EMBY ATSC3

[ebr 14905]

18 hours ago, emveepee said:

and was able to confirm that it plays ac4 on my wife's Huawei phone

Several phones do support AC4 but we haven't identified a TV device (other than the box Clarkss has) yet that does.

[Carlo 4330]

31 minutes ago, ebr said:

Several phones do support AC4 but we haven't identified a TV device (other than the box Clarkss has) yet that does.

This might be the first.
https://vboxcomm.com/landing-atsc3/

[jrwalte 17]

Sounds no different than the SiliconDust 4k tuner? It also does "HEVC 4K & Dolby AC-4 streamed to compatible devices" but that doesn't mean it will work unless said device supports those two formats natively.

[clarkss12 295]

7 minutes ago, cayars said:

This might be the first.
https://vboxcomm.com/landing-atsc3/

Interesting.  I could not find any details, but I am guessing that it uses the Amlogic SoC.

[emveepee 112]

55 minutes ago, ebr said:

Several phones do support AC4 but we haven't identified a TV device (other than the box Clarkss has) yet that does.

That is why I uploaded stock ExoPlayer for Shield users to try.

Martin

[Carlo 4330]

47 minutes ago, jrwalte said:

Sounds no different than the SiliconDust 4k tuner? It also does "HEVC 4K & Dolby AC-4 streamed to compatible devices" but that doesn't mean it will work unless said device supports those two formats natively.

Well it's a 4 port ATSC 3.0 tuner vs just 2 channels and it's also an Android TV device so kind of 2 for 1.
It can transcode as needed for devices connected to it as well. It does M3U playlists and guide as well.

What is not clear is if it requires TV/AVR units connected to it that support AC-4 or if it can transcode the AC-4.

[jrwalte 17]

yeah I got the other features. But nothing I saw said it will transcode AC4 or HEVC for you, but instead a 'supported device must be connected,' and in that respect, it is no different than HDHR.

Edited August 25, 2021 by jrwalte

[Carlo 4330]

I've got the ATSC 1 version of this and it will transcode both audio and video to different formats so I would be almost positive it will do this as well.

[ebr 14905]

20 hours ago, emveepee said:

If you guys are interested I attached the latest ExoPlayer demo apk I included the reference AC-4 sample https://testassets.dashif.org/#feature/details/586fb3879ae9045678eab593 links in the build.

I don't have any AC-4 devices other than the Roku Ultra and I didn't tweak the demo but it might show what your device can do. Logcat is showing me that these are ac4 so ExoPlayer is getting that far.

Edit:  I updated the attachment to a release build and was able to confirm that it plays ac4 on my wife's Huawei phone.

Martin

 

release.zip 2.89 MB · 0 downloads

Here's what I get on my Shield playing that sample with the Exo demo app:

[RandallC 3]

Sorry if I missed this, but how close are we to Emby being able to transcode the AC-4 audio to something more palatable for most devices?

[jrwalte 17]

Maybe next beta release.

In the meantime, you can try Channels DVR. It is working, at least with their current betas on my Shield 2019 and Pro, Note 20 and Iphone12

Edited August 25, 2021 by jrwalte

[RandallC 3]

43 minutes ago, jrwalte said:

Maybe next beta release.

In the meantime, you can try Channels DVR. It is working, at least with their current betas on my Shield 2019 and Pro, Note 20 and Iphone12

I'm in no rush.  Just curious.  Thanks @jrwalte.

[ebr 14905]

4 hours ago, jrwalte said:

Maybe next beta release.

I'm not sure I would be that optimistic.  I guess it is possible but I don't think we can really say for sure at this point.  As I said - this is a brand new proprietary format from Dolby.

[clarkss12 295]

I was re-arranging some of my media players, so I was testing my Mecool KM2 to make sure it was working.   Anyway, as usual, I checked the playback of the ATSC 3.0 channels using the HDHomeRun app, and it played well.  

So, just for a test, I tried playing the ATSC 3.0 channel, and NOT expecting audio, BUTTT, it DID have audio...........  This is the only device that I have, that plays these streams with the Dolby AC-4 audio codec........ I am amazed, I was not expecting any audio from those channels.

Edit: There is an audio hiccup every minute or so...  But no hiccup on the ATSC 1 channel....

Edited September 6, 2021 by clarkss12

[Jason'sEmby 29]

 I have audio on my Nvidia shield now on my local channels, yay!!. Just for some reason now the video is glitchy. 

[clarkss12 295]

5 minutes ago, Jason'sEmby said:

 I have audio on my Nvidia shield now on my local channels, yay!!. Just for some reason now the video is glitchy. 

You are correct, just tested my Shield and it now has audio.  As you say, the video is jerky and the audio has hiccups........

[ebr 14905]

The latest beta server should be converting the AC4 to AC3 for you.  

BTW - that wasn't a fumble (they reversed the call).  What a game...

[Jason'sEmby 29]

On 9/6/2021 at 10:24 AM, ebr said:

The latest beta server should be converting the AC4 to AC3 for you.  

BTW - that wasn't a fumble (they reversed the call).  What a game...

Just says direct stream on server .11 with the audio being choppy and video being glitchy. So not sure if its converting the ac4 to ac3. 

