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Subtitles causing transcoding


macnb

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I just discovered Emby App on my new LG B8 TV.

 

So, I downloaded 4.0.1.0 Emby Server and installed the pkg on my OMV Debian server (4.17) running on HP Micro server N40L (low perf CPU). Very easy.

Added a handful of movies to a test library (again easy to do).

 

Emby app on the TV shows the added movies.

 

When I select one movie, I can see the default audio (TrueHD) and default subtitle English SRT (embedded in the .mkv).

When I play it, I noticed that the Emby server dashboard is showing "Direct streaming" but also transcoding and the server load is around 36%.

No subtitles are displayed.

 

I re-rip the movie and make the subtitle an external SRT file and call it ?????.eng.default.srt.

Then select it in the Emby App, it plays the movie with the subtitles and importantly, there's no transcoding taking place.

 

The question is, why is the server (or the App) asking for transcoding to be done for embedded subtitles ?

 

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mastrmind11

I just discovered Emby App on my new LG B8 TV.

 

So, I downloaded 4.0.1.0 Emby Server and installed the pkg on my OMV Debian server (4.17) running on HP Micro server N40L (low perf CPU). Very easy.

Added a handful of movies to a test library (again easy to do).

 

Emby app on the TV shows the added movies.

 

When I select one movie, I can see the default audio (TrueHD) and default subtitle English SRT (embedded in the .mkv).

When I play it, I noticed that the Emby server dashboard is showing "Direct streaming" but also transcoding and the server load is around 36%.

No subtitles are displayed.

 

I re-rip the movie and make the subtitle an external SRT file and call it ?????.eng.default.srt.

Then select it in the Emby App, it plays the movie with the subtitles and importantly, there's no transcoding taking place.

 

The question is, why is the server (or the App) asking for transcoding to be done for embedded subtitles ?

Because they are embedded they need to be burned in.

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Hi there, welcome. Let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks !

 

Thank you.

 

See attached files.

Log.txt

Log-2.txt

 

I think the transcode seems to related to audio. 

The TV has Dolby Atmos but not TrueHD. If I select non-TrueHD track and external SRT then it plays direct.

post-410719-0-06126000-1548198243_thumb.png

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Hi there, the subtitles are not causing transcoding, it is the TrueHD audio that is the reason. Does this answer your question?

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Hi there, the subtitles are not causing transcoding, it is the TrueHD audio that is the reason. Does this answer your question?

 

Yes that explains it for that specific movie but it is not consistent behaviour.

For example, when I play a movie which has a Default audio track of  AC-3 Dolby 5.1 (on that the LG TV can handle) and select a default subtitle (Text based) embedded in the .MKV, then the video is transcoded from HEVC to h.264:

post-410719-0-16052800-1548262060_thumb.png

Log-4.txt

...and of course it's not watchable as the server cannot transcode fast enough.

...and the subtitle is not displayed (the embedded SRT).

 

In this case, why is the video being transcoded ?

 

If I select the external SRT subtitle file, then the Emby App plays the movie directly without any transcoding except the only issue is that it's plays the wrong audio track (not the selected Dolby 5.1 but the NEXT audio track which is the directors commentary).

Log-5.txt

 

MediaInfo.txt

 

In all cases, it seems, that embedded subtitles are not displayed. I have to rip them separately into TEXT and name them "movie-name.eng.default.srt" which enables the Emby App to display/overlay the subtitles.

 

May be there's a sample file with subtitles that you know works that I can download ?

 

Thank you.

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In log 4 you selected PGS subtitles. Those are not text srt, those are graphical subtitles. That's why the transcoding is occurring. Does that answer your question?

 

Please note all of the information  I'm telling you here is available in your server dashboard. It can tell you why transcoding is occurring.

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Spaceboy

In log 4 you selected PGS subtitles. Those are not text srt, those are graphical subtitles. That's why the transcoding is occurring. Does that answer your question?

 

Please note all of the information I'm telling you here is available in your server dashboard. It can tell you why transcoding is occurring.

so when will you be adding that helpful indicator that shows whether a sub stream is graphical or text.....?
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In log 4 you selected PGS subtitles. Those are not text srt, those are graphical subtitles. That's why the transcoding is occurring. Does that answer your question?

 

Please note all of the information  I'm telling you here is available in your server dashboard. It can tell you why transcoding is occurring.

 

 

OK. May be it was a bad example on my part. But the picture I but posted from the Dashboard does not show why it is transcoding.

It shows HEVC -> H.264 s/w; playback position; Transcode Position; Transcode buffer and throttle (off).

As a suggestion, it would be nice to show "Transcode Reason: Device resolution mismatch; or Device video codec unsupported (HEVC); or Device audio unsupported (TrueHD); or Device Subtitle unsupported (PGS)"; etc, etc.

 

I found a problem as to why the SRT subtitles were not appearing. I re-did the rip and only had ONE embedded subtitle (SRT).

Now when I play the movie, it plays directly fine except the subtitles do not appear until ~5 minutes after playback started.

Subsequent playback is fine. That is, if the TV is restarted (standby to ON) and Emby app restarted, then subtitles are played back in realtime.

If the Emby server is restarted and the movie is played back, then there's a long time gap before the subtitles appear.

 

It seems that FFMPEG on the server is extracting the SRT and eventually sending it to the Emby Player.

So until then, it appears to the user that the subtitle do not work.

 

Logs attached.

 

Log-6.txt

 

Media info:

MediaInfo-2.txt

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How would you suggest that would appear?

 

By adding a "..." button like this:

post-410719-0-69943300-1548284361_thumb.png

 

When the user clicks on the button, a popup shows "more info" about the stream being played (such as destination video codec, audio codec, subtitle, etc).

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OK. May be it was a bad example on my part. But the picture I but posted from the Dashboard does not show why it is transcoding.

 

Sorry, my apologies.  Once you have our updated LG app that is currently in LG app review, then you will see the transcoding reasons on the server dashboard.

 

 

It seems that FFMPEG on the server is extracting the SRT and eventually sending it to the Emby Player.

So until then, it appears to the user that the subtitle do not work.

 

Correct, if this process takes a long time on your system then it could cause the subtitles to not show for a little while. We have a new technique that is able to send segments of subtitles on the fly as they are extracted so this will not be a problem anymore. We are currently working on getting this into all apps, and LG will eventually get it's turn. Thanks.

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Sorry, my apologies.  Once you have our updated LG app that is currently in LG app review, then you will see the transcoding reasons on the server dashboard.

 

 

Correct, if this process takes a long time on your system then it could cause the subtitles to not show for a little while. We have a new technique that is able to send segments of subtitles on the fly as they are extracted so this will not be a problem anymore. We are currently working on getting this into all apps, and LG will eventually get it's turn. Thanks.

 

 

Cool. Thx for the explanation. Looking forward to the new LG Emby App.

So in the mean time, the only solution for me is to have an external SRT subtitle file.

 

BTW, off-topic but regarding the LG Emby App, it currently does not fully EXIT when clicking on the exit button.

What happens is that the LG home screen appears and if you select Live TV (or other inputs), and then Home, then Emby App again; what appears is Emby screen exactly where it was left when exited. That is, you do not see the Emby splash screen (to signify a new session of Emby client). The only way to see the Emby splash screen is to switch off the TV.

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