embyforkodi (next-gen) 6.X.X support

[quickmic 1336]

Have you set the "output format video"  to h264? And please try with both "output format audio" options. aac and ac3.

Edited February 7, 2021 by quickmic

[DarWun 265]

Output format video was set as h264. Audio was set as ac3. I'll try it with audio set as aac shortly.

FYI, I attached an ffmpeg_transcode log to the previous post as an edit. There wasn't one when I checked the Emby log directory to download the logs...I must have forgot to refresh the directory before viewing it. I've reattached it to this post.

ffmpeg-transcode-0e199b90-8962-4fa6-ae5b-8db6908eae7a_1.txt

[quickmic 1336]

ok, I can see in the server logs, transcode was active and worked. Maybe the bitrate was too high. Currently I use default bitrate parameters for transcoding based on format selection.

To test bitrate issues, try to reduce Network speed in Kodi options. Set it to minimum and check.

[DarWun 265]

I just changed Output format audio to aac. There was no change. The Emby Server GUI still reports "Direct Playing" when streaming HEVC content, and playback is "choppy". I've attached new logs.

embyserver.txt kodi.log ffmpeg-transcode-d325286e-7855-4df4-98c3-378418b2106a_1.txt

[quickmic 1336]

I think, emby server always reports "Direct Playing" unless you use native mode. Please try with minimum bitrate.

[DarWun 265]

14 minutes ago, quickmic said:

ok, I can see in the server logs, transcode was active and worked. Maybe the bitrate was too high. Currently I use default bitrate parameters for transcoding based on format selection.

To test bitrate issues, try to reduce Network speed in Kodi options. Set it to minimum and check.

Initially I assumed you meant I should reduce the Video Quality setting in Emby for Kodi to the lowest resolution available. Which I did. It didn't make a difference. But when I reread your post I noticed that you had actually asked me to reduce the Network speed in Kodi options to minimum. For the life of me, I can't find an option to adjust network speed in the Kodi settings. Where should I be looking for that setting?

[DarWun 265]

16 minutes ago, quickmic said:

I think, emby server always reports "Direct Playing" unless you use native mode. Please try with minimum bitrate.

In the legacy version of Emby for Kodi, the Emby Server shows "Transcoding" for HEVC playback when the option to force transcoding of HEVC content is selected. It shows the transcoding status in relation to the playback status. That doesn't happen with the Next Gen version of Emby for Kodi.

Edited February 7, 2021 by DarWun

[quickmic 1336]

Sorry, yes. I mean Video Quality.

Not good, if this has no effect.

[DarWun 265]

I should clarify what I meant by "it didn't make a difference". The video playback quality was definitely lower, so changing the setting had an effect. But Emby still reported the content as "Direct Playing" instead of "Transcoding".

Edited February 7, 2021 by DarWun

[quickmic 1336]

9 minutes ago, DarWun said:

In the legacy version of Emby for Kodi, the Emby Server shows "Transcoding" for HEVC playback when the option to force transcoding of HEVC content is selected. It shows the transcoding status in relation to the playback status. That doesn't happen with the Next Gen version of Emby for Kodi.

Probably yes. Next gen always uses the hls mode for transcoding. There is another option to initiate transcode, called stream mode. Actually there shouldn't be much difference due to encoding, it's more a difference of the transfer mode.

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by quickmic

[quickmic 1336]

Do you use the exact same setup as with 4.x versions? You can try to increase cache settings in kodi -> advancedsettings.xml

https://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings.xml

If this still doesn't help, I can send you some test versions in the next days.

[DarWun 265]

2 minutes ago, quickmic said:

Probably yes. Next gen always uses the hls mode for transcoding. There is another option to initiate transcode, called stream mode. Actually there should be much difference due to encoding, it's more a difference of the transfer mode.

 

I think I understand. Transcoding is occurring, it is just not being reported by the Emby server GUI interface. So that is good.

But with video quality set at maximum (1000Mbps), playback while transcoding is "choppy". That isn't the case when using the legacy version of Emby for Kodi. I'll play around a bit more with the video quality settings to see if lower settings eliminate the "choppiness".

[DarWun 265]

6 minutes ago, quickmic said:

Do you use the exact same setup as with 4.x versions? You can try to increase cache settings in kodi -> advancedsettings.xml

https://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings.xml

If this still doesn't help, I can send you some test versions in the next days.

I use the exact same setup with the 4.x versions. I haven't edited cache settings in the advancedsettings.xml previously.

I have to go out for a bit. So I won't be able to take a look at the cache settings until later tonight. I'll post back with my findings.

