Help with 4K file playing audio only

[musicmafia 38]

FINALLY got a 4K TV (woohoo!) but ran into a hiccup. I mostly use Fire Stick 4K on my TV and I have strong signal and more than enough speed for 4K. Netflix and others are streaming fine in 4K via Fire Stick.

I went to test my Emby 4K files (which I also play on TV via Fire Stick) and I've only tested 4 files so far, but one (Babylon) only played audio. For troubleshoot, I went to my PC and the same file plays fine in VLC and plays fine on Emby on the desktop. I'll be testing more 4K files today and hoping this was an isolated incident. Until then, any ideas what might be going on? Thanks

Edited April 22, 2023 by musicmafia

[Luke 42078]

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.

 

[musicmafia 38]

28 minutes 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.

 

Thanks Luke. It's a Sony TV running on Google TV platform. So I should go to the Google store and download the Emby app directly to the TV?

[rbjtech 5284]

The FireTV (AndroidTV) client has no issues playing 4K in general, so it may be the files and/or emby server configuration.    Did emby try and transcode the file or was it direct playing ? (look in stats for nerds, press and hold the FireTV 'ok' button - same again to remove it).

 

[musicmafia 38]

I've now tested 10 different 4K movie files. Via Fire Stick, 4 of them had problems. After downloading the app from Google Play and installing on the TV, 2 of those 4 are worjking fine now (progress) but 2 of the 4 are still having issues freezing up for a few seconds, then starting again, over and over. 

I will try RBJ's suggestion above.

[musicmafia 38]

21 hours ago, rbjtech said:

The FireTV (AndroidTV) client has no issues playing 4K in general, so it may be the files and/or emby server configuration.    Did emby try and transcode the file or was it direct playing ? (look in stats for nerds, press and hold the FireTV 'ok' button - same again to remove it).

 

Here are the stats on those two files. Thanks for your help. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by musicmafia

[rbjtech 5284]

ok - so in the first example - it can't play the video for some reason and the transcode speed is too low to sustain proper playback (fps is less than the source file).  In the 2nd the video is Direct, but the Audio is being transcoded from DTS-HD to AC3.

Try using more stream friendly sources - with EAC3 Audio and maybe lower bitrate HEVC Video. (or convert them).

[VirulentPip 93]

Yeah 1st is due to it being AV1 and the current build not correctly sending info that AV1 can be HW Decoded, so instead of falling back to SW Decoding on the stick (which would be bad) it's now transcoding it, which is the correct behaviour, however your server seems to not be able to do this well. 

Hopefully the issues with AV1 are sorted soon with the Firestick Max and Cube Gen 3 - Unless it's not the Max you have, then there's nothing wrong as it cannot decode AV1. 

[musicmafia 38]

10 hours ago, VirulentPip said:

Yeah 1st is due to it being AV1 and the current build not correctly sending info that AV1 can be HW Decoded, so instead of falling back to SW Decoding on the stick (which would be bad) it's now transcoding it, which is the correct behaviour, however your server seems to not be able to do this well. 

Hopefully the issues with AV1 are sorted soon with the Firestick Max and Cube Gen 3 - Unless it's not the Max you have, then there's nothing wrong as it cannot decode AV1. 

Yes, I have the Fire Stick 4K, not the 4K Max. Sounds like I'll need to buy and set up a Max to play AV1 via stick?

What would cause my server to have these transcoding issues? My wi-fi speed where the stick and TV is located is over 300 mbps.

I don't really know anything about transcoding. Does that mean Emby is converting it to a smaller resolution for playback? Does this affect quality?

I also downloaded Emby to my internal apps and got the exact same playback result on that file playing via internal app. 

Thanks for the help!

[musicmafia 38]

11 hours ago, rbjtech said:

ok - so in the first example - it can't play the video for some reason and the transcode speed is too low to sustain proper playback (fps is less than the source file).  In the 2nd the video is Direct, but the Audio is being transcoded from DTS-HD to AC3.

