forum, i do not remeber exactly, but i also tried the new one listed here https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/47508-how-to-nginx-reverse-proxy/):

server {
        server_name emby.mydomain.com;
        listen 443 ssl http2;
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers       On;
        ssl_protocols                   TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
        ssl_ciphers                     'AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH:!aNULL';
        ssl_stapling                    on;
        resolver                        8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 valid=300s;
        resolver_timeout                5s;
        ssl_stapling_verify             on;
        #ssl_trusted_certificate         /etc/ssl/ca-certs.pem;
        keepalive_timeout               180;

        # This is for strict transport security HSTS
        add_header                    Strict-Transport-Security max-age=31536000;

        client_max_body_size 1024M;

        location / {
                # Send traffic to the backend
                proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8096;
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-for $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                proxy_set_header Host $host;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Protocol $scheme;
                proxy_redirect off;

                # Send websocket data to the backend aswell
                proxy_http_version 1.1;
                proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
                proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        }

}

Do you have any idea what xould be wrong or i could test?

[pir8radio 1293]

what ip address shows up on the emby dashboard when a remote client connects?

[filewalker 0]

on emby dashboard shows up the correct remote ip address, so i think this should be fine. but with brwoser everything works as it should, only with app (all apps, tested with LG, Samsung, Android, iOS,..)

[Luke 37230]

Can we look at an example playback session? thanks.