[quickmic 1336]

Ok, I'll add an option to reduce also the Audiobitrate in the next version maybe this helps. in 4.x the Audiobitrate was fixed to 192kbit when transcoding. This in not the case in 5.1.13.

And I'll add an option to select the transcode mode. This will take a while.

Yes, please try advancedsettings.xml

something like that for a test (hardcore caching )

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<advancedsettings>
	<imageres>1080</imageres>
	<fanartres>1080</fanartres>
	<gamesgeneral>
		<enable>false</enable>
	</gamesgeneral>
	<musicthumbs>
		<add>front.jpg|cover.jpg</add>
	</musicthumbs>
	<cache>
		<buffermode>1</buffermode>
		<memorysize>0</memorysize>
		<readfactor>30</readfactor>
	</cache>
	<network>
		<curlretries>100</curlretries>
	</network>
</advancedsettings>

Be careful, this is hdd (sdcard) caching! -> sdcard wearout

I'm also afk till tomorrow... different timezone

Thanks for testing!

Edited February 7, 2021 by quickmic

[DarWun 265]

One last post before I disappear for a bit. I turned off the force transcode setting for HEVC content and played the video that had "choppiness" issues with the option enabled. It "Direct Played" flawlessly with video playback quality set at max. There is no ffmpeg_transcode log (I did a directory refresh this time to make sure  ), so I'm fairly certain transcoding did not kick in.

Thanks for your help. Have a good night!

 

Edited to add: I reverted back to Emby for Kodi 4.x to get a screen capture of what the Emby server GUI shows when transcoding HEVC content.

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by DarWun

[quickmic 1336]

@DarWun

I found a minor issue in next-gen which prevents emby server to show the correct (e.g transcode) status. The PlaySessionID was set too late/wrong. I'll fix it in the next version.

Anyway, this will not solve the hevc transcode issue you have. I compared the 4.x transcode options with next gen. Beside the reported Audiobitrate, 4.x also caps the resolution according to the device max screen resolution.

I'll add a few extra parameters and let you know when a testversion is available.

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by quickmic

[quickmic 1336]

@all

Please report showstoppers in 5.1.13. Currently, I'm about to declare this version as stable.

Thank you

[GavinCampbell 15]

1 hour ago, quickmic said:

@all

Please report showstoppers in 5.1.13. Currently, I'm about to declare this version as stable.

Thank you

I've been running it since you posted it and have had no issues so far.  Seems to be working well.

[DarWun 265]

With the exception of the HEVC transcode issues we've been discussing, 5.1.13 seems to be a good candidate for a stable release.

[DarWun 265]

@quickmic

8 hours ago, quickmic said:

@DarWun

I found a minor issue in next-gen which prevents emby server to show the correct (e.g transcode) status. The PlaySessionID was set too late/wrong. I'll fix it in the next version.

@quickmicA fix for transcode status status display in the Emby server GUI would be awesome. No rush...I don't actually have a lot of HEVC content. Regarding the HEVC transcode "choppiness" issues I'm seeing though. There might be an issue with the Emby server beta and not Emby for Kodi next-gen. So don't waste anytime on troubleshooting that (if you are) until I can do some additional testing. I just found out that on Emby beta 4.6.0.10 HEVC playback stutters like crazy when played directly from the server. I don't want to report the issue to Luke yet as I rolled back to 4.6.0.10 from 4.6.0.22 after I had issues with library metadata not respecting the legacy ImageSavingsConvention. The issue is fixed in the next beta build (according to Luke) so I'm holding off on reporting anything until it is released.

I'm not sure why the same issue doesn't show up when using the legacy Emby for Kodi plug-in.

Edited February 9, 2021 by DarWun

[bozrdnag 73]

Still have the partially re-watched issue in 5.1.13.  Reset db.  First attempted video didn't exhibit bug, but next 3 I tried did.

[quickmic 1336]

3 hours ago, bozrdnag said:

Still have the partially re-watched issue in 5.1.13.  Reset db.  First attempted video didn't exhibit bug, but next 3 I tried did.

I still watch out for that bug. Very hard to find

[bozrdnag 73]

Another twist on the partially re-watched issue.  I resumed a few in progress (but already marked as watched) movies and stopped them after a few minutes.  Most times it marks the movie as unwatched but its also messing up the last played date because they drop off my In Progress widget in Kodi.  So I go into Emby and sort movies by Date Played descending and filter for Continue Playing playstate.  All the ones I just resumed are at the end of my list.  They should be at the top.  I think they do not have a play date set at all.