Try using more stream friendly sources - with EAC3 Audio and maybe lower bitrate HEVC Video. (or convert them).

I am not knowledgeable about frame rates, bit rates, etc. but you are suggesting the problem is with my files and I should seek to replace those with files that have more stream friendly specs or methods?

Is there a thread or list somewhere that would give me the specifics of what I should be looking for file-wise (or are the two suggestions you mentioned all I need to look for)?

Otherwise you mentioning converting. I downloaded Handbrake, but I don't really understand all the various settings options and I would like to maintain as high quality as possible. is there a target video bitrate?

Not great news since I spent the last two years acquiring and naming over 800 movie files for my library and finally got a 4K TV! 

Thanks for your help.

[musicmafia 38]

Bumping. Still need help and advice. Thanks

[Luke 42078]

Are you able to try sideloading the standard app?

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

[pwhodges 2012]

Quote

 I downloaded Handbrake, but I don't really understand all the various settings options and I would like to maintain as high quality as possible. is there a target video bitrate?

For a given quality, the required bit rate varies with the codec; and the codec you choose will depend on whether your devices can direct-play it. 

But what is the required quality anyway?  There are as many answers as viewers - some people want to preserve the best quality that they can obtain (which is achieved by not re-encoding it at all, of course); some people are happy with 1Mbps for a 1080p movie (codec deliberately omitted!), while others would say that watching that is as painful as bleach in the eyes.  Only you know what suits your requirements, and if you want to re-encode, to save space, say, you just need to try a range of parameters and determine for yourself what is acceptable for you.  

The main quality selector in HandBrake is ICQ - for a moderate quality which is generally acceptable, you'd be looking at values of 20 for h264, or 24 for HEVC, maybe even 26 for AV1.  Personally I use higher values than those (lower quality - the scale goes the "wrong" way) because frankly I don't notice the difference - but some people will certainly suggest those values are too high already.

Selecting a slower encode will improve the quality somewhat at a given ICQ, but I've never really played with that - two-pass encoding perhaps more again, particularly if the bit rate is not constrained (setting a specific bitrate prevents occasional more complex sequences from using more bits to maintain quality to match simpler parts - this is a benefit of sticking with the IC|Q setting as the main control).  There will also be some variation in what is acceptable depending on the type of content.

Experiment!  And good luck.

Paul

Edited April 25, 2023 by pwhodges

[musicmafia 38]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Are you able to try sideloading the standard app?

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

 

Yes, I downloaded the app to the TV and although I that helped some, I am still having issues detailed above. 

[musicmafia 38]

1 hour ago, pwhodges said:

For a given quality, the required bit rate varies with the codec; and the codec you choose will depend on whether your devices can direct-play it. 

But what is the required quality anyway?  There are as many answers as viewers - some people want to preserve the best quality that they can obtain (which is achieved by not re-encoding it at all, of course); some people are happy with 1Mbps for a 1080p movie (codec deliberately omitted!), while others would say that watching that is as painful as bleach in the eyes.  Only you know what suits your requirements, and if you want to re-encode, to save space, say, you just need to try a range of parameters and determine for yourself what is acceptable for you.  

The main quality selector in HandBrake is ICQ - for a moderate quality which is generally acceptable, you'd be looking at values of 20 for h264, or 24 for HEVC, maybe even 26 for AV1.  Personally I use higher values than those (lower quality - the scale goes the "wrong" way) because frankly I don't notice the difference - but some people will certainly suggest those values are too high already.

Selecting a slower encode will improve the quality somewhat at a given ICQ, but I've never really played with that - two-pass encoding perhaps more again, particularly if the bit rate is not constrained (setting a specific bitrate prevents occasional more complex sequences from using more bits to maintain quality to match simpler parts - this is a benefit of sticking with the IC|Q setting as the main control).  There will also be some variation in what is acceptable depending on the type of content.

Experiment!  And good luck.

Paul

Thanks. Even the word "moderate" quality bothers me (haha). I always want the best quality possible, although from the sound of things some of my files are not going to play properly due to either AV1, bitrates or type of audio in the file. If I am forced to convert those I will, but will still want to retain as much quality as possible.

