Emby stopped transcoding streams from Telerising/Zattoo

[axelsl 19]

Hello,

For the past few days, Emby stopped transcoding streams from Telerising/Zattoo and uses direct stream, which is an issue for me as it makes the video buffer so much that it is unwatchable. Changing the video quality settings does not do anything - it will still direct stream with the highest quality... until it starts buffering and is impossible to watch.

Can someone explain why it does not transcode anymore? It was working fine a few days ago...

I noticed this in the ffmpeg logs...

 

>>>>>> Processing Plan

Name CanDoInHW WillDoInHW Reason

Copy video stream >> False False Software Codec

VideoInput >> False False Not a hardware decoder

VideoOutput >> False False Not a hardware encoder

Copy video stream >> False False Software Codec

 

>>>>>> Video Processing Steps for [0:1]: H.264 (AVC)

Step HW-Context Format SW-Format Size Next

H264 >> - yuv420p yuv420p 1280x720 >>

 

Attached Emby server logs and ffmpeg logs.

 

Thanks!

Axel

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-directstream-9552d3c4-0bdb-48c6-a1a1-05f0cbf685b8_1.txt

[Luke 42083]

Hi, have you tried chrome for comparison purposes?

[axelsl 19]

Hello,

Yes, result is similar on Chrome, Firefox, Roku app.

The stream itself works fine when I play it through VLC

 

embyserver(2).txt ffmpeg-directstream-bd0dac7a-43ad-468d-95f6-92aa226599f3_1.txt

[axeltestuser 0]

FYI, if i display the stats on the Roku app, it shows the "converting to compatible container" message. Logs attached for Roku

embyserver (3).txt ffmpeg-directstream-dedcfa06-1afc-45bb-82da-3ecd86d788d1_1.txt

[axelsl 19]

I realized something... see attached pictures - it looks like the bitrate of the original stream is wrongly understood as very low - since it is lower than the quality setting I am setting, it goes to direct stream. But this initial bitrate is obviously wrong - if i open the same stream on VLC the bitrate is 7 Mbs, not 5 kbs! Any idea why Emby thinks the bitrate is so low? Anything wrong with the stream generated by telerising?

 

Thanks!

 

IMG_1684.HEIC

[speechles 2055]

@axelslHi. You can force transcoding when you need to. When the video is playing use the same "playback options" that you used where you have found the stats for nerds option. On that menu will be another option called "Attempt Playback Correction". This option will act the same as if an error occurred and fallback to the next playback method. You can use the playback correction multiple times depending on playback method. With direct streaming you should only need to use the option once. Having this transcode may not solve your problem. You may need to "Refresh Metadata" on those media items to fill in the bitrate correctly. That is definitely what is the main cause of your problem.

Edited August 5, 2023 by speechles

[pünktchen 1409]

28 minutes ago, axelsl said:

not 5 kbs

The unit for video and audio in the stats is obviously wrong. It should be Mbps! If you sum up the values for video and audio you get the HLS input bitrate of 5.5 Mbps that is also the variant bitrate of your ffmpeg log.

[axelsl 19]

9 minutes ago, pünktchen said:

The unit for video and audio in the stats is obviously wrong. It should be Mbps! If you sum up the values for video and audio you get the HLS input bitrate of 5.5 Mbps that is also the variant bitrate of your ffmpeg log.

Thanks. The bitrate appears properly for other streams, it is just wrong for anything coming from Zattoo/telerising. And it looks like it is making Emby fail and default to Direct stream.

 

15 minutes ago, speechles said:

@axelslHi. You can force transcoding when you need to. When the video is playing use the same "playback options" that you used where you have found the stats for nerds option. On that menu will be another option called "Attempt Playback Correction". This option will act the same as if an error occurred and fallback to the next playback method. You can use the playback correction multiple times depending on playback method. With direct streaming you should only need to use the option once. Having this transcode may not solve your problem. You may need to "Refresh Metadata" on those media items to fill in the bitrate correctly. That is definitely what is the main cause of your problem.

Thank you. I did not have any luck trying to force the transcode. I have contacted the developers from the telerising API to see if there is anything on their side they can do to fix the metadata.