Transcoding Hell

[MarkSM 0]

New user here! Was very excited to try Emby.

 

However, I have been in transcoding hell for two weeks to the point where I'm seriously tempted to ditch this software. I'm A Roku fanboy. Actually own the stock!

 

This is purely an audio problem. When I try to stream wav files, they transcode with the log message "codec not supported". When I try to stream FLAC, they transcode with the log message "container not supported". This is a very clean file collection. There are no container/codec issues.

 

Roku's own media player does not transcode my files.  PLEX does not transcode my files. The Samsung TV OS does not transcode my files. My android phone works!! I'm at a total loss.

 

Anyone's help would be appreciated.

 

MarkSM

ffmpeg-transcode-9583baf9-a974-4dbd-befc-56217caa76d2_1.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-069c2002-99f7-4862-962b-6bdfac5f91a6_1.txt

[speechles 1917]

Odd.. Wav should already be there but oddly was not. So added that back. That does direct play. That was my fault for not remembering to get that in there. Now it is. Thanks for bringing that up.

 

But flac does NOT on Roku.. Have tried many many times and it always says error -3. You say Plex direct plays FLAC. Do they on their Roku client? If so something on the server side is breaking FLAC for us. The Roku simply ingests a stream based on the extension. Some of the streams the server sends back for audio lacks the extension. I might need to do some work on this today and clarify what is the new normal. Roku updated to firmare 9.1.x and maybe this changes things...

 

    'if audio.lookup("WMA") 

    'if audio.lookup("WMAPRO")

    'if audio.lookup("VORBIS")

    'if audio.lookup("OPUS")

    'if audio.lookup("FLAC")

    'if audio.lookup("AC3")

    'if audio.lookup("DD+")

 

None of these presently play in my testing. It might have to do with the /universal music endpoint Emby uses. It may not. I can do some tests. But on firmware 9.0.x and lower the above codecs with the 'comment on front did not direct play. It was not possible. They would all throw the -3 error. Transcoding is the only way to make these items produce audio without being skipped.

 

Hope you understand. It isn't this way just to cause you grief. We seriously take these problems to heart. Are you absolutely positive Plex is direct play your FLAC files on Roku? 100% positive?

 

NOTE: Roku's RMP media player is based on the older SDKA framework and as such FLAC always worked. Same as Emby Blue Neon Night (older SDKA app for Emby on Roku) FLAC works there as well and I wrote that app. So the fact I cannot get FLAC to work in scene graph (present Emby roku app) is saying something.

Edited June 10, 2019 by speechles

[MarkSM 0]

Thank you for the quick reply!

 

I will gather as much ACCURATE info on my side as I can ... including PLEX results. And repost here.

 

All I own is WAV and FLAC so this is BIG for me personally.

 

I appreciate your attentiveness, and your technical expertise. I'm an old IT (38 years industry) "troubleshooter".

 

Thank you again!

 

MarkSM

[speechles 1917]

Thank you for the quick reply!

 

I will gather as much ACCURATE info on my side as I can ... including PLEX results. And repost here.

 

All I own is WAV and FLAC so this is BIG for me personally.

 

I appreciate your attentiveness, and your technical expertise. I'm an old IT (38 years industry) "troubleshooter".

 

Thank you again!

 

MarkSM

 

We take customer service seriously. We want happy customers. We reach out directly to our customers to solve problems. That is the difference. You can speak directly to the developers who are responsible for maintain the application and/or server on these forums. I am sorry we let you down. We will do better. I will look into how. Thanks for any feedback you have to offer us both good and bad. We use feedback as our barometer to tell which issues/features get the attention...right now. The squeakier the wheel the more grease it will get. The louder that squeak the faster that grease will get to it. Thanks again.

 

Playback issues never take a backseat to anything else. They are always queued to the front and worked on at that moment. Your audio issues affect playback. These will be investigated today. Here is the ticket for your WAV issue with the fix.

 

Reference: Fix #475: add WAV support

Edited June 10, 2019 by speechles

[ebr 14910]

Can you please try your WAV file with the beta version of the Roku app?

[MarkSM 0]

We take customer service seriously. We want happy customers. We reach out directly to our customers to solve problems. That is the difference. You can speak directly to the developers who are responsible for maintain the application and/or server on these forums. I am sorry we let you down. We will do better. I will look into how. Thanks for any feedback you have to offer us both good and bad. We use feedback as our barometer to tell which issues/features get the attention...right now. The squeakier the wheel the more grease it will get. The louder that squeak the faster that grease will get to it. Thanks again.