[musicmafia 38]

Is there a thread or list somewhere specifying all the specs (preferred frame rates, bit rates, audio encoding, etc.) for files that are more ideal for playback in Emby? 

 

If my problem is only with some of my files, I can seek to replace those with files that meet the preferred criteria (or try converting)?

Edited April 26, 2023 by musicmafia

[pwhodges 2012]

7 hours ago, musicmafia said:

Thanks. Even the word "moderate" quality bothers me (haha). I always want the best quality possible, 

Saying "moderate" was a sop to the extremists - "good, but not quite archival" is how I view those figures.

But for best quality, the answer is easy - don't re-encode.  You'll need more or bigger disks in the end, of course.  If you have any files that won't play, then consider whether you want to spend the money to replace the inadequate device concerned, or experiment to find the best encoding for that file which will serve.  The problem there is that you may easily end up spending more time playing with encoding than watching movies!  For some people that is in itself satisfying, but probably a minority - after all, what is a movie for?

BTW, I should say that I have no experience of 4K, so my figures might need tweaking.  I use lower ICQ values for old 480p material than I do for 1080p, because when the quality is already lower I want to preserve every tiny bit.

As for "best specs for Emby", Emby itself doesn't care much.  The key thing is what your devices can handle.  AVC (h264) for video is universal, but 4K on disk is in HEVC (x265) format - fine if it can direct play, but you'll lose a lot of quality if it can't (because Emby re-encodes in h264, so lower quality than x265 if the bitrate is the limiting factor).  The handling of different multichannel audio formats is very variable, so it matters whether that is critical for you as well as video.  Subtitles can be a problem - to be considered if you have foreign-language films, or any viewers who have the need for them for other reasons.  Frame rate is easy - don't change it; some older DVD rips may have it wrong, but it's best to assume it's correct in general.

But overall, start with avoiding unnecessary processing, and learn through experience what you will need to do.

Paul

Edited April 26, 2023 by pwhodges

[musicmafia 38]

12 hours ago, pwhodges said:

Saying "moderate" was a sop to the extremists - "good, but not quite archival" is how I view those figures.

But for best quality, the answer is easy - don't re-encode.  You'll need more or bigger disks in the end, of course.  If you have any files that won't play, then consider whether you want to spend the money to replace the inadequate device concerned, or experiment to find the best encoding for that file which will serve.  The problem there is that you may easily end up spending more time playing with encoding than watching movies!  For some people that is in itself satisfying, but probably a minority - after all, what is a movie for?

BTW, I should say that I have no experience of 4K, so my figures might need tweaking.  I use lower ICQ values for old 480p material than I do for 1080p, because when the quality is already lower I want to preserve every tiny bit.

As for "best specs for Emby", Emby itself doesn't care much.  The key thing is what your devices can handle.  AVC (h264) for video is universal, but 4K on disk is in HEVC (x265) format - fine if it can direct play, but you'll lose a lot of quality if it can't (because Emby re-encodes in h264, so lower quality than x265 if the bitrate is the limiting factor).  The handling of different multichannel audio formats is very variable, so it matters whether that is critical for you as well as video.  Subtitles can be a problem - to be considered if you have foreign-language films, or any viewers who have the need for them for other reasons.  Frame rate is easy - don't change it; some older DVD rips may have it wrong, but it's best to assume it's correct in general.

But overall, start with avoiding unnecessary processing, and learn through experience what you will need to do.

Paul

 

Thanks again. I'm not very experienced with all this and it can be a little overwhelming. I also had two concussions and the operating system in my brain is running slower than usual

You mentioned disks. My movie files files are on a WD_Black Game drive 8TB 7200RPM with PC 32Gbs RAM. Seems like that should all be sufficient? 

By "inadequate device" do you mean my drives or the Fire Stick or something else? (I'm now playing from Emby app loaded onto the TV, which seems to work a little better than Stick).

