Constant freezing when playing 4K

[vdatanet 1549]

20 minutes ago, sooty234 said:

I just added vertigo to the test library on my HTPC. This machine also has 10G but an Intel X540 NIC. When playing on the shield, with this configuration, the pausing not only happens, but is more pronounced. It's pausing every few seconds.

@vdatanet I had suspected the ConneX-2 NICs played a part. This would suggest they do. 

X540 does not support RDMA, I suspect is more important RDMA than 10 Gb

Edited September 27, 2020 by vdatanet

[vdatanet 1549]

For me is a software issue using high end hardware is not a solution.

[sooty234 266]

18 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

X540 does not support RDMA, I suspect is more important RDMA than 10 Gb

Yes, that's why I ran the test. I wanted to verify the hypotheses. It would appear the Mellanox NICs are circumventing the issue. I've got a couple single port ConnectX-3 NICs on the way. I have a dual port ConnectX-3 and a couple of single port ConnectX-2 NICs laying around. If I weren't being lazy today, I could put them in all of my machines and test....but.....lazy

[sooty234 266]

And this would appear to confirm it.

[vdatanet 1549]

3 minutes ago, sooty234 said:

And this would appear to confirm it.

Yes, with that feature NAS nearly becomes DAS.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

6 hours ago, sooty234 said:

Correct. Both my storage and server are 10G. With Shield either on WiFi or wired, it plays correctly. If I make a library on a device with a 1G link, still using the server on 10G, then I get the pausing.

10G storage --> 10G server --> 1G Shield = no pausing.

1G storage  -->  10G server --> 1G shield = playback pauses every minute or so.

 

Something to add here, is that my storage and server are connected via SFP+. I would think that may play a part. 

Another - Info point or two before my internet gets shut down(moving)

My 2012r2 server i used during testing is 10G as is my pc middleman (win 10) - and i was getting pauses playing on the shield - so something Sooty has is different

NAS uses LCAP with 4 bonded 1gb Nics - for info

Also the NAS and Windows machines have Multipath i/o working so two NIC's are used for each file transfer between each MP i/o capable machine - yes you can get it to work in linux - so my backups from 2012r2 to NAS run at upto 200MB/s plus on a "1gb Nic"  etc

None of the above helps of course if its all down to what the emby server does

Maybe its a cpu single thread issue, although my PC middleman is a 6700k so would have thought that was fast enough to deal with a simple stream of data - just an idea

Anybody got an app that lets you monitor the shield to see what its doing/resources bit like netdata for linux maybe - as i supose it could be the shield is choking on the bitrate - cache falling over etc - then recovers but takes a second or two to recover - which we see as a pause?? Speculation on my part others may know more.

Have fun guys - tty - in a few days

You will have this sorted and Luke/Eric fully on side with a fix applied by the time i return - runs away with a manic villain laugh...... Ha Ha ha

[FrostByte 5060]

Hopefully ATV can be made to Direct Play from source like VLC instead if being fed a stream when transcoding isn't needed.

[sooty234 266]

32 minutes ago, PenkethBoy said:

My 2012r2 server i used during testing is 10G as is my pc middleman (win 10) - and i was getting pauses playing on the shield - so something Sooty has is different

Yes, I believe we fingered that out. Other NICs don't support this. 

4 hours ago, sooty234 said:

And this would appear to confirm it.

 

[Carlo 4331]

3 hours ago, FrostByte said:

Hopefully ATV can be made to Direct Play from source like VLC instead if being fed a stream when transcoding isn't needed.

That would surely help for clients apps that can be made to "File Play" (<-  I've coined that term.  ) vs "Direct Play" the media.
This would be beneficial in many ways and not just for this issue as a much lesser machine can be used in many more situations in a home environment.

[vdatanet 1549]

13 minutes ago, cayars said:

That would surely help for clients apps that can be made to "File Play" (<-  I've coined that term.  ) vs "Direct Play" the media.
This would be beneficial in many ways and not just for this issue as a much lesser machine can be used in many more situations in a home environment.

Unfortunately ExoPlayer doesn't support accessing SMB files directly

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/7225

Edited September 28, 2020 by vdatanet

[Luke 37233]

On 9/25/2020 at 1:13 PM, CHA0SENG7NE said:

So I have started up the qnap and changed the library locations from  \\192.168.0.160\Multimedia\4K Movies

to the direct path within the qnap./share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Multimedia/4K Movies

Yes this will be more efficient.

