Need advice about Emby on an Apple TV

[ArsY 0]

Hello all,

So I have always used Emby on a Mi Box S before and it was pretty good untill I upgraded to a 4K Oled TV and tried 4K content. That's when I noticed that it kinda got laggy at times. I looked into it and it appeared that the Mi Box S (eventhough it's a 4k player) is a bit on the weaker side and to blame for my issues. So I thought I should upgrade to an Apple TV 4K and at first I totally loved it. The Emby app is buttery smooth and I really liked it. But when I started playing HDR movies I noticed it didn't play the movies in HDR, just 4K. I looked into that as well and learned that the Emby app on Apple Tv doesn't support HDR. This is quite annoying but I could accept it but next to this when I tried playing a 4k Remux movies it stutterd like hell eventhough my internet speed is pretty overkill and even the Mi Box S that crippled my internet a lot could still play it better than the Apple Tv. This is a dealbreaker for me so I tried to look around for a fix.

I tried to use external players but those aren't supported but I found out about Infuse and tried it on that. Finally I got HDR to work and honestly it plays the same 4K remux movies smooth and much better than the Emby app as well. I was happy with this but again when I thought I found a fix I realized that the way Emby works within Infuse is just annoying. It plays the movies smooth with HDR but that's pretty much the only upside to it agaisnt the Emby app. I can't use search at all in Infuse and the layout is quite annoying too. It's basically only good for whenever you already know what you are going to watch. That would be fine really but I spent a lot of money on the Apple Tv and I don't really want to compromise in it like that. 

So I'm just thinking about returning it and getting an Nvidia Shield Tv to replace it. My initial problem with my old Mi Box was that it felt weak at times so a shield is bound to be a lot better in that aspect. It would suck doing that because I really liked how smooth the software is on Apple Tv. Is there something else I can try instead of Infuse that I don't know about? If anyone knows of a solution that would be very appreciated.

I realise that this might not be a unique problem so I apologise if this has been brought up before. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by ArsY

[vdatanet 1549]

10 minutes ago, ArsY said:

So I'm just thinking about returning it and getting an Nvidia Shield Tv to replace it.

That's the best thing you can do, if you don't need Apple services.

Edited March 12, 2021 by vdatanet

[corey 312]

What type of content are you playing typically? The Native Player (you can switch to it in the playback settings) can handle "Apple Friendly" content in 4K HDR.

[ArsY 0]

3 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

That's the best thing you can do, if you don't need Apple services.

If there is no other solution so be it yeah.

[ArsY 0]

9 minutes ago, corey said:

What type of content are you playing typically? The Native Player (you can switch to it in the playback settings) can handle "Apple Friendly" content in 4K HDR.

Majority of the content it plays just fine yes but I bought it because I expected to be able to play Remux files which is hit and miss for me. From unwatchable to pretty good but with really long waittime at the start. I never got HDR to work so I don't really understand what you mean by Apple friendly.

[corey 312]

1 hour ago, ArsY said:

Majority of the content it plays just fine yes but I bought it because I expected to be able to play Remux files which is hit and miss for me. From unwatchable to pretty good but with really long waittime at the start. I never got HDR to work so I don't really understand what you mean by Apple friendly.

Generally speaking if your media matches the specs here: https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/ 4K / HDR / Framerate matching will work with the native player. If content has to be remuxed I don't think you'll get those features with the native player but @ebr or @Luke can keep me honest here.

[vdatanet 1549]

1 minute ago, corey said:

Generally speaking if your media matches the specs here: https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/ 4K / HDR / Framerate matching will work with the native player. If content has to be remuxed I don't think you'll get those features with the native player but @ebr or @Luke can keep me honest here.

Emby server does not support HLS fMP4, so HEVC MKVs are transcoded instead of direct streaming using native player. 

[unisoft 272]

On 12/03/2021 at 19:55, corey said:

Generally speaking if your media matches the specs here: https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/specs/ 4K / HDR / Framerate matching will work with the native player. If content has to be remuxed I don't think you'll get those features with the native player but @ebr or @Luke can keep me honest here.

Those Apple specs are suspect though.

According to the 4K specs, the 4K model doesn't support the H264 formats that the cheaper non-4K model does.

For example, the native player does support 1920x1080 25 or 50 or 60 frames progressive High Profile Level 4.2, with AAC 320kbps.

 

Yet the cheaper and non 4K apple tv states them correctly:

https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-hd/specs/

The 4K specs are missing the complete line: "H.264 video up to 1080p, [up to] 60 fps, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower"

The one thing both do not like is H264 "Interlaced" material. You'll get a polite "Not supported" message unless its MPEG2 SD and then it plays albeit not properly de-interlaced.

Edited April 6, 2021 by unisoft