[drait 2]

Running the latest Ubuntu beta (4.7.0.13) with my HDHR Connect 4K, of the 5 ATSC3 channels in my market, 3 of them play just fine in both Emby Theater and Emby Web, but 2 of them only show video and no sound (in both players). All 5 channels work fine for both video/audio on my Shield Pro via the HDHR app. 

Here's some transcode files. The first 3 had hardware encoding enabled, and the last one I disabled it with the same result (no sound). 

ffmpeg-transcode-68c2da47-65ea-481d-8180-52625e6d6eb3_1_good_playback.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-b1d214e8-49dd-4cd7-b17e-9ef0c51db9a8_1_nosound_theater.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-3b96dccd-31ca-4fe4-a666-5486589a1650_1_nosound_web.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-efd56e07-4d83-432d-b802-c366a9ce0b5a_1_nosound_swtrans.txt

[johnb7 1]

I managed to get HDHR ATSC 3.0 working with the latest Emby release using the ffmpeg AC4 branch. More details on how can be found in github. If you are comfortable with Docker containers, feel free to have a look at the complete solution that includes building ffmpeg from source. https://github.com/johnb-7/hdhr-ac4

This was initially for my own use, but I have decided to open source it with hope it can help more people and possibly turn into something much more refined. Feedback is welcome and I will keep working on this if people are actually using it.

For those looking for audio perfection, this will not be good enough until ffmpeg support for AC4 gets better. As someone looking for the better quality of ATSC 3.0 signals in a tough spot for reception, this has been fantastic.

Cheers,

-John

[softworkz 3326]

18 minutes ago, johnb7 said:

I managed to get HDHR ATSC 3.0 working with the latest Emby release using the ffmpeg AC4 branch. More details on how can be found in github. If you are comfortable with Docker containers, feel free to have a look at the complete solution that includes building ffmpeg from source. https://github.com/johnb-7/hdhr-ac4

This was initially for my own use, but I have decided to open source it with hope it can help more people and possibly turn into something much more refined. Feedback is welcome and I will keep working on this if people are actually using it.

For those looking for audio perfection, this will not be good enough until ffmpeg support for AC4 gets better. As someone looking for the better quality of ATSC 3.0 signals in a tough spot for reception, this has been fantastic.

 

This is not required for anybody. The latest Emby betas include the same AC-4 decoding in ffmpeg.

[johnb7 1]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

 

This is not required for anybody. The latest Emby betas include the same AC-4 decoding in ffmpeg.

To my knowledge, there is no way to customize the ffmpeg commands issued by Emby. The defaults do not work for decoding AC4 on my local ATSC 3.0 channels, so the beta will be of little help. Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for emby and the ffmpeg crew to make progress with this as I would much prefer that over what I have now. I also am concerned there are going to be legal barriers that prevent this from ever making it out of beta.

-John

[softworkz 3326]

7 minutes ago, johnb7 said:

To my knowledge, there is no way to customize the ffmpeg commands issued by Emby. The defaults do not work for decoding AC4 on my local ATSC 3.0 channels, so the beta will be of little help

What do you think would need to be changed in the commands?

8 minutes ago, johnb7 said:

 I also am concerned there are going to be legal barriers that prevent this from ever making it out of beta.

I had wondered about that same question and talked to someone who knows first-hand. So no - that's not it.
Dolby's new standards for AC-4 and Dolby Vision are ridiculously and unnecessarily complex. A strategy that prevents open source implementations and discourages even licensors to do their own implementations and uses Dolby's IP core implementations instead.
What I don't know is why exactly the AC-4 decoder development has become stuck.

[johnb7 1]

Quote

What do you think would need to be changed in the commands?

I have to enable async in ffmpeg and give it quite a bit of breadth to massage the audio samples. Otherwise I get giant pops and gaps in the audio from samples that are too short.

Quote

Dolby's new standards for AC-4 and Dolby Vision are ridiculously and unnecessarily complex. A strategy that prevents open source implementations and discourages even licensors to do their own implementations and uses Dolby's IP core implementations instead.

This might explain why the ffmpeg AC4 decoder has so much trouble keeping the audio in sync. Sounds like they did this on purpose in the codec. ffmpeg can keep it in line with a little effort if you allow it. There are some sparse pitchy samples, but much better than the giant pops and gaps without it. I want ATSC 3.0 for the better signal quality and am happy to put up with an occasional slightly off pitch sample.

-John

[softworkz 3326]

7 minutes ago, johnb7 said:

I have to enable async in ffmpeg and give it quite a bit of breadth to massage the audio samples. Otherwise I get giant pops and gaps in the audio from samples that are too short.

This might explain why the ffmpeg AC4 decoder has so much trouble keeping the audio in sync. Sounds like they did this on purpose in the codec. ffmpeg can keep it in line with a little effort if you allow it. There are some sparse pitchy samples, but much better than the giant pops and gaps without it. I want ATSC 3.0 for the better signal quality and am happy to put up with an occasional slightly off pitch sample.

I'm not sure what you mean: async protocol or -async global option?

If you could you provide an example command line and a short sample file where playback gets fixed by the command line, I'd be able to better understand the problem and figure something out.

BTW: You can install the Diagnostics Plugin. This will allow to do a find/replace for modifying ffmpeg command lines. It's not meant for regular use and doesn't persist reboots. But it would allow you to test your modifications in the context of Emby.