Issues playing AV1 natively

[tOLJY 49]

AV1 always wants to transcode on my Google TV - Google TV apparently supports it. Any idea why its not playing direct?

[Luke 42077]

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

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

Thanks.

 

[VirulentPip 93]

Interested in the outcome. Cause if it does playback it'll likely judder due to no AV1 HW Acceleration for the Emby Player. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by VirulentPip

[tOLJY 49]

Unsure about sideloading as it's the Google tv with Chromecast dongle (is that even possible)? But it does play, it just transcodes and is very jittery

[VirulentPip 93]

AV1 transcoding is currently software decoding. 

[tOLJY 49]

I run emby server on a raspberry pi 4 w/4gb ram. I imagine any transcoding on that can only ever be garbage.

[VirulentPip 93]

Fire TV, when can we expect HW Acceleration for AV1 codec for Emby video player? Is this something that needs to be a feature request or it's in the pipeline? Are we talking months and months or sooner? Like should I get my hopes up at all?

Using Nova Video Player is pissing me off, it hates my setup I often get no audio, stereo when should be 5.1 DD+ pausing locks it up and like with all, Emby doesn't know where the file playback is, so cannot resume if back out. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by VirulentPip

[Luke 42077]

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

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

Thanks.

 

[VirulentPip 93]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

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

Thanks.

 

Unless that's changed as of 1-2 weeks, no it doesn't HW Accelerate its SW. 

[Luke 42077]

Ok we need to merge this with previous conversations in order to avoid having the same discussion in multiple places.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, yes we're looking into improving av1 playback on Android. Thanks.

[VirulentPip 93]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Hi, yes we're looking into improving av1 playback on Android. Thanks.

Okay, as per my original question, is this something that could take a long time? If so I'll go through the effort of repurposing my mini PC and seeing if it works (as I know Windows Desktop app plays nicely)

[Luke 42077]

3 minutes ago, VirulentPip said:

Okay, as per my original question, is this something that could take a long time? If so I'll go through the effort of repurposing my mini PC and seeing if it works (as I know Windows Desktop app plays nicely)

We're following this: https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/10387

If time continues to pass by without improvement then we may look at doing that ourselves.

 

[VirulentPip 93]

On 17/10/2022 at 20:27, Luke said:

We're following this: https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/10387

If time continues to pass by without improvement then we may look at doing that ourselves.

 

I see there's been no traction on the above link.

Quote from Plex forum " FYI HTPC has been released with AV1 Playback support. Plex for Windows/Mac/Linux will follow on their next release. PMS will follow in an upcoming release.
The delay was because the build mechanism for dav1d required extensive changes to our build system to support it across ~20 platform targets"

No idea if this is the same thing you guys have to do, as you already have AV1 support but Software Decoding only, it's the HW Decoding needed, for player and for decoding when needed to be transcoded.  

[Luke 42077]

HI, yes we are looking into improving our av1 support. Thanks for the feedback.

[iamspartacus 40]

On 12/9/2022 at 2:34 PM, Luke said:

HI, yes we are looking into improving our av1 support. Thanks for the feedback.

 

I'll be watching this closely.  Now that Plex has released a PMS version allowing for HW AV1 decoding, AV1 files are going to be a lot more frequent.

[tOLJY 49]

I've recently had some av1 issues, and found this thread. Thought it funny that I raised it lol

Is there any update on this at all ? Running a standard build from about a month ago and av1 is still jittery

[Luke 42077]

10 hours ago, tOLJY said:

I've recently had some av1 issues, and found this thread. Thought it funny that I raised it lol

Is there any update on this at all ? Running a standard build from about a month ago and av1 is still jittery

We are looking into it. in terms of server transcoding, the upcoming 4.8 server release will have improved av1 support on that side as well.

