Force highest bitrate and audio passthru

[MichaelDiggs 5]

How do you always for a direct stream with the video file and use passthru for audio? I use my receiver for all my audio processing, which includes DTS-MASTER, TrueHD, etc...but Emby just transcodes those high end audio files regardless. Anyway to use passthru like other services/programs do so you can use your receiver for audio processing?

[Abobader 3464]

Hello MichaelDiggs,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Luke 42079]

Hi there, did you explore the stats feature in the video player to learn why it was transcoding?

[MichaelDiggs 5]

If I can remember it said no codec available or something like that, but I don't want to rely on Emby to do anything with the audio. I use HDMI passthru so the only device that gets to process the audio is my receiver. It works with Plex, my Apple TV, and Dune media player using Plex. I never tried Emby yet with my Apple TV 4k. To me those devices are a little buggy but more powerful than a Roku.

 

On the same Roku unit where I have Emby installed if I run Plex and play a movie that has DTS-MASTER audio it will play fine. Because there is a setting in Plex that lets me use to passthru the audio. Any luck with Emby on that yet?

 

Also on the transcoding page, every box is checked. Are they all supposed to be checked? I never made any changes to most options yet. Going step by step. If I can ever figure out how to implement Nvidia NVDEC and NVENC I'd be happy.

 

 

[Luke 42079]

Can you play it again and let us know exactly what it says? Thanks.

[MichaelDiggs 5]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Can you play it again and let us know exactly what it says? Thanks.

Sure. Soon as I get the results I post them up.

[MichaelDiggs 5]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi there, did you explore the stats feature in the video player to learn why it was transcoding?

Going to try again in a few minutes. I'll post back. 

Thanks!

[Luke 42079]

Let us know what it says. Thanks.

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  Also, please attach the ffmpeg log that goes with that playback.

Thanks.

[MichaelDiggs 5]

Been a little busy, but I'm going to get to this. It is a nice refreshing look other than the usual Plex which took me months to iron out all the bugs. Seeing a somewhat competitive program made me smile and donated the $119 for lifetime for continued support. I'll be back!

 

[Luke 42079]

Thanks for the feedback !

[MichaelDiggs 5]

Ok here is all the information. I'm giving you the mediafile output of the file, the log area in which I tried to play the file, and a snapshot of the nerds stats screen. Using Plex or Dune I could play this file at the original bitrate, DTS-MASTER Audio (all goes through receiver) no issues. Hopefully a little help. And the server specs are really good. If you want the server specs just let me know. I doubt that could be an issue.

 

 

AFTER EARTH ffmpeg-transcode-f54497a6-fbfd-4c24-bfc5-d81b0cfa59e6_1.txt log earth.txt mediainfo.txt

[rbjtech 5284]

Hi - without even looking at the logs, the stats for nerds tells you the issue - "media bitrate exceeds limit".

It is a 75Mbit/sec 4K Remux, so you need to make sure the device you are playing it on is capable of playback at those bitrates AND the emby Client Max bitrate matches or exceeds this.   Again - looking in Stats for Nerds - it says yours is 41Mbit/sec - thus it is transcoding.

I would also be very surprised if a Roku STB can handle a 4K Remux. 

Lets get the video playing direct first (if possible) then we can move onto the Audio passthough - but I don't believe the Roku can handle HD Audio...

edit

https://developer.roku.com/en-gb/docs/specs/media/streaming-specifications.md#!

so yea, according to Roku's specifications - the max supported bitrate for HEVC is 40Mbps.   So while you may be able to force the Emby Client to bitrates higher than this, then it is not officially supported by the Roku - thus you may get issues - but if Plex etc work, then it may be perfectly ok..

The good news is the Roku does appear to support DTS passthrough, but it does not have DTS-HD nor True-HD support - thus during passthrough your AVR is just being fed the DTS Core from a DTS-HD Track.

Edited April 22, 2022 by rbjtech

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  Please let us know if the above answers your question.

[speechles 2055]

4 hours ago, rbjtech said:

https://developer.roku.com/en-gb/docs/specs/media/streaming-specifications.md#!

so yea, according to Roku's specifications - the max supported bitrate for HEVC is 40Mbps.   So while you may be able to force the Emby Client to bitrates higher than this, then it is not officially supported by the Roku - thus you may get issues - but if Plex etc work, then it may be perfectly ok..

The good news is the Roku does appear to support DTS passthrough, but it does not have DTS-HD nor True-HD support - thus during passthrough your AVR is just being fed the DTS Core from a DTS-HD Track.

Roku is a streaming company. They are not interested in advertising high bitrates. They want companies to stay within a defined middle-ground.