 

Playback issues never take a backseat to anything else. They are always queued to the front and worked on at that moment. Your audio issues affect playback. These will be investigated today. Here is the ticket for your WAV issue with the fix.

 

Reference: Fix #475: add WAV support

 

So … Roku using the PLEX app (as of 10 minutes ago) transcodes my WAV files successfully, and direct plays my FLAC files successfully.

 

MarkSM

[MarkSM 0]

Can you please try your WAV file with the beta version of the Roku app?

 

Okay, I just added the channel. Says 24 hours to post?

 

MarkSM

[speechles 1917]

Okay, I just added the channel. Says 24 hours to post?

 

MarkSM

 

You can go to update your Roku manually. Then you will get it now. 

 

We should be able to easily direct play WAV. The FLAC I will work on supporting. If Plex can play FLAC directly so can we. We just have something funny going on that breaks it. We will straighten that out very shortly and get rid of that "Joke". It isn't funny that we cannot play FLAC. It annoys me as well because I love lossless and lossy is.. not that.

Edited June 10, 2019 by speechles

[MarkSM 0]

Never mind … BETA here!

Okay, with the Roku Emby BETA, WAV file is streaming "direct play", FLAC file still transcoding.

Awesome!

 

MarkSM

[speechles 1917]

Okay.. check back tomorrow and I will have great news or.. more of the same news. I will dedicate some quiet time tonight to solving that puzzle.

It has annoyed me for quite some time like one of my ex-wives does constantly by badgering our adult children for monetary help with her bills. Our children are both in their late 20's and neither should be helping their mother pay her gambling debt by helping her with her car payment, insurance, or utility bills, or whatever else she claims she "needs". Like new tires.. What mother has children pay for their mothers tires because she spent all her money at the indian casino? I can name that mother. I could. I was married to her. I won't. She doesn't deserve the air..

 

But it leads to the question:

How are her bills theirs? Who thinks like that? exactly..

Why does FLAC not work? equally questionable. Same riddle sort of.. an easier one to solve by x1000 times.

 

In this case the Roku cannot have a motive that drives it to not play FLAC and demand a cash ransom to unlock it. If the Roku were my ex-wife that would be required. In this case I am joking to make this less painful and try to show we are people too. No robots here... lol. I will spend that time tonight and unlock FLAC tonight and figure out WTF. If not I will have an explanation of what is breaking it and clues for @@Luke to fix it. This might have to do with the /universal endpoint. It might. It could. Not sure until I dig into this with wireshark. Stay tuned. ^_~

Edited June 10, 2019 by speechles

[Happy2Play 8279]

Why does the dashboard show Direct play when the file is transcoding according to the log? 

2019-06-10 16:03:23.747
Application version: 4.2.0.14

http://192.168.151.16:8096/emby/Audio/172548/hls1/main/0.ts?PlaySessionId=1656752674&container=wav,wav%7Cpcm_s16le,wav%7Cpcm_s24le,lpcm,lpcm%7Clpcm,raw%7Clpcm,aif%7Clpcm,aiff%7Clpcm,mp4%7Caac,mka%7Caac,m4a%7Caac,m4a%7Calac,mka%7Calac,mp2,mp3&deviceId=b9388273-430b-5e80-a4c6-f26c1e44d40f&maxStreamingBitrate=1500000&userId=39a92daf6ac74f4eab5398838083fada&transcodingContainer=ts&transcodingProtocol=hls&audioCodec=aac&enableRedirection=true&enableRemoteMedia=false&api_key=d353364daad64966ae487480abbf017c&SegmentContainer=ts&AudioBitrate=384000&TranscodeReasons=ContainerNotSupported

{"Protocol":"File","Id":"7c3dc0a1834c78af9c574b5337e33a8d","Path":"Z:\\ServerFolders\\Music\\Blake Shelton\\All About Tonight (2010)\\Blake Shelton - 01 - All About Tonight.flac","Type":"Default","Container":"flac","Size":26704852,"Name":"Blake Shelton - 01 - All About Tonight","IsRemote":false,"RunTimeTicks":2071730000,"SupportsTranscoding":true,"SupportsDirectStream":true,"SupportsDirectPlay":true,"IsInfiniteStream":false,"RequiresOpening":false,"RequiresClosing":false,"RequiresLooping":false,"SupportsProbing":false,"MediaStreams":[{"Codec":"flac","TimeBase":"1/44100","CodecTimeBase":"1/44100","DisplayTitle":"FLAC stereo","IsInterlaced":false,"ChannelLayout":"stereo","BitRate":1031208,"BitDepth":16,"Channels":2,"SampleRate":44100,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Type":"Audio","Index":0,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Protocol":"File","Level":0},{"Codec":"mjpeg","ColorSpace":"bt470bg","Comment":"Cover (front)","TimeBase":"1/90000","CodecTimeBase":"0/1","IsInterlaced":false,"BitRate":1031208,"BitDepth":8,"RefFrames":1,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Height":500,"Width":500,"RealFrameRate":90000,"Profile":"192","Type":"EmbeddedImage","AspectRatio":"1:1","Index":1,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Protocol":"File","PixelFormat":"yuvj420p","Level":-99,"IsAnamorphic":false}],"Formats":[],"Bitrate":1031208,"RequiredHttpHeaders":{},"ReadAtNativeFramerate":false}