 

This didn't happen every single time I tried, but it did 5 out of 7 tries.  Here is a log snippet for one that it happened on:

 

2021-02-09 20:46:31.014 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.monitor.Monitor -> -->[ kodi scan/video ]
2021-02-09 20:46:31.060 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.monitor.Monitor -> --<[ kodi scan/video ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.153 T:25218  NOTICE: VideoPlayer::OpenFile: smb://192.168.1.42/Videos/Movies/Zootopia (2016)/Zootopia (2016) - Blu-Ray Remux.mkv
2021-02-09 20:47:24.154 T:565  NOTICE: Creating InputStream
2021-02-09 20:47:24.216 T:565  NOTICE: Creating Demuxer
2021-02-09 20:47:24.254 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onPlayBackStarted ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.274 T:565  NOTICE: Opening stream: 0 source: 256
2021-02-09 20:47:24.274 T:565  NOTICE: Creating video codec with codec id: 27
2021-02-09 20:47:24.275 T:565  NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecAndroidMediaCodec::Open Testing codec:OMX.Nvidia.mp2.decoder
2021-02-09 20:47:24.275 T:565  NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecAndroidMediaCodec::Open Testing codec:OMX.Nvidia.wma.decoder
2021-02-09 20:47:24.275 T:565  NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecAndroidMediaCodec::Open Testing codec:OMX.Nvidia.h264.decode
2021-02-09 20:47:24.293 T:567  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> -->[ play/149456 ] {'Volume': 100, 'PlaySessionId': '874303f46f274918ba8e1798986db4d6', 'CurrentPosition': -1, 'Track': True, 'Server': <emby.client.EmbyClient instance at 0x24ae46a810>, 'Paused': False, 'MediaSourceId': u'f137a2dd21bbc1b99aa5c0f6bf02a805', 'Muted': False, 'DeviceId': '1331b08d-a8b0-4126-9675-0ea322c25045', 'Path': 'smb://192.168.1.42/Videos/Movies/Zootopia (2016)/Zootopia (2016) - Blu-Ray Remux.mkv', 'ServerId': None, 'RunTime': -1, 'Type': u'Movie', 'Id': u'149456', 'PlayMethod': 'DirectPlay'}
2021-02-09 20:47:24.336 T:565  NOTICE: Creating video thread
2021-02-09 20:47:24.339 T:576  NOTICE: running thread: video_thread
2021-02-09 20:47:24.344 T:565  NOTICE: Opening stream: 1 source: 256
2021-02-09 20:47:24.344 T:565  NOTICE: Finding audio codec for: 86020
2021-02-09 20:47:24.344 T:565  NOTICE: Creating audio thread
2021-02-09 20:47:24.345 T:565  NOTICE: Opening stream: 2 source: 256
2021-02-09 20:47:24.347 T:577  NOTICE: running thread: CVideoPlayerAudio::Process()
2021-02-09 20:47:24.469 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onAVChange ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.492 T:577  NOTICE: Creating audio stream (codec id: 86020, channels: 8, sample rate: 48000, pass-through)
2021-02-09 20:47:24.547 T:25218  NOTICE: Instancing CRendererMediaCodecSurface
2021-02-09 20:47:24.548 T:25218  NOTICE: CRendererMediaCodecSurface::Configure
2021-02-09 20:47:24.594 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onAVChange ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.619 T:25225  NOTICE: Trying to open: samplerate: 192000, channelMask: 6396, encoding: 13
2021-02-09 20:47:24.641 T:25225  NOTICE: CAESinkAUDIOTRACK::Initializing with: m_sampleRate: 192000 format: AE_FMT_S16LE (AE) method: IEC (PT) stream-type: STREAM_TYPE_DTSHD_MA min_buffer_size: 196864 m_frames: 6152 m_frameSize: 16 channels: 8
2021-02-09 20:47:24.704 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onAVChange ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.710 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onAVStarted ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.729 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onAVChange ]
2021-02-09 20:47:24.835 T:588  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.monitor.Monitor -> [ UserDataChanged ] {'MonitorMethod': 'UserDataChanged', u'UserId': u'e2d7a192270d4ecda2332cf6ef46407c', u'UserDataList': [{u'ItemId': u'149456', u'IsFavorite': False, u'Played': True, u'PlayedPercentage': 9.3664473587232635, u'LastPlayedDate': u'2021-02-10T01:47:28.0000000+00:00', u'PlaybackPositionTicks': 6100000000, u'PlayCount': 4}, {u'ItemId': u'147426', u'PlayCount': 0, u'PlaybackPositionTicks': 0, u'IsFavorite': False, u'Played': False}]}