The 4800 which that fellow has is the present top-of-the-line device for Roku. It can easily do HEVC as fast as the ethernet can go. Raise it up to 110Mb/s. The other thing DTS-HD and True-HD are supported on newer Roku TV units.

Once Roku firmware 11 gets pushed onto Roku TV will come better methods to detect support for HD-audio codecs. It will just be plug-and-play with Emby just knowing what is supported because everything is read from the device chain.

The problem with high bitrate HEVC (with HD audio) is ffmpeg has to package it into a TS (to directstream video and convert audio) and serve slices over your network and keep that bitrate going. If the media is on a different system than Emby runs on it will add overhead. Meaning it will have to use half bandwidth to fetch media the other half to serve media at full capacity. Around 50Mb/sec (100Mb/s ethernet) is about theoretical maximum, you get half duplex (Emby must fetch and dispatch media over the network). Whereas if the media and Emby are on same system you get full duplex (Emby will only dispatch media over the network). With giga-ethernet the problem goes away. The Roku NIC does not support giga except higher end Roku TV hence the bigger problem.

 

 

@MichaelDiggs To get it to work like Plex please raise the maximum bitrate to 110Mb/sec. You cannot pass-through DTS inside an TS container using HLS. When transcoding Emby will use TS/HLS and cannot pass-through DTS and must convert it. But if you were to raise the maximum birate it would allow direct playback which would allow DTS to pass-through exactly like the other guys are doing. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

 

From your ffmpeg log:

http://192.168.1.122:8096/emby/videos/25474/hls1/main/0.ts?DeviceId=deda9995-1d7d-57b0-bed9-34a3a9f30f14&MediaSourceId=4fba81c403ff08da476682e5fd6cd008&PlaySessionId=07153536bd604f8bbb109ffeb15dc2d6&api_key=8c456bcb117c41d2969a4c006ac135d8&VideoCodec=h264,hevc,mpeg2video&AudioCodec=ac3,aac,mp2,mp3,eac3,flac,vorbis,lpcm&VideoBitrate=40616000&AudioBitrate=384000&MaxFramerate=60&MaxWidth=3840&MaxHeight=2160&AudioStreamIndex=1&SubtitleStreamIndex=4&SubtitleMethod=Hls&TranscodingMaxAudioChannels=8&SegmentContainer=ts&SegmentLength=3&MinSegments=1&AllowInterlacedVideoStreamCopy=True&BreakOnNonKeyFrames=True&ManifestSubtitles=vtt&h264-maxrefframes=16&h264-videobitdepth=8&h264-profile=high,main,baseline,constrainedbaseline&h264-level=51&aac-audiochannels=6&eac3-audiochannels=8&ac3-audiochannels=6&flac-audiochannels=6&lpcm-audiochannels=6&mp3-audiochannels=2&mp2-audiochannels=2&vorbis-audiochannels=6&TranscodeReasons=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit

AudioCodec=ac3,aac,mp2,mp3,eac3,flac,vorbis,lpcm ... Are you sure you have DTS enabled in your Roku settings. We read from there. Plex will allow you to force things. We want you to stay within what you told the Roku you were capable of. We want you to just press play. They want you to fiddle. It might be missing because of the transcoding. Just ensure DTS is selected in Roku audio settings and you are good to go.

eac3-audiochannels=8 ... Had you had this direct playing the DTS would be enabled this would allow DTS to keep 8 channel maximum and possibly pass-through DTS-HD on your Roku Ultra if it has firmware 11.

Can you ensure you have DTS enabled in your Roku audio settings. Emby will read the Roku settings and apply them without you having to do a thing. The only change is bitrate raise to the maximum of 110MB/sec and let us know how it goes. Thanks.

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by speechles

[rbjtech 5284]

1 hour ago, speechles said:

The problem with high bitrate HEVC (with HD audio) is ffmpeg has to package it into a TS (to directstream video and convert audio) and serve slices over your network and keep that bitrate going. If the media is on a different system than Emby runs on it will add overhead. Meaning it will have to use half bandwidth to fetch media the other half to serve media at full capacity. Around 50Mb/sec (100Mb/s ethernet) is about theoretical maximum, you get half duplex (Emby must fetch and dispatch media over the network). Whereas if the media and Emby are on same system you get full duplex (Emby will only dispatch media over the network). With giga-ethernet the problem goes away. The Roku NIC does not support giga except higher end Roku TV hence the bigger problem.

Emby server doesn't run a Roku platform - it's a client only - so the 100Mbit limitation is only a problem (on the majority of clients, not just Roku) when you have a 100Mbit interface and your bitrate peaks over 100Mbit/sec.  