User policy for Media: EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True



C:\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe -i file:"Z:\ServerFolders\Music\Blake Shelton\All About Tonight (2010)\Blake Shelton - 01 - All About Tonight.flac" -threads 0   -acodec aac -ab 384000 -ac 2 -vn -f segment -max_delay 5000000 -avoid_negative_ts disabled -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 -start_at_zero -segment_time 3  -individual_header_trailer 0 -segment_format mpegts -segment_write_temp 1 -segment_list_type m3u8 -segment_start_number 0 -segment_list "C:\Emby-Server\programdata\transcoding-temp\17662754ffbfb4c01fe127bb59399691.m3u8" -y "C:\Emby-Server\programdata\transcoding-temp\17662754ffbfb4c01fe127bb59399691%d.ts"

The item "Blake Shelton - 01 - All About Tonight.flac" will play directly off a usb drive in RMP.

 

Looks like I need to read everything.  

 

NOTE: Roku's RMP media player is based on the older SDKA framework and as such FLAC always worked. Same as Emby Blue Neon Night (older SDKA app for Emby on Roku) FLAC works there as well and I wrote that app. So the fact I cannot get FLAC to work in scene graph (present Emby roku app) is saying something.

 

4640x-Ultra

Edited June 10, 2019 by Happy2Play

[speechles 1917]

RMP is still in SDKA though isn't it? The problem is when playing in the scene graph audio player it is obviously different. It has 3 voices. Can mix 3 different audio sources. So can play music. Make a sound effect _and_ have a speaking voice all at the same time.

 

I also tried to take advantage of that and make the Roku read the summary/overview with a "Read Overview" button and it failed miserably. The Roku speaks in such hard to understand phonetics that you eventually have to spell words incorrectly for it to phonetically speak them correctly. But it was an exercise in possibility. Maybe tomorrow the Roku voice gets awesome and we can stick that in. Maybe not tomorrow but in the future eventually. And we already have it now if we even cared to go there.

 

The other guys I don't think have this vision of a clean future in their mind when they develop. I do. One with your media your way.

[MarkSM 0]

Any status on the FLAC fix for Roku? Or the next Roku Emby app update, which may include the WAV fix?

I'll have to roll with PLEX this summer ... Aagh!!  Prefer your app generally BUT PLEX works!

 

Whoever works gets my $$$$ ...

Thank you!

 

MarkSM

[ebr 14910]

Any status on the FLAC fix for Roku? Or the next Roku Emby app update, which may include the WAV fix?

I'll have to roll with PLEX this summer ... Aagh!!  Prefer your app generally BUT PLEX works!

 

Whoever works gets my $$$$ ...

Thank you!

 

MarkSM

 

Does our current beta app not already play both now?

[MarkSM 0]

As of yesterday, the Roku BETA app I have access to streams WAV directly, consistently.  However, FLAC files continue to crash the app after 2-4 seconds with an unknown error, consistently.

 

MarkSM

[ebr 14910]

 However, FLAC files continue to crash the app after 2-4 seconds with an unknown error, consistently.

 

Can you define exactly what "crash the app" means?

 

Also, can you provide a file for testing?  I'm not having any issues playing FLAC on the current beta.

 

Thanks.

[MarkSM 0]

Yes, I receive a Roku app playback error message "An unexpected problem (but not server timeout or HTTP error) has been detected.

 

How to upload test file?

 

MarkSM

[ebr 14910]

Yes, I receive a Roku app playback error message "An unexpected problem (but not server timeout or HTTP error) has been detected.

 

Okay, so the app does not "crash".  It is still fully responsive after that, correct?

 

 

How to upload test file?

 

Just put on DropBox or something similar and PM me a link.

 

Thanks.

[MarkSM 0]

I did this morning, so I hope you find something ...

MarkSM

[ebr 14910]

I just played your song without any issues.

 

An ffmpeg log should be created when you play it.  Can we please see that?