2021-02-09 20:47:24.840 T:588  NOTICE: EMBY.library.Library -> ---[ userdata:2 ]
2021-02-09 20:47:26.736 T:25299  NOTICE: EMBY.helper.wrapper -> Stopping db writing!
2021-02-09 20:47:30.709 T:25218  NOTICE: Previous line repeats 3 times.
2021-02-09 20:47:30.710 T:25218  NOTICE: CVideoPlayer::CloseFile()
2021-02-09 20:47:30.710 T:25218  NOTICE: VideoPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
2021-02-09 20:47:30.720 T:565  NOTICE: CVideoPlayer::OnExit()
2021-02-09 20:47:30.720 T:565  NOTICE: Closing stream player 1
2021-02-09 20:47:30.720 T:565  NOTICE: Waiting for audio thread to exit
2021-02-09 20:47:30.728 T:577  NOTICE: thread end: CVideoPlayerAudio::OnExit()
2021-02-09 20:47:30.728 T:565  NOTICE: Closing audio device
2021-02-09 20:47:30.765 T:25299  NOTICE: EMBY.helper.wrapper -> Stopping db writing!
2021-02-09 20:47:30.793 T:565  NOTICE: Deleting audio codec
2021-02-09 20:47:30.793 T:565  NOTICE: Closing stream player 2
2021-02-09 20:47:30.793 T:565  NOTICE: waiting for video thread to exit
2021-02-09 20:47:30.796 T:576  NOTICE: thread end: video_thread
2021-02-09 20:47:30.797 T:565  NOTICE: deleting video codec
2021-02-09 20:47:30.811 T:565  NOTICE: Closing stream player 3
2021-02-09 20:47:30.820 T:25218  NOTICE: VideoPlayer: finished waiting
2021-02-09 20:47:30.820 T:25218  NOTICE: CVideoPlayer::CloseFile()
2021-02-09 20:47:30.820 T:25218  NOTICE: VideoPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
2021-02-09 20:47:30.820 T:25218  NOTICE: VideoPlayer: finished waiting
2021-02-09 20:47:30.873 T:25225  NOTICE: Trying to open: samplerate: 44100, channelMask: 12, encoding: 4
2021-02-09 20:47:30.927 T:25225  NOTICE: CAESinkAUDIOTRACK::Initializing with: m_sampleRate: 44100 format: AE_FMT_FLOAT (AE) method: PCM stream-type: PCM-STREAM min_buffer_size: 22688 m_frames: 1418 m_frameSize: 8 channels: 2
2021-02-09 20:47:30.992 T:597  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.monitor.Monitor ->  [ update/0 ] kodi_id: 2096 media: movie
2021-02-09 20:47:31.252 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> [ onPlayBackStopped ]
2021-02-09 20:47:31.606 T:25248  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.player.Player -> --<[ playback ]
2021-02-09 20:47:31.783 T:25299  NOTICE: EMBY.library.Library -> -->[ q:download/157345120160 ]
2021-02-09 20:47:32.164 T:608  NOTICE: EMBY.hooks.monitor.Monitor -> [ UserDataChanged ] {'MonitorMethod': 'UserDataChanged', u'UserId': u'e2d7a192270d4ecda2332cf6ef46407c', u'UserDataList': [{u'ItemId': u'149456', u'IsFavorite': False, u'Played': False, u'PlayedPercentage': 9.4278666856657125, u'PlaybackPositionTicks': 6140000000, u'PlayCount': 0}, {u'ItemId': u'147426', u'PlayCount': 0, u'PlaybackPositionTicks': 0, u'IsFavorite': False, u'Played': False}]}
2021-02-09 20:47:32.168 T:608  NOTICE: EMBY.library.Library -> ---[ userdata:2 ]

 

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by bozrdnag

[t123thomas 60]

@quickmic, I am not sure if this a bug, at the start of my rebuilt of the DB, the addon promted to enable Webserver service for unknown reason I skip, the addon went ahead to sync then finished as usual with no issue. However, each time the system restart it will pop  up wit "Enable the webserver service in the kodi settings to allow artwork caching" I can seem to find this option in Kodi, But, I do see an option in E4K enable artwork cache"  as many times that enable this option it never seem to registered, the next time Kodi restart the same message will pop up

[quickmic 1336]

3 hours ago, t123thomas said:

@quickmic, I am not sure if this a bug, at the start of my rebuilt of the DB, the addon promted to enable Webserver service for unknown reason I skip, the addon went ahead to sync then finished as usual with no issue. However, each time the system restart it will pop  up wit "Enable the webserver service in the kodi settings to allow artwork caching" I can seem to find this option in Kodi, But, I do see an option in E4K enable artwork cache"  as many times that enable this option it never seem to registered, the next time Kodi restart the same message will pop up

Thanks, I'll test that. Usually I enable the webserver, so never spotted this issue.