Best server and client hardware for 4K HDR

[rafaeldelrey 0]

Hi,

 

I have been testing Emby Server for a couple of months.  I was a Plex user for years, but its lack of support for 4K started to bother me.  It turns out Emby share the same problems for 4K media.  My current setup:

 

Server:

Ubuntu 18.04

Intel Core i7 7700k

Nvidia GTX 1080

8Gb Ram

 

Available clients:

- Apple TV 4K;

- Fire Cube TV;

- Samsung Q6F 82";

- Xbox One X (never tested emby here);

- Chrome Browser in a 4K display notebook;

- Sonos Beam (which doesnt play a lot of sound formats, but it seems this is not a issue with my movies);

 

Wired ethernet;

Media stored in a NFS shared drive in a Synology DS;

 

There is not a single 4K files who plays flawlessly with Emby.  Sometimes, I can play certain movies, if I use the Samsung TV, select no subtitles, 5.1 soundtrack, and it has a lower bitrate.  In these situations, the movie is direct played on TV.  This is not always possible, because the Samsung Emby App has a bug in selecting soundtrack.  

 

All the movies plays smoothly with VLC in my notebook, accessing the very same network media, connected through wifi, so I believe there is no issue with network or the NAS;

 

I ve read the Nvidia Shield could play any 4K movies, but has problems with HDR.  I understand this could be a solution, maybe even an HTPC, but this make all the Emby/Plex "play anywhere" proposal useless.

 

Should I give up using 4K currently on Emby, or there is any combination of server/client who works with 4K HDR media?

 

 

 

 

[vaise 307]

I replaced my main Lounge Room Roku with an Nvidea ShieldTV for better 4K.

Does a lad of other stuff too (free games etc for the kids).

Roku;s in all other rooms but they dont have 4K TV's.

I maintain a separate emby library for the 4K content.

[rafaeldelrey 0]

Does Nvidia Shield Handles 4K HDR content?

[jon_ 23]

Does Nvidia Shield Handles 4K HDR content?

 

Depending on the format of the media, sometimes the emby app won't recognise it as being HDR - normally if it's been cropped. 

 

I use a shield with Kodi with the emby plugin and it plays pretty much everything flawlessly, including 4K and HDR. 

[rafaeldelrey 0]

It looks like no media streamer currently supports 4K transcoding flawlessly, so we have to use special hardware/software (shield+kodi+emby_plugin) on the client side.  This make the whole transcoding, "play anywhere" pretty useless, making plex and emby mostly a media organizer, instead of a media streamer.

[jon_ 23]

It looks like no media streamer currently supports 4K transcoding flawlessly, so we have to use special hardware/software (shield+kodi+emby_plugin) on the client side.  This make the whole transcoding, "play anywhere" pretty useless, making plex and emby mostly a media organizer, instead of a media streamer.

 

As long as you aren't burning subtitles in, then Emby shouldn't have to transcode to the shield - it will direct stream everything - 4K / HDR etc etc. I've tested with a FireTV 4K and that worked OK streaming 4K in the native Emby app. 

 

The issue with HDR playback on the shield in the native emby app is a google issue with android - if the source has been cropped in a certain way then the android player won't enable HDR mode - a bug is filed for this with google - there's a thread somewhere else on here going into detail. Kodi uses it's own engine so that plays back the content OK. 

 

If you do have to transcode, the issue is with FFMPEG as this doesn't handle HDR conversion very well - both Plex and Emby rely on FFMEG so they are both affected. It's possible to 'fudge' it with colourspace mapping, but this is more of a workaround than a proper long term solution. You also need pretty powerful hardware to transcode multiple 4K streams at once. 

[Guest asrequested]

My faith is entirely in HTPCs. I can play anything. I've got mpv dialed in.

[rafaeldelrey 0]

Since the transcoding issues rely on ffmpeg, would you say installing emby server in a Windows plattform, makes things better?  Not a huge fan of windows as a server, but if I could keep things simple in my TV, using just the native smart tv apps, which makes things easies for kids and wife, that would be better.

[Jdiesel 1114]

The server environment will have no impact as ffmpeg is used regardless.

 

The best option, imo, is a Shield TV for direct playing your 4K material (avoid cropped content for now), keeping a separate 1080p version for all other devices that can't direct play 4K material, and a modest Linux sever with an Nvidia GPU and the stream restriction patch.

 

Transcoding 4K material adds tons of issues and complexity that aren't worth the hassle.

[jon_ 23]

The server environment will have no impact as ffmpeg is used regardless.

 

The best option, imo, is a Shield TV for direct playing your 4K material (avoid cropped content for now), keeping a separate 1080p version for all other devices that can't direct play 4K material, and a modest Linux sever with an Nvidia GPU and the stream restriction patch.

 

Transcoding 4K material adds tons of issues and complexity that aren't worth the hassle.

 

This is pretty similar to what I have - I have a separate library for 4K / HDR content which is only shared locally, where content will be direct played. With Kodi as the front end you avoid the HDR issues. If you want it to look like the Emby client, you can use the Embruary skin

 

Anything remote has another 1080p SDR copy which can easily be transcoded to whatever format / res is needed. I switched from an HTPC as I wanted something reasonably integrated that could also play Netflix / Prime video and other streaming services without having to swap back and forth between devices. Kodi has limited Netflix / Prime support built in now, but it's a not as good as the Shield / FireTV support..

 

One point with the smart TV apps - they may not cope with 4K content that well, quite often the chipsets in the devices are pretty slow. You may find that a shieldTV (or even a 4K FireTV) will give a much smoother user experience. 

[rafaeldelrey 0]

Is there a way to use subtitles without transcoding?

