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XB1 Emby Theater not playing films with 7.1 audio


SamuelWinsor

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SamuelWinsor

Hey all,

 

Bit of a newbie to Emby and streaming in general, and have no issues up until now.

 

For context, I am running Emby Theater on an original XBox One, connected to a Samsung TV through HDMI. Unsure of the TV model or year. Server is being run on a run of the mill Lenovo laptop computer with the files stored on an external hard drive. In short, not terribly powerful gear.

 

So far, all files except 4K content have played flawlessly for me, except for films with 7.1 audio. If the film has multiple audio channels, anything 5.1 or less plays without a hiccup, but has no audio on the 7.1 channel. If the film has only the one 7.1 audio track, it will not even begin playing before Theater crashes.

 

I understand that the original XB1 does not have native 7.1 support, so my understanding is that Emby should have to transcode the audio into something that is playable through my lame hardware, however all my files automatically direct play. If I lower the playback settings to force a transcode, all of my files are forever stuck with the spinning circle, regardless of file size or resolution. Not sure if this is relevant or not, but every single one of my 7.1 audio files is also HEVC.

 

Two questions from this inexperienced fella: is it possible for Emby to transcode audio but continue to direct play video, and shouldn’t Emby be automatically transcoding 7.1 audio because my hardware does not have native support anyway?

 

Thanks for any help guys, really appreciate it.

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MBSki

It should, yes, but IMO there's a bug that's misinterpreting when audio should transcode and allow the video to direct play. There's also no way for a user to force the audio to transcode and force the video to direct play. And even if there was I think the bug would get in the way. I've been asking about the same exact thing in this thread: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/67773-emby-theater-no-sound/page-8. 

 

@@Luke, can we get some more attention on this? I'm not sure when the new version of the Xbox One app with 3rd party video player is supposed to drop, but if it's more than a few months it would be nice if this bug could get fixed so we're not waiting a long time for the new app.

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  • 2 weeks later...
SamuelWinsor

I've done a bit of research, and the only conclusion I or anyone else seems to be able to reach is that although XB1 is capable of playing TrueHD and AAC 7.1, it is doesn't make this ability available to third-party apps. Keep in mind, I could have that wrong. In such a case, I was under the impression that Emby Server would identify that it needs to transcode/remux the audio track. I have video transcoding disabled on my server because DirectPlay never fails for my set up, but audio transcoding and conversion without re-encoding are very much enabled. I have tried playback on multiple files with a different combination of settings, but it always has the same result.

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FrostByte

Hmm, the Xbox One does not support 7.1 AAC? @@FrostByte do you have any videos with 7.1 AAC to try out on Xbox One?

 

 

No just TrueHD 7.1 and DTS-X 7.1 and I don't see anything in my conversion programs that allow me anything above AAC 5.1

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/medfound/aac-decoder

 

Got to that link from here

 

https://beta.support.xbox.com/help/games-apps/apps-help/mkv-support-xbox-one

Edited by FrostByte
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MBSki

No just TrueHD 7.1 and DTS-X 7.1 and I don't see anything in my conversion programs that allow me anything above AAC 5.1

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/medfound/aac-decoder

 

Got to that link from here

 

https://beta.support.xbox.com/help/games-apps/apps-help/mkv-support-xbox-one

TrueHD doesn't seem to work either and also forces the video to transcode for some reason. So pretty much any 4k file I have won't play in surround sound unless I'm lucky enough to have a specific AAC 5.1 track. It would be nice to get some fix for this even if it's temporary while we wait for the new version.

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FrostByte

I thought it was mentioned in another thread that even if your XB1 supports TrueHD Atmos, etc that it only worked for apps like Netflix, etc and the fix may be to change the player.  I can't find that thread right now though.  To tell you the truth I've been mostly using the Samsung and ATV apps for watching movies lately so I'll have to try later when I'm done clearing my driveway of snow.

Edited by FrostByte
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FrostByte

Okay, Emby still crashes when I play TrueHD Atmos 7.1 on my XB1X and AAC 7.1 may not work because the decoder in MMF only supports 6 channel AAC?  

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MBSki

@@FrostByte Do you mean change the Emby app to use an external player? I don't see that option, but I'd definitely use it. Either way though, even if TrueHD isn't compatible and needs to transcode, it shouldn't cause the video to transcode which is why it seems to be a bug to me.

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FrostByte

@@FrostByte Do you mean change the Emby app to use an external player? I don't see that option, but I'd definitely use it. Either way though, even if TrueHD isn't compatible and needs to transcode, it shouldn't cause the video to transcode which is why it seems to be a bug to me.

 

 

No, I'm pretty sure Luke mentioned he would need to change the internal player himself because Microsoft wasn't exposing the ability to use uncompressed Atmos using the Microsoft player being used now except to the big boys. He would have to confirm that though because I may have misunderstood.

Edited by FrostByte
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SamuelWinsor

@@FrostByte I'm with you on this. My understanding is that Emby Theater for XB1 will eventually be updated to use an internal player to get around the limitations Microsoft places on their own player with third party apps. I have to wonder if this is why Emby isn't recognising that it needs to remux/transcode the audio file; technically, the XB1 is capable of playing AAC 7.1. Microsoft just won't allow Emby to actually do it. I've been fortunate enough that my TrueHD will remux and DirectStream, but if it's AAC 7.1, it's impossible to play it.

 

I've been lucky enough to have been gifted an Fire TV stick over the holiday break, so once that arrives, we'll see if I have any more luck with that until the XB1 app is updated with an internal player.

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MBSki

Plex gets around the limitation by allowing the user to force transcoding on the audio file and force direct stream on the video file. So the same 4k files with TrueHD that don't play on Emby will play fine in Plex. So while Microsoft does present a challenge, it's not impossible to get around. A different internal player would definitely be better, but that isn't the only solution and definitely not the quickest.

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SamuelWinsor

@@Luke It’d be wonderful if such a fix could be implemented, As it stands right now, I can’t play about half of my library, which is a shame because Emby has otherwise run like a dream for me on the XBox. I don’t mind the audio being downmixed at all, as long as the file can at least be played.

 

Thanks for the replies mate.

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SamuelWinsor

@@Luke Just thought I’d let you know that following the latest XBox update for Emby Theater, films with AAC 7.1 audio are now playing via full transcode. Not sure if this was intended to have been a fix in this update, but it means that for now things are at least watchable. Would still love to see a way to have the files direct play while just downmixing the audio only, but this a huge step forward! Thanks.

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