TrueHD Audio Dropout on High Bitrate (50mps+) MKV's

[goat999 5]

My set-up is 

Synology NAS 718+ (Emby Server 4.7.0.15) 
Nvidia Shield 2019 Pro (2.0.50g)
LG OLED55BX6LB (bitstream on, passthrough on, EARC on)
Sonos Arc + One SL surrounds

Hight bitrate files with truehd 7.1  play fine visually but the audio drops out, 0.5 to 2 seconds at a time sometimes infrequently and sometimes very frequently making films unwatchable.  This happens on both Emby and Plex but play fine on Kodi.  If I swap to just 5.1 then audio is fine.  Swap back to truehd and the drop puts returns

I have tried absolutely everything to rectify this problem but nothing on the internet that others have suggest work (change refresh rate etc.)

On one forum someone suggested changing Exoplayer DefaultAudioSink buffer size.  Does anyone know if this is likely to be the issue and if its possible for me to change it?

embyserver (1).txt

[ebr 16169]

Definitely sounds like something is getting saturated.  Have you tried changing the buffer setting in the Emby app playback settings?  

[goat999 5]

Hi eby, I hadn't but just tried it and no change unfortunately.

[FrostByte 5392]

You could also try direct file access instead of http.  That seems to help a little for higher bitrate movies

 

Shield TV Direct File Access : Emby

Edited November 4, 2021 by FrostByte

[ebr 16169]

41 minutes ago, FrostByte said:

You could also try direct file access instead of http.  That seems to help a little for higher bitrate movies

 

Shield TV Direct File Access : Emby

I'd be surprised if that had an impact here but worth a try.

I seem to recall similar dropout issues being reported with Sonos before...

[FrostByte 5392]

Maybe check if there's a firmware update for Sonos

[CBers 7450]

3 minutes ago, FrostByte said:

Maybe check if there's a firmware update for Sonos

Should be automatic.
 

[CBers 7450]

9 minutes ago, ebr said:

I seem to recall similar dropout issues being reported with Sonos before...

May be the way it's connected.

@goat999 Is your Shield connected to the TV and then (e)ARC to the Sonos, or connected to the Sonos then to the TV?

Can't remember how many HDMI ports the Sonos Arc has.

My Sonos Beam plays everything perfectly, although remuxed down to DD.
 

[goat999 5]

21 minutes ago, CBers said:

May be the way it's connected.

@goat999 Is your Shield connected to the TV and then (e)ARC to the Sonos, or connected to the Sonos then to the TV?

Can't remember how many HDMI ports the Sonos Arc has.

My Sonos Beam plays everything perfectly, although remuxed down to DD.
 

Its Shield-->TV-->earc to Sonos (Arc only has 1 hdmi in)

I'll try the Direct File Access, see if it helps.

[goat999 5]

Hate to turn this topic into something else but I am absolutely buggered if I can get Direct File Access to work.

I am running DSM 7.0 on Synology.

Everything is set-up correctly (well I think but it cant be)  but when check stats for nerds stream type is still http.

Folder Path = /volume1/video/Films  Optional Path = \\SYNOLOGY\video\Films (this works when entered into Windows File Explorer)

All Synology folder permissions for users shield/emby have full r/w access .

Pass Direct Path Ticked.

SYNOLOGY added to shield as network storage but this via IP address 192.168.x.x rather than

\\SYNOLOGY\video\Films.  If i use this path Shield is asking for a domain.  WORKGROUP/WORGROUPS dont work.  I get an error and I cannot leave blank

I'm now out of ideas.  

[ebr 16169]

4 hours ago, goat999 said:

but this via IP address

You will need to change your "Optional Network Path" on the server to exactly what the Android box sees your storage as.

[Luke 42077]

10 hours ago, goat999 said:

Hate to turn this topic into something else but I am absolutely buggered if I can get Direct File Access to work.

I am running DSM 7.0 on Synology.

Everything is set-up correctly (well I think but it cant be)  but when check stats for nerds stream type is still http.

Folder Path = /volume1/video/Films  Optional Path = \\SYNOLOGY\video\Films (this works when entered into Windows File Explorer)

All Synology folder permissions for users shield/emby have full r/w access .

Pass Direct Path Ticked.

SYNOLOGY added to shield as network storage but this via IP address 192.168.x.x rather than

\\SYNOLOGY\video\Films.  If i use this path Shield is asking for a domain.  WORKGROUP/WORGROUPS dont work.  I get an error and I cannot leave blank

I'm now out of ideas.  