[Luke 37233]

On 9/26/2020 at 6:12 AM, rbjtech said:

.. so quick update - 2nd (backup) instance now running on the same Windows server - All libraries now pointing to SMB shares on another windows server.  It's running on different Ports, so I can run both together if required.

I forgot that this other storage server is on a different VLAN, so everything is going via my firewall also at the moment - so I'm going to have to do 3 sets of identical tests.

1. Direct Attached Storage

2. SMB Storage via different VLAN

3. SMB Storage via same VLAN

I'll explain why in the full output..

 

I've just included Films, but it's still taking a while to scan the 1363 items but it's doing it pretty quickly  ... as soon as that's complete, I can start the testing.

 

 

If you are running Emby Server on a linux, android or MacOS server, and the server is utilizing smb shares from a windows machine, then what I would suggest is mounting the smb shares to a local share using the tools within the OS, and then adding the local share path into Emby Server.

[Carlo 4331]

21 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

Unfortunately ExoPlayer doesn't support accessing SMB files directly

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/7225

I get mixed messages reading that.  If you can pass a file name it will work.

I might have to try a couple things if I can make time. LOL

[Luke 37233]

24 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

Unfortunately ExoPlayer doesn't support accessing SMB files directly

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/7225

But see the second response:

Quote

If you can get the SMB share mounted on the phone's file system then you can pass a 'file' URI to DefaultDataSource and it should just work.

That will be just as efficient. It just requires the extra step from the user.

[vdatanet 1549]

4 minutes ago, cayars said:

I get mixed messages reading that.  If you can pass a file name it will work.

I might have to try a couple things if I can make time. LOL

First, the share should be mounted in the Shield's filesystem and then you have to pass the URI of the file to the player. It seems possible, but I don't know if it's easy.

Edited September 28, 2020 by vdatanet

[Carlo 4331]

I've got shares setup on my shield to access my storage systems.

But I guess we would have to make sure the the "mapping" in Android matches the "mapping" on a PC so we can use the "optional UNC" field in Emby.

If we do this will Exo on Shield use this NOW in our current Emby Clients?  @Luke

[vdatanet 1549]

Just now, cayars said:

I've got shares setup on my shield to access my storage systems.

But I guess we would have to make sure the the "mapping" in Android matches the "mapping" on a PC so we can use the "optional UNC" field in Emby.

If we do this will Exo on Shield use this NOW in our current Emby Clients?  @Luke

Yes, I was thinking the same. 

[Luke 37233]

1 minute ago, cayars said:

I've got shares setup on my shield to access my storage systems.

But I guess we would have to make sure the the "mapping" in Android matches the "mapping" on a PC so we can use the "optional UNC" field in Emby.

If we do this will Exo on Shield use this NOW in our current Emby Clients?  @Luke

No, but it would not be out of the question to add that as an enhancement.

[vdatanet 1549]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

No, but it would not be out of the question to add that as an enhancement.

So my statement is still true, at this time we can't access smb files directly from the Shield

[Carlo 4331]

3 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

Yes, I was thinking the same. 

Good, can you play to see if it's possible to have the same "mapping" for both PCs and Android then? 
Nothing like passing the buck to a fellow media nut.  LOL

[Carlo 4331]

1 minute ago, vdatanet said:

So my statement is still true, at this time we can't access smb files directly from the Shield

Via external client I believe we can but not with Exo.  So if you just want pure playback and not worried about OSD functionality we have a hack/fix.
Maybe, just maybe we could get ebr to add a new option to prompt for external player for media bitrates over X amount.  This way for all normal playback the internal player is used but for high bitrate media it could prompt or use an external player, assuming the external player can use the UNC.
 

[vdatanet 1549]

3 minutes ago, cayars said:

Maybe, just maybe we could get ebr to add a new option to prompt for external player

@ebr does not like to add options  

[vdatanet 1549]

Well, since Exoplayer doesn't support accessing SMB files directly, the main issue needs to be addressed. Why does this constant freezing occur and how can it be avoided? Is it a hardware limitation or an inefficient software problem?

Edited September 28, 2020 by vdatanet

[Luke 37233]

27 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

Well, since Exoplayer doesn't support accessing SMB files directly, the main issue needs to be addressed. Why does this constant freezing occur and how can it be avoided? Is it a hardware limitation or an inefficient software problem?

I just earlier gave some tips to the original poster of this thread.

[CHA0SENG7NE 28]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Yes this will be more efficient.

This is why I have never had any problems with high bitrates using the qnap server? It just sends it directly without the network overhead?