Beebo 4 Posted August 23, 2020 Share Posted August 23, 2020 (edited) Greetings! First post here. I've been lurking around here for a few months and finally registered so I could share something I figured out today. But first, my specs: Emby 4.4.3.0 running on QNAP TS-251B with Premiere subscription; client on Roku Streaming Stick+ (model 3810X), everything is on current firmware versions (no betas). For several weeks, I've been ripping my hair out because subtitles would not consistently show during any movie or TV show, unless it happened to be very low bit rate (i.e. SD resolution in older shows). It didn't matter if it was SRT or subrip, embedded or external, direct play, remux or transcoding... they would show for a couple minutes, vanish for a couple more minutes, then come back for a little bit more, vanish, etc... I'm hearing-disabled since birth so I absolutely MUST have subtitles on whatever I watch. And I have to say, Emby has worked wonderfully almost from day 1 and I love everything about it. Now, in browsing possible related issues around these forums, I noticed that transcode throttling was coming up a lot as an issue, causing stutters, pauses, etc. ... and that led me to just try and turn it off (it had been on the whole time, because it just seems like a good idea, right?). Well, sure enough, I went to watch a movie tonight and observe if the subtitles would improve a bit... and after a while it dawned on me: they were PERFECT. Every single line showed up during every bit of dialogue. I noticed that video was being streamed direct but audio needed to be transcoded, but was also going much faster than ever before (several hundred FPS, in fact, with the buffer being nearly full) so that within a few minutes, transcoding was complete. I could pause the movie, skip ahead, skip back, subtitles still worked. I even went and tested it with multiple other videos in my library of varying bitrates, resolutions and codecs. Subtitles kicked in 100% of the time. I am so freaking happy right now. So for anyone else who's struggled with subtitles (while not having any other real problems like me), I wanted to post this as a solution or at least a workaround. I even upgraded the Roku stick from an older 3600 model, which perhaps wasn't necessary - but I'm still glad I did, as the client operates more smoothly AND the new stick can decode HEVC (x265) natively, as well as output true 24fps video. Which is great as my TV has always supported 24fps film frame rate but only my Sony Blu-ray player could deliver it until now. Now my question is this... obviously, with throttling turned off the QNAP NAS CPU will spike near 100% for a little while. It's a dual-core Intel J3355, so if I allocate only a single core to transcoding in Emby Server, will this reduce max. usage to roughly 50%? Or will a better throttling algorithm be available eventually? Is this up to Roku, or can it be tweaked in Emby Server? Edited August 23, 2020 by Beebo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37058 Posted August 23, 2020 Share Posted August 23, 2020 Hi, it's resolved for the next release, thanks. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilgamesh_48 943 Posted August 23, 2020 Share Posted August 23, 2020 6 hours ago, Luke said: Hi, it's resolved for the next release, thanks. It seems that throttling is causing more problems than it even tries to cure. I understand it is an attempt to control CPU load but that is a small gain and throttling introduces a number of smaller issues. It seems, at times, like throttling is similar to being pecked to death by ducks. I have turned throttling off for now and I will probably keep it off until there cease to be reports of it causing problems unless there turns out to be some strongly compelling reason to turn it on. If there are such reasons I sure would like to know. For this case for me remember I am usually the only user on my server and if there are others, only for maybe a month each year, they are always local. I do NOT allow remote connections at all. Also my server has no duties but to serve my media. Throttling just seems more trouble than it is worth. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges 1527 Posted August 23, 2020 Share Posted August 23, 2020 My use case is similar, and I haven't been tempted even to try throttling. AFAICS it's only of any benefit when multiple simultaneous transcodings are regularly called for. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanmaCanada 344 Posted September 3, 2020 Share Posted September 3, 2020 I would say get rid of the Roku and grab a 4k firestick and use Kodi as your player as Android and Kodi can play almost everything directly, aka no encoding, no throttling to worry about. It is your best use case scenario. Roku has horrible subtitle playback support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agottschling 2 Posted September 4, 2020 Share Posted September 4, 2020 (edited) Just looking for some insight, I'm having this same issue with subtitles not displaying consistently. I've only tried MKV files with the subtitles muxed into the file on the current version of the app (4.0.4) and the same files play fine including the subtitles on both the web app and a Chromecast. Does this release include the fix you were talking about @Luke? Cheers! Server specs: Mac Mini Server (late 2012) running Windows Server 2019. Core i7 w/ 16gb of ram. Files are stored on a Synology DS1618+ connected to my network with a 2Gbps trunk. Mac Mini has a 1Gbps connection. Edited September 4, 2020 by agottschling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37058 Posted September 4, 2020 Share Posted September 4, 2020 23 minutes ago, agottschling said: Just looking for some insight, I'm having this same issue with subtitles not displaying consistently. I've only tried MKV files with the subtitles muxed into the file on the current version of the app (4.0.4) and the same files play fine including the subtitles on both the web app and a Chromecast. Does this release include the fix you were talking about @Luke? Cheers! Server specs: Mac Mini Server (late 2012) running Windows Server 2019. Core i7 w/ 16gb of ram. Files are stored on a Synology DS1618+ connected to my network with a 2Gbps trunk. Mac Mini has a 1Gbps connection. It's hard to say. Please see how to report a media playback issue: Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agottschling 2 Posted September 4, 2020 Share Posted September 4, 2020 Hey Luke, I have read that thread you linked. But I was more wondering if the fix you were talking about above was in the current version of the roku app before I filed a new report to see if that's the cause of the issue and it is already fixed but just not out yet. However, If you'd rather I make a new post anyways, I'm happy to do that. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37058 Posted September 4, 2020 Share Posted September 4, 2020 It's in the next release of the server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beebo 4 Posted September 7, 2020 Author Share Posted September 7, 2020 On 9/2/2020 at 9:39 PM, RanmaCanada said: I would say get rid of the Roku and grab a 4k firestick and use Kodi as your player as Android and Kodi can play almost everything directly, aka no encoding, no throttling to worry about. It is your best use case scenario. Roku has horrible subtitle playback support. I have to disagree. For one thing, swapping out half your entire setup is not really a solution, and Roku handles subtitles just fine. It was the transcode throttling setting in Emby Server that was causing issues, which took me a while to discover since it's not obviously related to subtitles. But they work perfectly now. And btw, even when my QNAP does have to transcode (in most cases, it's just audio anyway), I don't experience any problems with that either. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 (edited) @Beebo Thanks for confirm the real answer. I was beginning to suspect we needed to eyeball that entire subtitle logic in the Roku app and trace it fully again. I really didn't want to repeat that process as I was sure we nailed it the last time we took that deep dive, but you never know. Thanks very much for confirm that we have done the right thing already. Appreciate. Edited September 7, 2020 by speechles 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginjaninja 533 Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 On 04/09/2020 at 18:58, Luke said: It's in the next release of the server. my subtitle issues on roku are not resolved by disabling throttling. the issues are affected by disabling subtitle extraction in transcoding options but not 100% resolved. i havent done exhaustive testing but early results suggest external? srt are the only reliable subtitles ass (worst) and subrip subtitles will cause playback to be regularly interupted by a 'retrieving progress bar' . the period between interuptions seems to get longer each time until eventually playback will halt with 'too many playback errors'. should i delve deeper and report specifics in the beta thread or are subtitle issues well known at this stage and wait for newer beta release (currently on server v4.5.0.29 on roku 3, v4.09)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37058 Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 Quote should i delve deeper Yes please, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now