NVidia shield Emby app vs Plex app

[Strudo76 7]

Not sure what people's opinion of this is, but here's my back story. (Skip ahead if you're not interested in the saga  ).  I have had a lifetime Emby Premier subscription for quite some time now, and recently set up an Epson EH-TW9400 projector. I had used the Emby app on a NVidia Shield in the other room and bought one for the projector. My brother in law wanted to access to my library, but runs his media through a PS4, which has Plex available, but not Emby (apparently), and he already had a lifetime Plex Pass. In the end he bought me a Plex Pass for Christmas, so now I have both servers running accessing the same media files.

We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 4k HDR last night, and we thought that when playing through Plex, the picture didn't look as good as when playing through Emby. It didn't look a defined in Plex, and didn't seem to show the HDR effects as brightly as when played though Emby. Do both apps use the same players and libraries to render the image, or does each use it's own internal system? I tend to think it might be a placebo effect and there was probably no difference, however we did flick back and forward several times over the same scenes and every time we thought the Emby app produced a better looking image.

Just thought I'd pop the question out there and see if others have noticed a difference, or if anyone can say that they use the same rendering system and my eyes are deceiving me. For the record, I do understand my projector isn't native 4k, but everything I've seen suggests sending it a 4k signal will produce a better image than 1080p, and the 4k sources often include HDR, which this projector does very well.

Thanks

[Luke 37367]

Hi glad to hear it looked better with emby. Thanks for the feedback.

[ecrispy 23]

I'd like to understand a bit more. Were both Emby and Plex doing direct play, with no transcoding? That can make a huge difference.

Quote

Do both apps use the same players and libraries to render the image, or does each use it's own internal system? 

AFAIK both will use Android's ExoPlayer by default, correct? And if so the video/audio output should be exactly the same as the app has no control over this?

[Strudo76 7]

1 hour ago, ecrispy said:

I'd like to understand a bit more. Were both Emby and Plex doing direct play, with no transcoding? That can make a huge difference.

AFAIK both will use Android's ExoPlayer by default, correct? And if so the video/audio output should be exactly the same as the app has no control over this?

Pretty sure they were both direct playing, but I have to admit I didn't look to confirm. There is no transcode log file for either server, and my hardware chain shouldn't support everything I was feeding it.

I very much expect it's a mental thing and the images are the same. Was just curious if they used different players, or custom settings or builds of the player that might result is a visual difference.

[Lupum1001 0]

Take a look at the signal coming into the projector, using its on-screen menu. You might find that the apps are sending different video signals. I've noticed similar differences with 24fps vs 60fps, or 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0 color.

A quick summary of my own setup:

• Nvidia shield running Plex client app (I'm only researching Emby atm)
• UHD projector: Optoma UHZ-65 (with THEO-Z65 upgrade)

Quirks/factors that seemingly affect video quality: (your mileage may vary)

• Projector handles 4:2:0 color well (the native color for 4k blu-rays), but has color banding issues with 4:2:2
• Projector seems to activate separate calibration profiles for 24fps and 60fps, despite both being in the same picture mode (e.g. hdr, cinema, game, user1, etc.)
• Plex app on Nvidia shield has a setting for 24fps playback (it auto switches when you press play, since the Android UI is usually at 60fps)
• Nvidia shield has an automatic SDR/HDR color-space switching feature in advanced display settings, but I find that it always switches between Rec709 (4:4:4, I think) and BT2020 4:2:2 (note, that I said earlier that my projector sucks at 4:2:2).

 

My recommendation is to start by comparing the framerate/color signal that's reaching the projector in both cases. If there's a difference, you can start fiddling with settings in various places. The most likely culprit in my mind, all other things being equal, would be that one app is playing at 60fps, while the other is playing at 24.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Lupum1001

[ebr 14984]

21 hours ago, Lupum1001 said:

Plex app on Nvidia shield has a setting for 24fps playback (it auto switches when you press play, since the Android UI is usually at 60fps)

Hi.  We have this setting as well but it isn't specific to 24.  Our auto refresh rate switching will work for any supported frame rate.