Nvidia Shield, buffering with 4k HDR content

[CB52CAM 0]

Just now, ebr said:

I'm not sure at this point.  Your two previous failures were easily explained - one was the server not being able to transcode fast enough and the other was the server running out of disc space.

Have you tried setting the app to 20Mb and seeing if things play smoothly at that rate?

I have yes, the content is all washed out and pretty much unwatchable (assuming because HDR doesn't transcode) at that point I just turned it off and got annoyed. 

 

I am in the middle of a fresh install of Emby so I'll try that next and let you know. 

[ebr 14910]

Okay, so then the issue at this point is that something in your setup cannot handle the throughput of these very high bitrate items.  The Shield pro is probably the only device that can handle those but you have to have all other components capable of handling the throughput as well.

[CB52CAM 0]

41 minutes ago, ebr said:

I'm not sure at this point.  Your two previous failures were easily explained - one was the server not being able to transcode fast enough

What was the fix for the transcode fast enough? 

My server is running on a i7 7700k 16gb & 980ti 

 

I did a fresh install of Emby and it has slightly improved playback performance, however it is still stopping. Just now it's stopping less frequently for a shorter amount of time. 

 

I will send you a log next time it stops. 

[CB52CAM 0]

13 minutes ago, ebr said:

Okay, so then the issue at this point is that something in your setup cannot handle the throughput of these very high bitrate items.  The Shield pro is probably the only device that can handle those but you have to have all other components capable of handling the throughput as well.

So in reality really the only thing holding it back would be my local network? 

[ebr 14910]

Just now, CB52CAM said:

So in reality really the only thing holding it back would be my local network? 

That is one possibility (probably most likely).

[CB52CAM 0]

12 minutes ago, ebr said:

That is one possibility (probably most likely).

Ok, so it is still doing it. I just went 10 mins without it happening. 

 

I have changed the bitrate down to 21mb/s and it seems to be playing no problem. 

 

Does that tell you anything? 

Couple of extra points: 

Movies are playing from a external HDD plugged into my PC. 

Movies are streamed to only 1 device 

Device is a Nvidia Shield Pro connected via wireless local network. 

 

On my movie 1917 the reason for transcoding is "Direct Play Error" 

 

Log sent from shield: 

09:14 

User: Cameron 

File: 1917 

 

 

[rbjtech 4254]

The source of your problem is you are trying to play the TrueHD Audio and either your receiver and/or TV does not support this - the Shield just passes this through, it does NOT convert it for you.

This results in a stream because emby tries to convert it to AAC and this is why you see transcode/remux logs.

The Shield should direct play this file with ease - 50 Mbit/sec is low bandwidth for a 4K HDR remux.

Try selecting an non-HD sound track - such as DTS (not DTS-HD) or AC3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) and see how that works.

That should direct-play (note - NOT direct stream) - with both the video AND audio showing as (direct) in stats for nerds.

 

ps - if your TV supports it - you should also turn on automatic fps selection in the Emby Shield client - as I note you are using 60 fps on your TV while trying to watch 24 fps content - which means it will judder while panning ...

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by rbjtech

[CB52CAM 0]

Just now, rbjtech said:

The source of your problem is you are trying to play the TrueHD Audio and either your recover and/or TV does not support this - the Shield just passes this through, it does NOT convert it for you.

This results in a stream because emby tries to convert it to AAC and this is why you see transcode/remux logs.

The Shield should direct play this file with ease - 50 Mbit/sec is low bandwidth for a 4K HDR remux.

Try selecting an non-HD sound track - such as DTS (not DTS-HD) or AC3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) and see how that works.

That should direct-play (note - NOT direct stream) - with both the video AND audio showing as (direct) in stats for nerds.

 

 

 

 

Hiya mate, cheers for the reply. 

 

So I see exactly where you are coming from yes, especially with things like Harry Potter that are only TrueHD. However 1917 is AC3 and the audio plays without transcode but I still get the Direct Play Error. 

 

My issues is, im using Sonos for my surround sound, and it doesn't support DTS. So everything has to be AC3 really. Im using Emby to transcode files that are unplayable down to AC3 for me. 

 

 

[rbjtech 4254]

Are you familiar with ffmpeg / command line on your PC ?  

if you are, then it's very simple to just 'add' an AC3 default sound track from the original TrueHD or DTS-HD and Sonos will play these without any issues - let me know and I'll drop the command line here ...

 

[CB52CAM 0]

I am not, unfortunately. 

I am more than willing to try and figure it out. Or im happy to let you remote into my pc, if you had the inclination. 

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

Are you familiar with ffmpeg / command line on your PC ?  

if you are, then it's very simple to just 'add' an AC3 default sound track from the original TrueHD or DTS-HD and Sonos will play these without any issues - let me know and I'll drop the command line here ...

 

 

[CB52CAM 0]

I just tried with Kodi and got the message 

"Read rate too slow for continuous play back"  "source too slow" 

That's with 1917 running AC3 5.1 audio. 