I don't have many (if any) foreign language films but I do have lots of movies where parts of the film need forced eng subtitles. 

I like to watch with 5.1 but I don't need any specific format that I know of.

Seems like the problem is limited to a handful of 4K files. So I guess I should look to replace or convert those.

Thanks

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by musicmafia

[pwhodges 2012]

I meant playback device - i.e. the TV, FireStick, or whatever device is fetching the files from Emby.  Modern disks are rarely inadequate.

Paul

[musicmafia 38]

33 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

I meant playback device - i.e. the TV, FireStick, or whatever device is fetching the files from Emby.  Modern disks are rarely inadequate.

Paul

So are there devices that will do a better job versus the TV or stick? Some folks in other threads have said Nvidia Shield performs better?

[VirulentPip 93]

AV1 in general is a tricky one at the moment, since getting a 4K Max and Cube Gen 3 I've had no end of issues with AV1 being detected as being able to be played back via Hardware Decoding, it either transcodes to H264 or enables software decoding which then juddering occurs. 

As far as your HEVC file which is much more supported, it's the DTS-HD audio that wasn't on your device. 

So it all depends what you want, AV1 should work eventually with Emby properly with devices that support it, however HEVC is much better supported (and the default codec for 4K), the Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 although doesn't support AV1 it does support pretty much every audio codec you throw at it and it also has a Gigabit Ethernet port so that high bitrate 4K (HEVC/H265) files aren't an issue. 

[rbjtech 5284]

3 hours ago, VirulentPip said:

AV1 in general is a tricky one at the moment, since getting a 4K Max and Cube Gen 3 I've had no end of issues with AV1 being detected as being able to be played back via Hardware Decoding, it either transcodes to H264 or enables software decoding which then juddering occurs. 

As far as your HEVC file which is much more supported, it's the DTS-HD audio that wasn't on your device. 

So it all depends what you want, AV1 should work eventually with Emby properly with devices that support it, however HEVC is much better supported (and the default codec for 4K), the Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 although doesn't support AV1 it does support pretty much every audio codec you throw at it and it also has a Gigabit Ethernet port so that high bitrate 4K (HEVC/H265) files aren't an issue. 

Agree - I had a dabble with AV1 and while I got the Fire TV 4K Max to Direct play - it was only on the Android App and that was the only device in my household that could.  The Shield attempted it in s/w - but it was so slow it was unusable - and that was @ 1080p - so useless for 4K.  On the flipside, HEVC 4K direct plays on everything I have on all Apps with zero issues ..  

[musicmafia 38]

12 hours ago, VirulentPip said:

AV1 in general is a tricky one at the moment, since getting a 4K Max and Cube Gen 3 I've had no end of issues with AV1 being detected as being able to be played back via Hardware Decoding, it either transcodes to H264 or enables software decoding which then juddering occurs. 

As far as your HEVC file which is much more supported, it's the DTS-HD audio that wasn't on your device. 

So it all depends what you want, AV1 should work eventually with Emby properly with devices that support it, however HEVC is much better supported (and the default codec for 4K), the Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 although doesn't support AV1 it does support pretty much every audio codec you throw at it and it also has a Gigabit Ethernet port so that high bitrate 4K (HEVC/H265) files aren't an issue. 

 

Thanks. I've only got a few AV1 files, so I'm more concerned with the hundreds of other files at this point. 

Sounds like the problem with the HEVC files are the ones with DTS-HD. I'm getting twice the wi-fi speed (85mbps) using internal Emby app on the TV but still having issues with the DTS-HD file. So this means that the problem is my brand new top of the line Sony is the problem with DTS-HD?

[musicmafia 38]

9 hours ago, rbjtech said:

........On the flipside, HEVC 4K direct plays on everything I have on all Apps with zero issues ..  

Even with DTS-HD? 

[rbjtech 5284]

9 hours ago, musicmafia said:

Even with DTS-HD? 

Yes - all my devices support DTS and my AVR supports DTS-HD - I don't appear to have any issues.