Adjust bitrate for transcoded audio such as Dolby AC-3

[Luke 36998]

4 minutes ago, cwills75 said:

Any update on allowing a custom/higher bitrate for transcoded audio.  I wasn't even aware this was an issue until recently, but I have a few clients on Apple TV with receivers that are stuck playing AC3 384kb/s with any DTS files.  I was aware the Apple TV doesn't bitstream DTS/DTS-HD MA/DTS-X, but was never aware of the low bitrate until seeing this post and looking in the log files.  Even the streaming info when the file is being played doesn't show audio transcoding going on.  It says direct streaming, which isn't really accurate.

adam1.txt 44 kB · 0 downloads

HI, I think this will be improved in the upcoming 4.7 release, but yes, more options are possible for future updates. Thanks.

[Maldark 1]

On 8/25/2021 at 10:51 AM, MakiXx said:

I've made a GitHub repo with instructions and Windows/Linux builds of my wrapper through GitHub actions so that it's verifiably legit. Let me know if you need help.

https://github.com/makitsune/emby-custom-ac3-bitrate

It seems like the builds have expired, and I have limited expereince building stuff myself (Running Windows). Would someone be able to explain this to me like I'm 5? It's been upsetting me since I started using Emby that the Audio bit-rate when transcoding is so low, and now I've found this thread I feel so close to a solution, I just can't work out how to build my own file for use.

Any help would be amazing.

EDIT: Small progress. Managed to download Go and compile my own version. I found ffmpeg.exe in "AppData/Roaming/Emby-Server/System" renamed to "_ffmpeg.exe" and dropped in the complied version of ffmpeg.go, Little lost as to what to do next.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Maldark

[Maldark 1]

OK it took me a while to sort this out so I thought I'd share my idiots guide to getting this working for anyone else that stumbles across this thread and really wants better audio in transcoding.

This is for Windows only, I'm running on Windows 10, but I assume it'll be the same for 11.

1. Download and install Go (https://go.dev/dl/), you'll need this to compile the new wrapper file. 
2. Restart your computer for the changes to come into effect.
3. Copy the text from the ffmpeg.go file found in MakiXx's github (https://github.com/makitsune/emby-custom-ac3-bitrate) into a notepad document and save the file as "ffmpeg.go" I recommend saving this file to C:/Users/[USERNAME]/
4. Open Command Prompt by typing "CMD" into the start bar and pressing enter.
5. Compile the ffmpeg.go file by typing "go build -ldflags="-s -w" ffmpeg.go" and pressing enter.
6. Find the "ffmpeg.exe" file in your emby-server folder "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system" and rename it to "_ffmpeg.exe"
7. Paste the "ffmpeg.exe" file you compiled in Step 5 into the same folder as the newly renamed "_ffmpeg.exe"
8. Right-click the start button and select "system", scroll down the "About" page and click "Advanced System Settings", then click on "Environmental Variables".
9. Create a new System Variable. It's name is "EMBY_CUSTOM_FFMPEG_PATH" and its value is "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\_ffmpeg.exe
10. Click OK and restart, it should now work, you can confirm by opening a file and forcing it to transcode.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Maldark

[staticmotion 2]

This is brilliant Maldark, thanks so much! I only had problems with step 5. I needed to change the directory in CMD to where a file called "go.mod" was located (having put the ffmpeg.go file in that same folder in step 3). For me it was

CD C:\Program Files\Go\test\bench\go1

once in CMD

Edited May 30, 2022 by staticmotion

[staticmotion 2]

Having said that... it's not working

[OM2K21 10]

@LukeDo you have any plans to support setting the bit rate officially?

[Luke 36998]

On 4/24/2023 at 1:00 AM, OM2K21 said:

@LukeDo you have any plans to support setting the bit rate officially?

Well considering all of the new transcoding settings you'll be getting in 4.8, I would say anything is possible.

[robbom 5]

On 26/04/2023 at 05:25, Luke said:

Well considering all of the new transcoding settings you'll be getting in 4.8, I would say anything is possible.

When is this release due for general users?

[Luke 36998]

9 minutes ago, robbom said:

When is this release due for general users?

Hi, no ETA but we're working hard on it. Thanks.

[MikFlix 1]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:42 AM, Luke said:

Hi, no ETA but we're working hard on it. Thanks.

Still not changeable in 4.7.13. This is just ridiculous...

[Ac3sRwild 0]

Just test

On 4/25/2023 at 2:25 PM, Luke said:

Well considering all of the new transcoding settings you'll be getting in 4.8, I would say anything is possible.

Just tested 4.8.0.41 beta and still not seeing any sign of an option to adjust bitrate and/or codec for transcoded audio. Can we get any sort of confirmation as to whether or not you guys plan to implement this feature? In the meantime I also tested the docker build from MakiXx and it is working great. Hard to understand why this feature keeps getting passed over by the devs.

[Luke 36998]

On 8/14/2023 at 12:33 PM, Ac3sRwild said:

Just test

Just tested 4.8.0.41 beta and still not seeing any sign of an option to adjust bitrate and/or codec for transcoded audio. Can we get any sort of confirmation as to whether or not you guys plan to implement this feature? In the meantime I also tested the docker build from MakiXx and it is working great. Hard to understand why this feature keeps getting passed over by the devs.

Who or what is MakiXx? I would expect more transcoding tinkering options to continue to come, but I don't have an ETA on this particular thing.

[MakiXx 1]

12 hours ago, Luke said:

Who or what is MakiXx? I would expect more transcoding tinkering options to continue to come, but I don't have an ETA on this particular thing.

Check thread?