Firestick Lite transcoding HEVC

[Luke 37112]

1 hour ago, Napsterbater said:

Isn't that the point of the Beta that I am enrolled in? To test the new clients without sideloading?

I am seeing quite a few beta update notifications so it seems this version is not abandoned, yet you seem to be implying it is going to be abandoned in favor of the other one.

The TV app uses the same video player and ultimately gets the same changes, but often the standard app is a little bit ahead so that's why we ask you to try it out for testing purposes.

[swingman 3]

has there been any update on this issue? 

[Luke 37112]

On 4/12/2024 at 2:11 PM, swingman said:

has there been any update on this issue? 

@swingman

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

[swingman 3]

On 4/15/2024 at 4:38 PM, Luke said:

@swingman

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

The emby for Android app available on the Amazon Appstore doesn't transcode. Though using the interface with a remote leaves a lot to be desired. 

[Luke 37112]

21 hours ago, swingman said:

The emby for Android app available on the Amazon Appstore doesn't transcode. Though using the interface with a remote leaves a lot to be desired. 

HI, what exactly is to be desired?

[rbjtech 4287]

15 hours ago, Luke said:

HI, what exactly is to be desired?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/

[Tek55 1]

Hi, I ran into that exact problem today too, that HEVC videos files get transcoded when played on a Fire TV stick. Went to the Amazon App store, installed the available Android version and voilà direct play it is. 

Unfortunately I can't switch over to the Android version for one particular reason: PIN code entry. I have two profiles on my Emby server one for kid-friendly media only and another that has access to the whole lib. The latter obviously is pin protected, but that won't protect it very long as entering the PIN happens on full display. The d-pad approach from the fire TV version can seem a bit complicated, but it is perfect in terms of hiding what you enter.

Is there a chance to either get the d-pad PIN enter option into the Android app or to make HEVC direct steaming work in the Fire TV version?

[Luke 37112]

1 hour ago, Tek55 said:

Hi, I ran into that exact problem today too, that HEVC videos files get transcoded when played on a Fire TV stick. Went to the Amazon App store, installed the available Android version and voilà direct play it is. 

Unfortunately I can't switch over to the Android version for one particular reason: PIN code entry. I have two profiles on my Emby server one for kid-friendly media only and another that has access to the whole lib. The latter obviously is pin protected, but that won't protect it very long as entering the PIN happens on full display. The d-pad approach from the fire TV version can seem a bit complicated, but it is perfect in terms of hiding what you enter.

Is there a chance to either get the d-pad PIN enter option into the Android app or to make HEVC direct steaming work in the Fire TV version?

Hi, yes it's certainly possible for future updates. Thanks.

[Tek55 1]

9 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, yes it's certainly possible for future updates. Thanks.

That's great, thanks!

But what I don't understand is the fact that the Fire TV version doesn't support direct play for HEVC files. I mean based on this thread this is an ongoing issue for at least the last 3.5 years and the normal Android version shows that direct play is possible. So talking as someone with no access to the code base it looks as if the difficult parts are already there (video playback) and the actual issue lies in determining which formats are supported. And shouldn't this be a relatively easy thing to fix, especially as this app can only be used on a very limited set of devices (the handful of Fire devices vs the gazillion android smartphone)? I mean, worst case you could adjust the list of supported video formats you receive from the device's interface to include HEVC for the FireTV models you know that they support it, right? Or why can't you use a similar approach for finding out if the device supports a certain format as in the Android version?

Please don't get this comment the wrong way, I know it's always much easier said then done and my comment makes it sound as if I believe that this is done in 5min, which I definitely don't (especially as I don't know anything about the code base). But I would really like to understand why this is still a problem. Thanks!

[rbjtech 4287]

2 hours ago, Tek55 said:

That's great, thanks!

But what I don't understand is the fact that the Fire TV version doesn't support direct play for HEVC files. I mean based on this thread this is an ongoing issue for at least the last 3.5 years and the normal Android version shows that direct play is possible. So talking as someone with no access to the code base it looks as if the difficult parts are already there (video playback) and the actual issue lies in determining which formats are supported. And shouldn't this be a relatively easy thing to fix, especially as this app can only be used on a very limited set of devices (the handful of Fire devices vs the gazillion android smartphone)? I mean, worst case you could adjust the list of supported video formats you receive from the device's interface to include HEVC for the FireTV models you know that they support it, right? Or why can't you use a similar approach for finding out if the device supports a certain format as in the Android version?