I have been using a Samsung Q6F with Tizen OS for 3 weeks.  Every program I tested is faster on it than on my Cube Fire TV.  It is as smooth as my Apple TV 4 in most cases.  And it direct play some 4K videos the Fire TV and ATV doesnt.

 

It is so sad emby and plex cant handle 4K content well.

[jon_ 23]

Is there a way to use subtitles without transcoding?

 

 

Make sure you have 'allow subtitle extraction on the fly' set in the transcoding settings on the server. It's client dependant though.. 

[Riggs 300]

Is there a way to use subtitles without transcoding?

I have been using a Samsung Q6F with Tizen OS for 3 weeks.  Every program I tested is faster on it than on my Cube Fire TV.  It is as smooth as my Apple TV 4 in most cases.  And it direct play some 4K videos the Fire TV and ATV doesnt.

 

It is so sad emby and plex cant handle 4K content well.

 

Hi, i have a huge 4K movie collection. Emby can handle and play 4K HDR content better than Plex. Of course, there's some know issues, (crop), still in working progress, but not big deal.

 

The original source for your 4K content is a good idea. Mpore space, but that the better experience to enjoy 4K and HDR.

 

Becasue space and size of the movies, many people decide using encoding releases of 4K content. One original remux of a complete movie take it from the original source, can be between 50GB  to 90GB,  the encoding can weight 15 or 12 GB... So what is the point to get that cheap releases? That is not even compression, that is a decoding that takes a lot of color information to get a smaller file (same as mp3). The quality is so whorst, that the 1080p original blu-ray can be better, and many of those encodes crop the movie, and no all players can handled that (yet).

 

Just to clarify. 1080p content with 1080p compatible devices.

 

4K content with 4K compatible devices. That includes HDR support in the device. Some devices can handle dolby vision too (hdr+)

 

I have a computer very similar at yours (same processor), i was running the Emby Server Windows 10 and i change it to Linux more than a month ago.

 

I had no unsolved issues on Windows and i don't have it on Linux either, you have better video card than me.

 

Like you, i migrated from Plex a year and a half, i don't like how that company works.

 

With Emby you can watch content inside your LAN, no matter if you lost your internet service for whatever reason.

 

Youre devices:

 

"- Apple TV 4K;

- Fire Cube TV;

- Samsung Q6F 82";

- Xbox One X (never tested emby here);

- Chrome Browser in a 4K display notebook;

- Sonos Beam (which doesnt play a lot of sound formats, but it seems this is not a issue with my movies);"

 

 

You can read the manual and tech specs of every device that you have, check the HDMI wires that you are using, and of course, always better use a wired connection at 1GB in your internal LAN.

 

You don't need decode everything to playback, some of your devices can handle direct play. The subtitles, always is recommended use a .srt Subtitle at side of the movie file.

 

For more info about Emby you can visit the wiki. https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki

 

Hope this helps.

 

Regards.

[rafaeldelrey 0]

My server had 3 GTX 1080 (i removed 2 of them, just to make sure this mult-gpu wasnt causing problems). 4K transcoding is not handled well.  Buffering happens very often, even the server monitor showing a good ammount of "transcode buffer".  In the server, I see the GPU using 10-20%, and one of the 8 cores mostly at 100%.

 

It looks the solution for playing 4K content is:

- Get 4K versions who are directly playable in client devices (subtitles in .srt files, no crop, manageable bandwidth);

- Get a more powerfull client (nvidia shield of htpc);

- Keep a separate 1080p version for other client devices;

 

By using a .srt file, I am now able to watch Avengers Infinity War in my TV, with transcoding just the audio from TrueHD, since Sonos Beam doesnt support that.  At 30 min of movie and no buffering.  No luck with Pacific Rim, because transcoding video is required due to bandwidth limits.  

[Guest asrequested]

 

It looks the solution for playing 4K content is:

- Get 4K versions who are directly playable in client devices (subtitles in .srt files, no crop, manageable bandwidth);

- Get a more powerfull client (nvidia shield of htpc);

- Keep a separate 1080p version for other client devices;

 

At present, that's pretty much on the money. Once transcode tone mapping is implemented, then things will be different.

 

FYI the whole 'cropped' HDR thing, is a misnomer. The movies aren't actually cropped, as they aren't made with the padding in the first place. Padding is only added to crappy disc media. If you buy digital downloads, they come in the original format (no padding (black bars)). And that issue is unique to Shield. It is specifically an Nvidia issue when using Exoplayer on Shield. If you use an HTPC with Theater desktop, you will be able to play anything you want. And even be able to choose how you want the tone mapping of HDR to look.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Doofus

[rafaeldelrey 0]

I have purchased an Nvidia Shield TV.  It handles 4K content a lot better, but I found out, most of the problems comes from the emby server:

 

- All movies I tested, event when direct playing, doesnt handle HDR.  Image is all washed out;

- Some movies, even direct playing, simply get stuck, with frozen image;

 

It turns out I decided to retest Plex with Nvidia Shield.  It handles flawlessly all the moveis I throw at it.  I was not even using hardware acceleration, since I cancelled my Plex Pass, but even in cases it had to transcode audio, it have gone well.  It still has problems with some subtitles who demand transcoding, but using external SRT files solves this (as with emby).

 

It looks Plex have the edge in this.  I was liking Emby a lot, although the Samsung TV app looked half finished.  But it is time to move back to Plex.  Maybe in the future, both handles 4K better.

 

Thank you all.

[Luke 37178]

Hi @@rafaeldelrey, the server has full support for 4K HDR. It really depends on the app. Can we please go over an example? Thanks !