(SVT-) AV1 Transcoding on Nvidia Shield 2019 in Emby Theater App

[bwlonsdale 0]

I've recently begun re-ripping/encoding my DVDs to AV1 using NEAV1 encoder (SVT-AV1 encoder / FFMPEG)

I'm ripping to MP4 (learnt that lesson), and I've tested across a few devices:-

 

Windows 11 Emby Theater (with AV1 extension installed) does direct play OK.

My Pixel 6 Emby Theater app does directplay OK

MY LG TV Emby Theater app doesn't work

NVIDIA Sield Emby Theater app doesn't work

 

It's the Shield I'm most bothered about as I use that now for watching all content. The Shield has all latest updates on it.

Any thoughts on troubleshooting this? Or do I need to wait for Emy Theater app to catch up on SHIELD?

I've downloaded the sample AV1 file to test and the behaviour is the same.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what exactly is the problem?

[neik 873]

Just FYI:
The Shield does not support AV1, it will always need to be transcoded which is quite heavy on the system.

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, neik said:

Just FYI:
The Shield does not support AV1, it will always need to be transcoded which is quite heavy on the system.

Actually our app has built in software decoders for this situation, so it's probably transcoding for another reason.

[bwlonsdale 0]

Are you able to test it yourself? The sample AV1 also does the same thing so I am guessing fairly easy to reproduce.

Log attached for sample AV1 played on SHIELD - ignore the name of file, it's all I could do to get it to be seen in library to play.

Files are stored on my QNAP NAS, backend is Emby Server 4.6.7.0

ffmpeg-transcode-afd377f4-c284-40b2-a4a4-d108190d33d4_1.txt

 

Sample taken from: https://github.com/SPBTV/video_av1_samples

Edited May 1, 2022 by bwlonsdale
Added logs

[Luke 42077]

Can you try sideloading our standard Android app on the same device and let us know how that compares?

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

Thanks.

[bwlonsdale 0]

Logs from both apps for my AV1 encode of Star Wars.

So the sideload Emby does directplay, but unfortunately has its own issues - the aspect ratio is completely messed up. Doesn't matter which one I choose, it's filling the screen...didn't notice that in the sample, but likely cos it's a full 16:9 ratio, while Star Wars is 2.35:1. The home screen is obviously different as well, it's not something I'd want to use on a big screen.

So....Emby app issue needing fixing? Anything else I can do?

star_wars_AndroidTv 3.2.47_ffmpeg-transcode-59d61123-4c65-43fd-908f-d186faa972c8_1.txt star_wars_AndroidTv 2.0.70g_ffmpeg-transcode-a3aa641f-9a16-4e29-8daf-2a32a685c48d_1.txt

[rbjtech 5284]

So I'm not sure why you would be converting to AV1 when your primary client does not support AV1 decode in hardware ?

I see that only the FireTV 4K Max supports AV1 at this time ... so maybe move to this hardware or convert to hevc for the time being.

[bwlonsdale 0]

19 hours ago, rbjtech said:

So I'm not sure why you would be converting to AV1 when your primary client does not support AV1 decode in hardware ?

I see that only the FireTV 4K Max supports AV1 at this time ... so maybe move to this hardware or convert to hevc for the time being.

It's going to be saving me plenty of space for one thing, about 25%.

As for not being supported in hardware, well it should be getting decoded in software still, not transcoded on the SHIELD.

[rbjtech 5284]

2 hours ago, bwlonsdale said:

It's going to be saving me plenty of space for one thing, about 25%.

As for not being supported in hardware, well it should be getting decoded in software still, not transcoded on the SHIELD.

Sure - my point is everything will then need to be transcoded - so you've lost quality converting it to AV1, you then lose quality again when you transcode it to h264 to play it back.

The Shield does not support AV1, so it will be transcoded to h264.    The only clients that currently support AV1, are the FireTV Max and the latest 4K Roku I believe.

[bwlonsdale 0]

20 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Sure - my point is everything will then need to be transcoded - so you've lost quality converting it to AV1, you then lose quality again when you transcode it to h264 to play it back.

The Shield does not support AV1, so it will be transcoded to h264.    The only clients that currently support AV1, are the FireTV Max and the latest 4K Roku I believe.

This post is about the Emby client on SHIELD needlessly transcoding AV1 files when the SHIELD can decode them (in software) instead of being transcoded. I don't care if the SHIELD has AV1 hardware decode or not. The other Emby client for regular Android (as I've proven above) doesn't transcode.

I am going to be ripping my DVDs and Blu-Rays again and re-encoding using AV1. I have been playing with some tools (VMAF and FFMetrics) that compare quality between the original (rip) and and AV1 files, and I've hit on some settings that get me 95% quality, with a saving around 25% space compared to the h264 versions that I currently have.

And if I recall correctly, the FIreTV 4K doesn't support passthru of DTS HD MA, or Dolby TrueHD, which is another reason why I'm using the SHIELD.

Edited May 3, 2022 by bwlonsdale

[Luke 42077]

On 5/2/2022 at 3:56 AM, bwlonsdale said:

Logs from both apps for my AV1 encode of Star Wars.

So the sideload Emby does directplay, but unfortunately has its own issues - the aspect ratio is completely messed up. Doesn't matter which one I choose, it's filling the screen...didn't notice that in the sample, but likely cos it's a full 16:9 ratio, while Star Wars is 2.35:1. The home screen is obviously different as well, it's not something I'd want to use on a big screen.

So....Emby app issue needing fixing? Anything else I can do?

star_wars_AndroidTv 3.2.47_ffmpeg-transcode-59d61123-4c65-43fd-908f-d186faa972c8_1.txt 23.4 kB · 0 downloads star_wars_AndroidTv 2.0.70g_ffmpeg-transcode-a3aa641f-9a16-4e29-8daf-2a32a685c48d_1.txt 45.55 kB · 0 downloads

OK one more test. Can you please sideload this version:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1obwrckg4lkjc8/emby-android-google-armeabi-v7a-release.apk?dl=0

And then provide the android app log: 

Thanks !

 

[bwlonsdale 0]

Android log file attached - I played the sample and movie a few times during this, and from the original app that has the issue and transcodes.

The new sideloaded version produces no log in Emby, not sure if that's intentional or not (even when debug logging was turned on).

ec2dc658-8bfc-4e2d-8783-a44b8548358c.log