[rbjtech 4254]

So you must either have fast wifi or ethernet to playback 4K REMUX's... 

ok - so ffmpeg will be in the emby folder - under system - replace the location below wherever yours is ..

so fire up a command prompt and use the following :-

"C:\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe" -i "c:\source_file.mkv" -map 0:v -map 0:a:0 -map 0:a -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:a:0 ac3 -disposition:a:0 default "c:\new_file_with_ac3_as_new_track_1.mkv"

"c:\source_file.mkv" will be your original file

""c:\new_file_with_ac3_as_new_track_1.mkv"" will be a new copy of the MKV with the added AC3 track - as track 0 being the default audio track.

Obviously change these to what you need.

If you have a complicated directory structure, then use 'SHIFT' and right click on the file in explorer and then 'Copy as path' - to copy the file structure to insert into the above command line - right click will insert it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CB52CAM 0]

10 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

So you must either have fast wifi or ethernet to playback 4K REMUX's... 

ok - so ffmpeg will be in the emby folder - under system - replace the location below wherever yours is ..

so fire up a command prompt and use the following :-

"C:\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe" -i "c:\source_file.mkv" -map 0:v -map 0:a:0 -map 0:a -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:a:0 ac3 -disposition:a:0 default "c:\new_file_with_ac3_as_new_track_1.mkv"

"c:\source_file.mkv" will be your original file

""c:\new_file_with_ac3_as_new_track_1.mkv"" will be a new copy of the MKV with the added AC3 track - as track 0 being the default audio track.

Obviously change these to what you need.

If you have a complicated directory structure, then use 'SHIFT' and right click on the file in explorer and then 'Copy as path' - to copy the file structure to insert into the above command line - right click will insert it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do i have to do this for every film? or is there some automatic way to make this automagically happen? 

[rbjtech 4254]

test it on one film - if you get the results you need, then it can be scripted to iteratively run through all your films and convert them all - that is not an issue... 

[CB52CAM 0]

Just now, rbjtech said:

test it on one film - if you get the results you need, then it can be scripted to iteratively run through all your films and convert them all - that is not an issue... 

Ok, that's great, im just moving my films over to an SSD to see if that will magically fix anything then I'll give that a go! 

 

I'll let you know the results! 

[ebr 14910]

The external hard drives could very well be your bottleneck...

[CB52CAM 0]

5 minutes ago, ebr said:

The external hard drives could very well be your bottleneck...

I have transferred my movies onto an SSD.  So I'll see what that gets me. 

 

I've also purchased better networking equipment that I'll be installing over the next few days. 

 

Below are my Lan speed tests before updating my network. 

[ebr 14910]

You are only getting 68Mbits on your LAN...?

[CB52CAM 0]

Just now, ebr said:

You are only getting 68Mbits on your LAN...?

It would appear so yes. That's why im upgrading everything today. 

[CB52CAM 0]

6 hours ago, ebr said:

You are only getting 68Mbits on your LAN...?

What kind of speed are you expecting? 

[ebr 14910]

Something approaching a gigabit or about 100Mbytes/s

[rbjtech 4254]

The fact you have SSID/Channel in the above screen shot says you are using Wifi ..

The sort of bitrates you need for 4K REMUX are perfectly possible with DECENT wi-fi - 5GHz 802.1n or ac - but if you have an earlier generation Sky Hub (a possibility as you are only getting 68 Mbit/sec) then this is simply not good enough for 4K REMUX - hence your constant buffering.  You TV also has to be 802.1n/ac but being a 4K TV, it's unlikely it is not.

As you have a shield - you'll need to connect to either the Ethernet ports on the back of the Sky Hub ( These 'may' only be 100Mbit ports, but they are still ok for the majority of REMUX's that don't exceed 70-80Mbit/sec) or Ideally, you want to connect to a proper switch using 1Gbit (1000 Mbit).

Once you have confirmed you are connect via LAN - then your issues will likely go away.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by rbjtech

[CB52CAM 0]

Unfortunately due to the design and age of my house it's really not ideal to run cables around. So it seems the best option I have is with 5ghz WiFi. 

 

I have a TP link ax50 upstairs at the phone line and a WiFi extender in the room next to the shield. And I still have buffering issues, my server is connected to the router via ethernet cat6 and my content is still not playing smoothly. I'm really started to get annoyed. 

 

I've spent £500 in the last 3 days trying to get this to work and it's just not happening. 

[rbjtech 4254]

5Ghz is not necessarily the best frequency to use.  2.4Ghz is technically slower, but has more 'power' so you might get better throughput depending on distance, brick walls etc.

The best way to test is to put a laptop on the wifi-extender - and literally try and copy the file (from the server) to your laptop over the wifi.  You'll see in Windows the throughput of the copy - and if this stays at well over 100 Mbytes per second then you should, absolutely, be able to stream without issues. 

Edited June 22, 2020 by rbjtech

[CB52CAM 0]

Sorry, I don't mean to get annoyed. It's just deeply frustrating having to justify all this cost and then not getting anywhere. 

 

I honestly cannot understand why my local connection is so slow. 

 

There is a network app for the shield that says my WiFi speed is fast enough. 

 

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

5Ghz is not necessarily the best frequency to use.  2.4Ghz is technically slower, but has more 'power' so you might get better throughput.

The best way to test is to put a laptop on the wifi-extender - and literally try and copy the file (from the server) to your laptop over the wifi.  You'll see in Windows the throughput of the copy - and if this stays at well over 100 Mbytes per second then you should, absolutely, be able to stream without issues. 

I'll try this now, do you mean download the file via the App.emby.media interface?