The duplex modes you refer to are also puzzling to me - if the emby SERVER is connected to a NAS - then it is reading (Rx) the data and it is sending the resulting data (post HLS etc) to the client - ie Tx.   On 'half duplex' ethernet connections, then you can of course only do one Tx or Rx at the same time - thus you have halved throughput, but if using Full Duplex (pretty much standard as of many many years ago with the use of switches vs hubs...) then you have 100Mbit Tx and 100Mbit Rx...at the same time.     As you say, 1000Mbit has alleviated the 'bandwidth' issue - but as that is FD only, then technically (if the hardware can keep up) then you can do 1000Mbit Tx and 1000Mbit Rx at the same time.

As a quick example - this is a 1gig interface on my server (mapped to a vEthenet so it shows 10Gbit, but I assure you it is 1Gb..) - copying a file at ~1Gbit/sec and at the same time, receiving a file at ~1Gbit/sec on the same interface at the same time.

Edited April 22, 2022 by rbjtech

[MichaelDiggs 5]

Ok, first step at a time. I definitely understand nothing will work using the Roku. Nothing works at all except for low bitrate stuff. But everything I've played on my Nvidia Shield has worked fine. No transcoding on files having a 90Mbps bitrate and no transcoding on the audio either. One big issue is I can't see where to install the Emby client on my Nvidia Shield. I have the latest version. I do also have the Apple TV 4K which I can setup again, but I'd rather use the Nvidia shield since I don't really like Apple products.

 

First step, how do I get the official emby client installed on my Shield?

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

From a Roku standpoint there is documented values and believe Emby is coded defaulted to that value with your ability to exceed those values with setting to a higher value.

&VideoBitrate=40616000&AudioBitrate=384000

So technically anything over 40Mbps is trial and error if it works on a Roku.

But every device/client has their own thresholds.

[MichaelDiggs 5]

40 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

From a Roku standpoint there is documented values and believe Emby is coded defaulted to that value with your ability to exceed those values with setting to a higher value.

&VideoBitrate=40616000&AudioBitrate=384000

So technically anything over 40Mbps is trial and error if it works on a Roku.

But every device/client has their own thresholds.

We already have determined that the Roku is good for about 40Kbps and that's it. Too bad. Same thread couple pages back.

And I think this is why media servers hosting on a little computer barely without an ample power will become the main piece of hardware in the picture. It would basically be like having the server and client in one. When I log into my Dune Player, I just use Dune's builtin player which is why it has no trouble playing the highest quality video files out there.

[MichaelDiggs 5]

How to install Emby in the Nvidia shield?

 

[ebr 16184]

15 hours ago, MichaelDiggs said:

I definitely understand nothing will work using the Roku

Hi.  That isn't true.  The Roku will work just fine and, if your network can handle it, you can get it to operate above its published specs.  Just set the limit in the app higher as suggested earlier.  The Roku is a capable device.

13 hours ago, MichaelDiggs said:

We already have determined that the Roku is good for about 40Kbps and that's it

Pretty sure that was a typo but, even if you meant 40Mb, that isn't the case either.  You can get it to go higher in some instances.

9 hours ago, MichaelDiggs said:

How to install Emby in the Nvidia shield?

 

Right now, you will need to sideload it.  The APK is available on our web site.

[MichaelDiggs 5]

I don't want to turn this into a Roku thread so I'll stick to Emby right now, but seeing Roku's own specs are at 40Mbps and lots of my content is over that, hence Emby and other players like Plex, etc were always never to play. My network is all 1Gbit using CAT5e. When I do read speed tests at the point where my media players are hooked up I get a solid sustained 200MB/sec. When I tried Emby on my Apple 4kTV the dashboard was indicating something about not able to read container or something, but still indicated direct play. I think I need to familiarize myself a little bit more to get best results. When you say "set the limit in the app", where do you mean on that location and is there any online instructions for sideloading on the Shield? I do it on my Android phone all the time. Also, will Emby update while it is running on the shield and why is it not in the Play Store?

Thanks-

 

[MichaelDiggs 5]

15 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  That isn't true.  The Roku will work just fine and, if your network can handle it, you can get it to operate above its published specs.  Just set the limit in the app higher as suggested earlier.  The Roku is a capable device.

Pretty sure that was a typo but, even if you meant 40Mb, that isn't the case either.  You can get it to go higher in some instances.

Right now, you will need to sideload it.  The APK is available on our web site.

Is this the APK to download? I just want the client installed on my shield.

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

 

[seanbuff 1318]

1 hour ago, MichaelDiggs said:

Is this the APK to download? I just want the client installed on my shield.

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

 

Yes, as long as the APK comes from here, that is the correct client for Android TV / Shield TV

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases/raw/master/androidtv/app-google-release.apk

[ebr 16184]

10 hours ago, MichaelDiggs said:

When you say "set the limit in the app", where do you mean

Inside the app you are using there will be a Playback settings area with a quality/bitrate setting.  The default is Auto.