1080p H.264 & DTS 5.1 on Fire TV Stick 4K

[xhq 0]

Hi. I am a new Emby user. Firstly thank you for such a great media server. I found Emby have every box checked on my list for an ideal media server solution - Comprehensive Dashboard, Netflex style user profiles, seperation of remote access and local access, Seperation of server monitor/configuration page and browser based client, The player on Android TV just works etc etc.

It works flawlessly on my Sony KD-49X8305C which is powered by Android TV. (Well, almost. Multi-track flac with cue is not supported aparently. However that's an irrelavent issue to this topic.)

Recently I bought a Fire TV Stick 4K and decided to start using it as it seems to have a faster CPU and the UI is more responsive compared to the Sony TV built-in system. But Emby is sluggish on it. After checking the logs, it seems Emby decides to transcode for movies with 1080p H.264 & DTS 5.1 when accessed from Fire TV Stick 4K. The server is running on a synology DS216+II, which is not fast enough for the transcoding. In comparison, it looks like Plex does not do transcoding running on the same server when accessed from the same stick. Netflix & Amazon Prime Video also work fine.

Is there any settings I need to fiddle with, or is it simply because the Fire TV Stick 4K is not yet completely supported?
 

Thanks. (Sorry for my English. I am not a native speaker.)

Edited January 2, 2019 by xhq

[ebr 14921]

Hi.  Can we please look at specifics from an example?

 

How to Report a Problem

 

Thanks.

[xhq 0]

ffmpeg transcode log attached. Thanks for having a look. Please let me know if more logs are needed.
 

ffmpeg-transcode-log.txt

[ebr 14921]

Okay, this item has a graphic subtitle which was selected and the Fire does not support DTS audio.  So, once we had to transcode to convert the audio, we also had to burn in the graphic subs.

 

Either a compatible audio track (like DD), an external text subtitle file or setting the audio setting on the app to downmix will cause this to no longer need to transcode.

[xhq 0]

Thanks ebr. I haven't got a chance to try the options yet. But why does the sub have to be burnt in when only the audio track needs to be transcoded? Or is it the case that the player on Fire TV does not natively support graphic subs? 

[Luke 37094]

The pgs subs will only work with direct play, so once the audio had to be converted, that meant the subtitles also had to be burned in with transcoding.

[maegibbons 1267]

Hi

 

I tend to use the Fire TV sticks on Tellys without soundbars or other "higher" end audio solutions.

 

i.e basic stereo TV speakers.

 

Setting the Audio to "downmix to stereo" has always enabled me to play most content direct,

 

SO if you do not need 5.1 on the TV that it is plugged in to then that is the "in-app" option to go for to solve your transcoding issues as @@ebr has already mentioned.

 

Krs

 

Mark

Edited January 4, 2019 by maegibbons

[xhq 0]

Yes I don't attach any high end speakers on the TV. Just tried with "Downmix to stereo" and it works now. Perfect for me. Thank you guys!