Playback Speed upgrade

[TMCsw 249]

I know “playback speed” is supported on many(all?) clients but is most often not available to me/many because of the audio encoding in the recording for most of my videos (OTA, rip etc.)(correct me if that’s not the reason). But if the audio is transcoded to a format that can be ’speed controlled’ than that `option` becomes available. (and yes I know the sound will be degraded)

So currently (at least on my fire stick 4k max) I can select (while playing) the settings/gear→Playback correction... it usually takes a few repeats, but then I get the option for “playback speed” (and changing it works!).

To say the least this is cumbersome (at least for me) let alone hard to guide an average user (hit down→hit right (until you highlight the gear)→hit select (no, not the hamburger, the big button)→ pick playback correction→ repeat until you can see the playback speed option → pick your speed (no, sorry only the speeds it shows are available… ))

But this will likely cause unnecessary transcoding of the video…

Maybe one or more idea’s of how this could done? (yes. Knowing some transcoding is needed)

• An "auto transcode to allow playback speed change" in server settings?
• Always have the playback speed available on the client but some sort of warning about a transcode being needed? (afterthought: what if transcode is disabled on the server?)

I would also like to see smaller speed increment say by +- 5%

Thanks (just in general for emby)

 

[GrimReaper 4740]

26 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

on my fire stick 4k max

 

26 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

Playback correction... it usually takes a few repeats

 

26 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

pick playback correction→ repeat until

 

26 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

But this will likely cause unnecessary transcoding of the video…

Just for reference:

- If DirectPlaying, selecting Playback Correction once causes audio remux (DirectStream), selecting it twice triggers transcoding, so not quite sure why would you press it multiple times as it is already doing full transcode upon second time selected? 

- If DirectStreaming due to incompatible audio to begin with, even single press will trigger transcoding. 

If you'd like to be able to always adjust speed, select "Downmix to stereo" in app settings>Playback tab>Audio Output. 

Edited March 12, 2023 by GrimReaper

[Luke 42078]

We don't actually force transcoding when you use this option. What might be happening is the player has an error and that's why we automatically switch to transcoding.

[TMCsw 249]

Confusing thing is for some files the audio is Direct Playing, as shown below is a OTA recording playing at 1.25 speed. It seems MPEG2 has to transcode while the AC3 5.1 direct plays

and in this one is B-ray rip where both audio and video are being transcoded and played at 1.25.

Regardless of why it’s occurring my request is still the same allow emby to do the least necessary transcoding to automatically allow for playback speed to be changed when requested while still keeping the best quality A/V for normal play. It also seems playback correction always triggers an error.

[Luke 42078]

Can we please look at a complete example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks.

[ebr 16182]

We know exactly what the issue is here.

If you are bitstreaming audio in a format such as DD or DTS or anything that is decoded by the outboard audio equipment, it is not possible to change the playback speed because there is no control over the speed of the audio by the player.

The solution would be to automatically switch to internal decoding of the audio when a playback speed other than 1.0 is selected.

[TMCsw 249]

10 hours ago, ebr said:

The solution would be to automatically switch to internal decoding of the audio when a playback speed other than 1.0 is selected.

Yes that's what this FR is asking...

@Lukeas for the playback error here is the logs after a emby restart and 2 playbacks where Playback correction is selected twice to allow playback speed change.

hardware_detection-63814331949.txtembyserver.txtffmpeg-transcode-112f4428-699e-4524-94f1-6e8ef8e17782_1.txtffmpeg-transcode-6253a507-88d1-4794-8d0c-71e4fa88885c_1.txtffmpeg-remux-91644391-60ef-45ad-a06f-8182c3c60262_1.txt

[ebr 16182]

12 hours ago, TMCsw said:

as for the playback error

The "error" here is manually forced by you by using the playback correction feature.  That works by faking an error in the player and then letting it go to its next fallback playback method.

[Luke 42078]

@TMCsw has this answered your question?

[TMCsw 249]

Kinda, wasn't really a question or TR, but I'd still like to see this FR happen...