Hi, also, are you not able to just play with http as it is out of the box?

[goat999 5]

10 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, also, are you not able to just play with http as it is out of the box?

Yes, apart from the audio drop out originally mentioned.

[goat999 5]

23 hours ago, ebr said:

You will need to change your "Optional Network Path" on the server to exactly what the Android box sees your storage as.

Tried everything and still cannot get this working.  I'll persevere but if this doesn't fix the audio dropouts I'm getting I'll go crazy

 

[ebr 16169]

36 minutes ago, goat999 said:

but if this doesn't fix the audio dropouts I'm getting I'll go crazy

As I already stated, I would not expect it to so you can probably just give up on that for now.

Are the problem tracks all 96khz sample rate?

 

[goat999 5]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

As I already stated, I would not expect it to so you can probably just give up on that for now.

Are the problem tracks all 96khz sample rate?

 

48Khz as far as I can tell.

Edited November 7, 2021 by goat999
wrong info originally posted

[rbjtech 5284]

You could try using a cheap HDMI splitter and effectively copy the HDMI output from the Shield - one goes to the TV and the other goes to the Sonos ARC input.  This will then bypass the need for ARC (Audio Return) from the TV - and may solve your problem.

[goat999 5]

33 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

You could try using a cheap HDMI splitter and effectively copy the HDMI output from the Shield - one goes to the TV and the other goes to the Sonos ARC input.  This will then bypass the need for ARC (Audio Return) from the TV - and may solve your problem.

Yes I have looked at these but cant seem to find one that will pass Dolby Vision on to the TV and EARC onto to the Arc apart from the HDFury Arcana which I guess depends on what you mean by cheap is around the £200 GBP / $250 USD mark.  

This also adds more cables/power plugs into the mix which if you looked behind my Tv cabinet I could do without  

Also my current set-up does work with Kodi so I know its not a hardware issue but Kodi doesnt cover all things Dolby Vision related whereas Emby works well with DV.

[goat999 5]

I would like to ask the Emby guys about my original question with regards to Exoplayer, based on this link

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/3803

on whether its Exoplayer at fault here.

[rbjtech 5284]

21 minutes ago, goat999 said:

Yes I have looked at these but cant seem to find one that will pass Dolby Vision on to the TV and EARC onto to the Arc apart from the HDFury Arcana which I guess depends on what you mean by cheap is around the £200 GBP / $250 USD mark.  

This also adds more cables/power plugs into the mix which if you looked behind my Tv cabinet I could do without  

Also my current set-up does work with Kodi so I know its not a hardware issue but Kodi doesnt cover all things Dolby Vision related whereas Emby works well with DV.

So Kodi will be using direct file access, while emby will be using http out the box. 

I would try and pursue the direct file access from emby if you can - I use it myself on the Shield (loads faster and ZERO issues with high bitrate Remux files) but I use a Windows server - I don't have a Synology.

Maybe @cayars or somebody else with this model of NAS can help get direct file this working for you.

[ebr 16169]

14 minutes ago, goat999 said:

I would like to ask the Emby guys about my original question with regards to Exoplayer, based on this link

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/3803

on whether its Exoplayer at fault here.

It wouldn't appear to be as that issue was solved by Google three years ago (they increased the value you were suggesting in the core).

[Carlo 4560]

57 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

I would try and pursue the direct file access from emby if you can - I use it myself on the Shield (loads faster and ZERO issues with high bitrate Remux files) but I use a Windows server - I don't have a Synology.

I can do this from my ShieldTV as well from any of my 3 servers I use which include Synology.
Get's to be a pain to setup all the mount points however!

[FrostByte 5392]

Works with my Shield and Synology also.  It definitely helps if the problem is related to high bitrate.   I play LoTR and all the other high bitrate remuxes with no issue now. 

If it's a Sonos TrueHD issue maybe not.

[rbjtech 5284]

As a quick reference - here is my setup on the shield

Note CAPITAL letters

In something like X-Plore (Android Free App - you should be able to see all the mounted storage - ie

In Emby itself - in the library settings - this is how I have it setup :-

Note - the \\MEDIA in caps for the (Optional) Shared network folder.

You need to give the Shield some time to mount all the storage - this may takes a while.  

Set Emby to use 'Direct Path' in the Android TV Shield client.

When working - you'll see the playback method change to 'File'

If you can monitor the file system - then you will see a direct file connection from the shield to the nas (in your case), the file request will not be from the emby server.

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by rbjtech

[Luke 42077]

@FrostByte do you see these dropouts?