[Trelane 38]

AV1 is direct playing fine for me (both 1080p and 2160p HDR) on the following devices running Android v3.3.14 / Server version 4.8.0.39 beta

FireTV 4k max

FireTV Cube Gen 3

Fire TV 4-Series 4K UHD smart TV

Hisense A6 Series 4k UHD Google TV

Google Chromecast 4k

Onn 4k Streaming Box (Google TV OS)

Content is mostly AV1 10-Bit Encoded + Opus Audio

Edited July 3, 2023 by SeanM

[Trelane 38]

Actually, I take that back on the Google Chromecast 4k.. It still is not playing AV1 content properly.  This seems to be unqiue to the Chromecast 4k,  however when attempting to play AV1 content on it, the renderer is reported as "Ffmpeg" instead of "MediaCodec" like the other devices.  This also causes the app to run very poorly while its trying to play.

Even the Onn 4k Streaming Box that uses the same Google TV OS works just fine as does the Hisense with built-in Google TV OS.

Chromecast 4k :

 

Same content,  but played on the Onn 4k GoogleTV box:

 

Edited July 3, 2023 by SeanM

[tOLJY 49]

Makes sense to me, I'm exclusively using Chromecast with Google TV

[ndfan77 6]

On 7/3/2023 at 6:11 PM, SeanM said:

AV1 is direct playing fine for me (both 1080p and 2160p HDR) on the following devices running Android v3.3.14 / Server version 4.8.0.39 beta

Where is v3.3.14?  The link Luke provided above yields v3.3.8

[Trelane 38]

2 hours ago, ndfan77 said:

Where is v3.3.14?  The link Luke provided above yields v3.3.8

The latest Android version is here : https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html  (Under "Download the Apk")

This has to be sideloaded, since the manual download version is ahead of the store version.  

The latest release notes are here (under the testing forum) :  

 

Latest version as of July 21 2023 is 3.3.19.

It is possible to have both versions installed at the same time:

 

Where the standard android app can be differentiated by the missing "Android TV" subtitle in the logo as seen above on GoogleTV (FireTV will look different)

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by SeanM

[Guest]

Is it possible to install this app without sideloading it? I recently encouraged a mass exodus from all that is roku in this world for my family!

With the app store version of emby for android TV emby wont direct play AV1, but I tried sideloading this apk on one device and it direct played the same file just fine. While I am completely comfortable sideloading apps, many members of my family are not going to be able to do that. So is there a play store option to get this installed on the android TV boxes?

[ndfan77 6]

On 7/3/2023 at 6:44 PM, SeanM said:

Actually, I take that back on the Google Chromecast 4k.. It still is not playing AV1 content properly.  This seems to be unqiue to the Chromecast 4k,  however when attempting to play AV1 content on it, the renderer is reported as "Ffmpeg" instead of "MediaCodec" like the other devices.  This also causes the app to run very poorly while its trying to play.

To add some to this.  I was able to get the Emby for Android TV client (2.0.83g) to direct play 2160p AV1 content somewhat reliably (it's only been a couple days) on the Chromecast 4K -- by following this setup sequence:

1. Factory reset the Chromecast 4K
2. Uninstall unneeded apps (Disney+, Apple TV, ESPN, Hulu, Max)
3. Install the Emby for Android TV client (v2.0.83g) from the Play Store, configure it, and test some 2160p AV1 content (which will transcode).
4. Sideload the Emby for Android client (v3.3.8), configure it.
5. Play some 2160p AV1 content on the Emby for Android client.  Playback will probably be wonky (frozen images, blank screen, etc.) -- but audio and subtitles should work.  Let playback run (even if broken) for ~15+ mins. 
6. AV1 content should now direct play correctly on the Emby for Android TV client (and now you can just ignore the Emby for Android client).

I was able to duplicate this setup sequence twice.  I know it seems a bit wishy-washy, and it's not readily obvious which step is the key to getting AV1 direct playback working on the Emby for Android TV client.  But (for whatever reason), letting the Emby for Android client play for 15 - 20 minutes in step 4 (even if not playing right) seems to be a relevant part of the equation as direct AV1 playback on the Emby for Android TV client wouldn't work without it.  (Also, there was one instance where the Emby for Android TV client fell back to transcoding AV1 content, and repeating step #5 straightened direct play back out.)

FWIW...