Transport Stream Conversions Fail

[Netfool 20]

Emby Server is running on a 2019 Nvidia Shield Pro with and additional 128GB of flash on a USB 3.1 stick.

All attempts to convert .ts (transport stream) files fail.  The current status of the process is also inconsistently reported on the Dashboard "current tasks" vs the Conversions page.

The embyserver log and a possibly relevant ffmpeg-transcode log are attached. The conversion was run by emby user "ram".   I did put the logging into debug mode before attempting the transcode of "Japan Fried Chicken - Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Television".   The logs are attached rather than sent directly because it is not at all clear what is meant by "the home page settings row" in the context of the webUI Emby screens.  I was unable to find a "new tile" anywhere in any Emby screen accessible over the net.

The "Remove Download" button on the Conversions page is also misleading.  It implies that the converted file will be removed, which is clearly not the case.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-b2e611b9-10f3-4cf3-bb4e-e6440529ee63_1.txt

[Carlo 4535]

I took a quick look at the logs and didn't see anything.  ffmpeg looks like it converted the file.

Can you give us more info on how you setup this conversions?

What steps did you do?

[softworkz 4464]

@Netfool - Something went wrong during encoding.

Does it happen with multiple files or just this one?

What you could try is going to transcoding settings, set hw acceleration to advanced and deactivate the MPEG2 hw decoder (leave everything else enabled).

[Netfool 20]

The steps I took were the obvious ones.  Browse to the program from the Shield home page, click on the ... menu and select Convert.

The settings used were:

• Convert to:   Original media folder, next to original files
• Profile:  Custom
• Container: mp4
• Video codec: h264
• Audio codec: aac
• Quality:  Original Quality

It's not at all clear what the difference is between "h264/hevc" and "hevc/h264" as a Video codec choice.   I had been shying away from hevc because of a not-so-smart LG TV that doesn't have the moxie to handle hevc programs. (Probably due to an anemic processor and a miniscule amout of RAM).  But now the Shield is driving that screen I need to rethink that, if only to minimize the size of the video archive which is now approaching 6TB. 

With Nvidia.mpeg2v turned off in Transcoding>Advanced transport stream conversions work as expected. (4 transcoded so far). With Nnvidia.mpeg2v turned on all transport stream conversions fail (tried about 6 different files).  Some fail nearly instantly, and some appear to process normally and then appear to fail in the transfer step.   For now I'll turn it off. 

Is there any way to make the conversion settings sticky?  ...or perhaps add a feature to allow storing personal conversion profiles?

[Luke 39391]

We'll look at improving the conversion options. Thanks for the feedback.

[Netfool 20]

I think the problem here got resolved in a later thread.  In any event I'm moving away from dealing with transport streams at all by replacing the HDHomeRun Duo with an HDHR Extend which can transcode in the tuner.  Sadly that's not likely to be a solution for others as it appears the product is discontinued by Silicon Dust.

All said and done, I think it's safe to mark this thread "Answered". Thanks for the help!

[Carlo 4535]

Duo or Extend, still will be using transport streams.

You may want to do some reading up on the Extend as a lot of people do not like the quality when transcoded by the device.

[Netfool 20]

On 7/24/2020 at 2:49 PM, cayars said:

Duo or Extend, still will be using transport streams.

You may want to do some reading up on the Extend as a lot of people do not like the quality when transcoded by the device.

I'll do that!  Thank you.  I know that's the HDHR model @zandr is using.  We text back and forth several times a week.  I'll ask him about transcoding on the Extend.

I'm having some other issues still with Transcoding/Conversion.  When I pin down the problem with reproducible cases and logs. I file a post in this forum.  

UPDATE:  I just chatted with @zandr, he's not using the transcoding feature right now.  He's going to run some comparative tests with transcoding turned on and off.  I'll report back here what we find.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Netfool
Updated Information

[Carlo 4535]

See if you can get him to record 5 to 10 minutes of a couple action movies and let you have access to them. One recording with and one without compression to compare.

You might be fine with it.  For news, talk shows and stuff without a lot of action compression is reasonable but to me it's lacking for action. 

[Netfool 20]

The whole Shield/HDHR project is part of a cord-cutting project, or more properly a satellite-ignoring project to dump DirecTV.  Most of what I want to use it for is OTA recording of local and network news, and things on PBS such as cooking shows....   mostly talking heads sort of stuff.

I'll let you know what I find.   For things like action movies, or movies in general we're not big "first-nighters", waiting for a movie to hit Netflix, HBO or other OTT services isn't much of a problem, and if all else fails there are DVD rips of the more obscure things.

[Carlo 4535]

OK in that case the onboard compression might be perfect for you.

I was just trying to give you info I know so you can make an educated decision. Sounds like it could be good for you, but I'd still try and get a demo recording just to verify.

[Netfool 20]

Been using the Extend for a few weeks now.  Seems to work quite well for my use case, but I did grab a movie from a local station and I can certainly see why it's not a universal solution.