Please don't get this comment the wrong way, I know it's always much easier said then done and my comment makes it sound as if I believe that this is done in 5min, which I definitely don't (especially as I don't know anything about the code base). But I would really like to understand why this is still a problem. Thanks!

HEVC direct plays on FireTV just fine ?    Maybe you are using an invalid profile ?

Do you have mediainfo details for a file that does not play vs one that does ? (or do they all not play ?)

[Tek55 1]

6 hours ago, rbjtech said:

HEVC direct plays on FireTV just fine ?    Maybe you are using an invalid profile ?

Do you have mediainfo details for a file that does not play vs one that does ? (or do they all not play ?)

I don't have that many HEVC files and really only tested it in both the FireTV and the Android app version with one of them, as this already showed the same behaviour as others have described, that with the Fire TV app it gets transcoded, but plays fine on the same FireTV stick when using the Android app.

Here is the mediainfo output of the file:

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L4@High
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 51 min
Bit rate                                 : 5 782 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.116
Stream size                              : 4.49 GiB (92%)
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics                 : SMPTE ST 2084
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries        : R: x=0.708000 y=0.292000, G: x=0.170000 y=0.797000, B: x=0.131000 y=0.046000, White point: x=0.312700 y=0.329000
Mastering display luminance              : min: 0.0000 cd/m2, max: 1000.0000 cd/m2

 

[rbjtech 4287]

Hmm Main10@L4 should certainly not have issues - that is the lowest basic profile you can use for 1080p.

Both FireTV and AndroidTV use the same Exoplayer - I think AndroidTV may be slightly ahead, but as this is such a basic profile, it really should not make any difference.

What's the Audio ?  Maybe that has a factor in this.

[Tek55 1]

On 4/30/2024 at 7:22 PM, rbjtech said:

Hmm Main10@L4 should certainly not have issues - that is the lowest basic profile you can use for 1080p.

Both FireTV and AndroidTV use the same Exoplayer - I think AndroidTV may be slightly ahead, but as this is such a basic profile, it really should not make any difference.

What's the Audio ?  Maybe that has a factor in this.

Audio is not getting converted/transcoded, but is a direct play stream, it's really only about the video format (the reason for the transcode is "unsupported video profile"), but anyway, here is the audio info:

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : E-AC-3
Format/Info                              : Enhanced Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_EAC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 51 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 256 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 187.500 FPS (256 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 203 MiB (4%)

According to this post from 2021, the problem simply is, that the check in the FireTV app says that it doesn't support HEVC 10, so the player doesn't even get the chance to directly play it: 

On 2/11/2021 at 3:21 PM, ebr said:

Yeah, our check is coming back not supported...

02-11 07:20:14.413  2190  2190 I System.out: *** Does NOT support HEVC 10 bit

 

So the check is still the problem, which either doesn't get the right info from the device or isn't working properly. Which is even more strange, as the check of the Android version works perfectly fine on the same device - which indicates that it uses some other method to do the check, so wouldn't it make sense to use this check instead?

[rbjtech 4287]

To confirm - it's this FireTV Devices yes ? (AFTSS)

Device Specifications: Fire TV Streaming Media Player | Amazon Fire TV

If yes, then it clearly states it supports Main10@L4 ..

Quote

• H.265 (HEVC). Hardware accelerated up to 1080p @ 60fps, 20 Mbps, Main 10 Profile Level 4.1, Color space 8-bit and 10-bit input with HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG.

I guess over to the dev's as I suspect you are correct, emby is simply not reading the device properly for its capabilities.   The earlier FireTV stick (1st and 2nd Gen) do not support Main10 - so perhaps it is mistakenly thinking it is one of those.. ?

[Tek55 1]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

To confirm - it's this FireTV Devices yes ? (AFTSS)

Device Specifications: Fire TV Streaming Media Player | Amazon Fire TV

If yes, then it clearly states it supports Main10@L4 ..

In my case it's actually not the Lite version, but a FireTV Stick 3rd Gen, which has the same build model number as the Lite (AFTSS) and supports the same video codecs.

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

I guess over to the dev's as I suspect you are correct, emby is simply not reading the device properly for its capabilities.   The earlier FireTV stick (1st and 2nd Gen) do not support Main10 - so perhaps it is mistakenly thinking it is one of those.. ?

It's a possibility, I guess.