Movie Playback Constant Rebuffering

[sscanf 3]

Hi, nothing in my video library plays correctly without constant re-buffering, every few seconds. VLC, Kodi (over SMB and UMS UPNP) do not have this issue. Hardware acceleration is active. Codecs are mostly MP4 bottles of H264+ AAC+ vobsub. Premier just activated. Am I missing something?

Edited September 6, 2022 by sscanf

[Luke 42078]

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[sscanf 3]

ffmpeg-transcode-82193304-7226-4160-856c-a2f83891dabd_1.txthardware_detection-63798104916.txt

 

Odd, ffmpeg still seems to be deciding to transcode in software??

>>>>>>  Processing Plan

        Name                                        CanDoInHW  WillDoInHW  Reason                                                 
        Automatic software decoder               >> False      False       Software Codec                                          
        VideoInput                               >> False      False       Not a hardware decoder                                  
        SubtitleOverlay                          >> False      False                                                               
        VideoOutput                              >> False      False       Not a hardware encoder                                  
        x264 Software Encoder                    >> False      False       Software Codec                  

 

Vdpau works just fine from the command line.. It shoudn't even _be_ transcoding really I mean mp4-h264-aac is pretty standard stuff..

 

UPDATE: This issue seems to be strangely related. I could be way wrong and I don't have time to debug this for you, but it seems:
If the platform tried to display subtitles = huge rebuffering
If the platform quietly ignores subtitles = smooth playback

I hope it helps more than it confuses..

Edited September 6, 2022 by sscanf

[sscanf 3]

Just tried to play a TV recording with a teletext stream; even more rebuffering and playback crash. Teletext does not display on firestick even with CC on, but no rebuffering. Note that buster-multimedia ffmpeg was not compiled with libzvbi support but ffplay does dvdsub perfectly so that can't be the whole story.

All hunches at this point but it's not looking good..

 

embyserver.txt

Edited September 6, 2022 by sscanf

[sscanf 3]

Further info, for some reason "Allow subtitle extraction on the fly" was enabled (under transcoding settings). Turning it off improved playback somewhat but there is still regular noticeable rebuffering, even directly from the VBOX over ethernet. Not great but coherent, which is a step forward.

ffmpeg-transcode-7005b2de-f4d5-44e8-af8b-68a04687287c_1.txt

[sscanf 3]

While I wait for a reply I'll just keep noting things that I see when I have a few minutes. Going back to the server logs it seems emby has its own version of ffmpeg, which throws everything I said above out the window:

ls -l /opt/emby-server/bin
total 1720
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    438 Aug 22  2017 emby-ffdetect
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    436 Aug 22  2017 emby-ffmpeg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    853 Aug 22  2017 emby-server
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  96048 Aug 22  2017 ffdetect
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 890768 Aug 22  2017 ffmpeg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 756144 Aug 22  2017 ffprobe

There could be several issues with this. A lot of effort goes into tweaking and optimizing ffmpeg individually for each operating system. Maybe why emby is falling back to software decoding and constantly rebuffering? And I can't understand it especially when fyi UMS has no problem at all using the system ffmpeg, recognizing appropriate pass-through by format, taking advantage of vdpau acceleration and has exactly zero rebuffering issues with the exact same recording content. This is really a shame I hope we can get it sorted.

Thanks

Edited September 7, 2022 by sscanf

[Luke 42078]

21 hours ago, sscanf said:

Further info, for some reason "Allow subtitle extraction on the fly" was enabled (under transcoding settings). Turning it off improved playback somewhat but there is still regular noticeable rebuffering, even directly from the VBOX over ethernet. Not great but coherent, which is a step forward.

ffmpeg-transcode-7005b2de-f4d5-44e8-af8b-68a04687287c_1.txt 41.76 kB · 0 downloads

It's possible that this one is due to deinterlacing. Can you try a different example?

[sscanf 3]

Are we talking server-side de-interlacing or client side? Why is emby de-interlacing to begin with? The examples I already supplied play fine everywhere else so they shouldn't be an issue here either. Please clarify.

Edited September 7, 2022 by sscanf

[Luke 42078]

Hi, it's because the file has been detected as interlaced, and the browser can't deinterlace on it's own.

Quote

This isn't a playback issue on other platforms

Hi, other platforms have more robust video players than what web browsers have. So for example if you play using Emby for Android, it will probably just play the file directly.

[sscanf 3]

21 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, other platforms have more robust video players than what web browsers have. So for example if you play using Emby for Android, it will probably just play the file directly.

Interesting. Does Windows Emby Premier also use a web based render engine? The behavior is identical.

 

 

[sscanf 3]

UPDATE: Movies are looking better after another reboot and minor adjustments to make the vaapi-over-nvidia configuration work (more) correctly using the vaapi nvidia shim I have no idea why that should make an improvement but it has. ??? Movies are now 100%, with subtitles and I am happy. There put that away done.  All that's left is the TV and I need it to work (for others not so much for myself). Lets focus completely on that for the rest of this thread if it's ok with you. There was another issue on the firestick but I'm going to pause that for this. See attached.
 

Is there any chance that emby client would be willing to accept vbox on direct pass through? It would help a lot..

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-95e8e425-d130-4c0d-8b2b-05eb8c97256c_1.txt

[Happy2Play 9780]

4 hours ago, sscanf said:

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, other platforms have more robust video players than what web browsers have. So for example if you play using Emby for Android, it will probably just play the file directly.

Interesting. Does Windows Emby Premier also use a web based render engine? The behavior is identical.

Sorry I don't follow as Emby Premiere is not a player, are you asking about Emby Theater?

[sscanf 3]

Just now, Happy2Play said:

Sorry I don't follow as Emby Premiere is not a player, are you asking about Emby Theater?

Yes a hundred apologies

[Happy2Play 9780]

Have you tried the Desktop version instead of App store version as store version is limit?

Emby Theater - Emby

[sscanf 3]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

Have you tried the Desktop version instead of App store version as store version is limit?

Emby Theater - Emby

Oh wow you have _two_ apps for Windows. Yes the desktop version is MUCH better!

In summary solution seemed to be a combination of further server optimization combined with client correction.

 

OK to close will re-open if it re-occurrs.

Please remove the log files.

Edited September 7, 2022 by sscanf
Admin please remove the log files thank you