Guest asrequested Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 From the reporting that @ has been doing on the progress of the underlying mpv development it sounds like the tonemapping is getting much better. If you have any needs outside of running Emby it may sway your decision. Other streaming apps, running the server on the same hardware, gaming, power/noise, remote, updates, etc. For me it really came down to not wanting a Windows PC in my setup, I want a simple media device not a full blow computer but other may feel different. Thanks for that. And yes, it just got a huge upgrade. The picture quality is so close to passthrough, and no need to have HDCP compliance. You just play the video, like any other. It would seem your biggest consideration at this point, would be cost. On that, there is no comparison. Shield wins, hands down. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 The Shield TV doesn't like this for some reason. It's not the Shield, but the internal media player called EXOPLAYER, that Google provide, that Emby utilises. Cropped HDR videos play fine in Plex on the Shield, as well as a few other media player apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 You'd need to build or buy something new. And of course that's considerably more expensive than a Shield. And I've said this a thousand times, I will never stop using an HTPC, nothing matches it.....nothing at all! Neigh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Good point is, that I should not have the "cropped issue". In that case, a Shield is the answer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBoosteR 10 Posted January 13, 2019 Author Share Posted January 13, 2019 Guys, wonderful. Thank you for your quick input and your suggestions. Maybe the "crop" issue will go away if emby is using the same player as Plex, but at this point it is not something which is holding me back from buying a shield. Hopefully there will be a sale on that device -Ice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkss12 295 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 4K resolution is 3840x2160, depending on the aspect ratio the video content was filmed or processed in (16:9, 1.85:1, 2:39:1, etc) the actual vertical resolution may vary. When ripping these movies from the original bluray the person doing it often crops out the empty black borders above and below the video to save space on the final video resulting in a video with a resolution with something like 3840x1600. The Shield TV doesn't like this for some reason. You can avoid this by not cropping the video when you encode it or avoid downloading them if you aren't making your own. Thank you for that answer, I had no idea......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 It's not the Shield, but the internal media player called EXOPLAYER, that Google provide, that Emby utilises. Cropped HDR videos play fine in Plex on the Shield, as well as a few other media player apps. No that's not correct. Here's the explanation again. Exoplayer unlike all the other players doesn't have it's own decoder, it's designed to use the native device decoder. So it just sends the media directly to it, just like emby server does when you direct play. So shield is solely responsible for decoding the media. Other players have their own decoder, which is why it works ok with them. This is why exoplayer on all the other Android TV devices has no problem with playing the same cropped HDR media. Shield is the only device that has this problem. There is a problem with shield decoder. This is why when I initially discovered the problem, I asked ebr if there was an option to be able to use a different decoder. The answer was no. I suspect this is how plex has made it work. They likely implemented a decoder and compiled their own fork of exoplayer. That is the best way to do this, then you use the same decoder on all devices. Much less troubleshooting and a more solid player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 No that's not correct. Here's the explanation again. Exoplayer unlike all the other players doesn't have it's own decoder, it's designed to use the native device decoder. So it just sends the media directly to it, just like emby server does when you direct play. So shield is solely responsible for decoding the media. Other players have their own decoder, which is why it works ok with them. This is why exoplayer on all the other Android TV devices has no problem with playing the same cropped HDR media. Shield is the only device that has this problem. There is a problem with shield decoder. This is why when I initially discovered the problem, I asked ebr if there was an option to be able to use a different decoder. The answer was no. I suspect this is how plex has made it work. They likely implemented a decoder and compiled their own fork of exoplayer. That is the best way to do this, then you use the same decoder on all devices. Much less troubleshooting and a more solid player. So why hasn't @@ebr investigated it then, if that's all that's needed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 So why hasn't @@ebr investigated it then, if that's all that's needed? I suspect he'd rather have the root problem, resolved. Rather than find a workaround. If Nvidia fixes it, that's a more solid solution. I tend to agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 I suspect he'd rather have the root problem, resolved. Rather than find a workaround. If Nvidia fixes it, that's a more solid solution. I tend to agree. We could be waiting for years. The fact the Plex works, means it's do-able now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 We could be waiting for years. The fact the Plex works, means it's do-able now. Well, yeah, but that's not my decision. Nvidia hasn't addressed the cuda decoding problems on the GPUs, either. I've reported it, they confirmed it.....and they told me it would take a long time. This is part of why I love mpv. I've got a multitude of options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Well, yeah, but that's not my decision. Nvidia hasn't addressed the cuda decoding problems on the GPUs, either. I've reported it, they confirmed it.....and they told me it would take a long time. This is part of why I love mpv. I've got a multitude of options. Does MPV play cropped HDR on the Shield? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Does MPV play cropped HDR on the Shield? I just tried the clip of The Martian directly in mpv on the shield, and it played just fine. But remember there's only stereo audio, not passthrough, and it's tone mapped not HDR passthrough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 If there were an option to use an external player only for HDR (bt.2020), then that could be a temporary solution. Then you could use any other player that supports HDR. MX player, VLC, mpv etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 If there were an option to use an external player only for HDR (bt.2020), then that could be a temporary solution. Then you could use any other player that supports HDR. MX player, VLC, mpv etc. I've suggested that already to @@ebr by tagging cropped HDR movies and forcing them to use an external player, but no feedback. I think it's because TAGS don't work in Emby server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 36999 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Tags do work but I'm sure he prefers a method that will just work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Tags do work but I'm sure he prefers a method that will just work. We agree, but seeing as that seems to be a long way off, an interim solution is a must. Having to set up an external player each time you want to watch a cropped HDR movie, is a bit of an overkill. Using Plex is an alternative for us that have both servers installed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthDegree 3 Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 I just signed up, and really like emby but the HDR issue is a deal breaker for myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coxeroni 26 Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Just don't download cropped files and you are fine 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaptainCed 0 Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 For home purposes I use an Oppo UDP203, they stopped producing them some months ago but it is still easy to find. You can also check for the big brother: Oppo UDP205. It really makes wonder, no transcoding needed and perfect 4k HDR reproduction at full mb/s. Whatever I throw At it is getting trough without any hiccups. Well the only drawback I have is waiting 20 secs for the movie to start because of loading! (Hereditary 4k HDR 70mb/s) So if the goal is ONLY to watch movies/series in UHD dolby vision, dolby atmos and more, that is the beast you need! And it double with the most silent blu-ray 4k player + super CD I have ever heard: https://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-udp-203/ https://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-udp-205/ Ps: the only other choice I would personally recommend is the Nvidia Shield: Cheap and reliable, hopefully you don't need to transcode because you are loosing HDR capabilities. Any updates that will throw HDR,dolby vision r even hdr 10+ when ready in the transcoding? Like light transcoding (go from 70mb/s to 25 mb/s but stay in 4k)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagicDoubleM 93 Posted October 13, 2019 Share Posted October 13, 2019 The FireTVStick4k and 2nd gen FireTVCube can actually pass-through anything up to DolbyVision with DolbyAtmos and properly trigger that stuff on my LG B8-series TV. That combo only works with some official demo-files, since there are still problems with muxing those streams together properly on the end-user side of things - files made with Dolby's mp4muxer and DVDFab do not trigger DolbyVision here, no matter what level i use (but they do trigger it on Emby's webOS player running on that LG TV). So, maybe the parsing can be fixed on the clients side? At least to get DolbyVision triggered? Basic HDR10 works fine, tone-mapping HDR>SDR via external player like VLC also works. But in general DolbyVision/DolbyAtmos can be done and Emby does handle proper streams well even on those cheaper android devices. Ps: the only other choice I would personally recommend is the Nvidia Shield: Cheap and reliable, hopefully you don't need to transcode because you are loosing HDR capabilities. Any updates that will throw HDR,dolby vision r even hdr 10+ when ready in the transcoding? Like light transcoding (go from 70mb/s to 25 mb/s but stay in 4k)? Hmmm, in most cases i'd prefer to keep at least HDR10 intact and instead sacrifice 4k. There are so many movies, which won more in regards of color-fidelity/contras than in fine-details, since Hollywood is still not doing proper 4k-DI's in masses. Maybe that's a thing that should become options on the client side? BTW, it looks like transcoding even DolbyVision could be possible, since x265 does support that now. Also ffmpeg seems to have added the ability to mux TrueHD into mp4-files. As a side-effect of all that, HDR10+ to DV might bei thinkable and interesting too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blumamba 10 Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 Has any one used the newest version of the Shield Pro which supports Dolby Vision, Atmos, and HDR? It allegedly passes through and upscales anything 720p and higher extremely well? Can anyone confirm that this is true and share your thoughts? Does anyone know why it won't upscale 480P content? I still have older DVDs that are not on blu ray even! I know for a fact that algorithms have existed that have done a phenomenal job scaling 480i/p to 720P. That was the first gen XBOX modified using the XBMC (aka Kody) which was then upscaled by my Samsung DLP/Led hybrid to 1080p. So why cant that be done with todays advancements? Thanks for the input Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 Has any one used the newest version of the Shield Pro which supports Dolby Vision, Atmos, and HDR? It allegedly passes through and upscales anything 720p and higher extremely well? Can anyone confirm that this is true and share your thoughts? @@FrostByte? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrostByte 5041 Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 According to nvidia AI upscaling doesn't work on video less than 480p. So I read that as it will work on 480p and higher. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/support/shield-tv/ai-upscaling/ Anything below that it will use enhanced upscaling, but it still upscales. As far as the upscaling goes, I think it looks darn good on my 1080p videos, I think even better than my 2018 TV does. I usually have higher bitrate stuff though and I'm sure the quality of the input determines how good the upscaling is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blumamba 10 Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 I have read conflicting statements by Nvidia, They quote only 720P and higher in one spot than in another they state 480P? And from what I can gleen from other sources its 50/50, so hence the question? I read it that way too, but conflicting statements had me wondering. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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