Direct playback issue on FireTv app

[deomaniak755 0]

Here is the problem: I have been using Emby for Kodi on my FireTV 4K stick for 2 years now, and last month I bought Emby Premiere to try the FireTV app. Compared to Kodi it is super fast, but I noticed that is has issues playing some movies that Emby for Kodi has no problem with. The FireTV app just shows a black screen & no sound, the movies stays at 00:00, Emby Dashboard shows Direct Playing and is looping between 00:00 and 00:04. So I chose in the Emby app context menu the option about issues with playback, this fixes the problem but now the movie is Direct Streaming which triggers transcoding. The same movie in Kodi Direct Plays. This is not just one movie, so far I have found 3 out of sample of latest ~10 movies. 

I attach the file info for the 3 movies. The movie Free Guy is a very curious case: it Direct plays with all the Russian and Ukrainian audio, but not when the original English one is selected. Other than that, I see nothing about the movie encodings that should be problematic.

 

I send a report via the Emby FireTV app on 13.03.2022 15:35 UTC+2. I tried to play the movies King Richard, Eternals, Free Guy.

Problematic movies metadata.txt

Edited March 13, 2022 by deomaniak755

[GrimReaper 4740]

Which device you're trying to play to, what does it support? You're having issues with EAC-3 audio. 

5 minutes ago, deomaniak755 said:

So I chose in the Emby app context menu the option about issues with playback, this fixes the problem but now the movie is Direct Streaming which triggers transcoding.

It actually triggers Remux, which should have minimal impact on you resources. Second press there would trigger Transcoding. In your app Settings>Playback tab, do you have option for Audio Out to "Convert Unsupported Audio to Dolby Digital"?

7 minutes ago, deomaniak755 said:

I attach the file info for the 3 movies. The movie Free Guy is a very curious case: it Direct plays with all the Russian and Ukrainian audio, but not when the original English one is selected.

Yes, because your Russian/Ukraine audio tracks are AC-3 (DD) whereas English track is EAC-3 (DD+). 

[deomaniak755 0]

Quote

Which device you're trying to play to, what does it support? You're having issues with EAC-3 audio. 

Denon AVR-X2700H. I think it should manage, and Kodi has no issues. Besides, not all of my EAC-3 movies cause this problem in the native Emby app. For example this one from Dune has no problems:    

Quote

  <audio>
        <codec>eac3</codec>
        <micodec>eac3</micodec>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <channels>6</channels>
        <samplingrate>48000</samplingrate>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </audio>

Quote

 In your app Settings>Playback tab, do you have option for Audio Out to "Convert Unsupported Audio to Dolby Digital"?

Yes. I tried enabling it and it made no difference. 

 

12 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Yes, because your Russian/Ukraine audio tracks are AC-3 (DD) whereas English track is EAC-3 (DD+). 

As I said, not every EAC-3 encoded movie is causing an issue. Then probably 1/3 of my library would not Direct Play.

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  I can only see the last playback (Free Guy) and I didn't see anything that looked like a playback problem with that one.

There is a new version of the app that should be released any day now.  Let's re-visit this after that update.

Thanks.

[deomaniak755 0]

32 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  I can only see the last playback (Free Guy) and I didn't see anything that looked like a playback problem with that one.

There is a new version of the app that should be released any day now.  Let's re-visit this after that update.

Thanks.

I bought Emby Premiere for a month to try it out and currently not planning on renewing it, so I probably wont get to try out the new version. Kodi gets the job done even if it is slower This post is me trying to be helpful so that you can develop a better product.

[ebr 16184]

The app should be released by this Tuesday so  you should have plenty of time.

We'd like to figure out what the issue is but it doesn't make sense to spend too much time on the old app when a new one is just about to drop.

Thanks for the report.

[deomaniak755 0]

A late update, but I tried again on 20.03. and the playback issue was still present. I also sent a report, 20.03. at approx.  00:30 UTC+2. 

My premium membership has expired so I cannot follow up on any requests.

 

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  Unfortunately, Amazon is still dragging their feet on getting our new release out.

[Luke 42078]

We just got notified that the release is live, so please be on the lookout for it. Thanks.