HEVC movie plays outside of emby but not within

[Ronstang 294]

This is very strange, I have never had this problem before.  The file plays fine in MPV but emby either reports no compatible streams or just exits playing.  I don't know if this has any affect but this is a movie that was originally encoded with h.264 about 4 years ago.  I re-encoded it tonight to HEVC.  I have done this with other movies before using the same profile and they play fine but this one does not so I have no idea what is going on here.  I have included the log.

embyserver.txt

[visproduction 315]

Line 1014 in your log shows this:
 

AudioCodecNotSupported

HEVC playing elsewhere is not really a good test.  Many player aps have all sorts of avilable codecs for playback.  I've heard the players sometimes even use codecs that are not completely licensed correctly.  If you ran a proper master test video through your system, you may not have any issues.  Also use a test video because then you can see if the problem is with the video or some encoding config or your system.  When you use a random video that happens to play fine in other software you have not really narrowed down the problam much at all.  I hope that makes some sense and helps.

[Ronstang 294]

@visproductionI appreciate your input but what has me stumped is I have 7K movies and over 3K TV episodes that are HEVC and all play perfectly fine and I've been using the same program and ffmpeg parameters to encode for several years that there is no need to run a test video....10K play fine, it's just this one and I can't figure out why.

[darkassassin07 652]

HighEfficiencyVideoCodec, as the name implies, is a video codec.

 

Your issue is the audio codec. Nothing to do with HEVC.

 

Providing details about which audio codec is in that file would help.

[Ronstang 294]

Sorry, I didn't realize it was an issue with the audio, but the audio is ac3 6 channel which is standard fare for Turner Classic Movies and most of my recorded content is from this channel and I have never had a problem with ac3 audio playing regardless of the number of channels.  Everything I have recorded from TV has ac3 audio so this is even stranger than I thought.  Now this file is older and actually has a second audio stream that is ac3 6 channel but in Spanish.  Since I recorded this TCM has stopped adding Spanish audio.

 

[Ronstang 294]

OK, I used Xmedia Recode to re-encode the audio a stereo AAC track and an AAC 5.1 track.  Now the file plays fine with either audio track.  But I don't understand why all my other files with ac3 5.1 or stereo as recorded play fine.  I did notice something odd.  Normally TCM's ac3 audio is 384 kb/s and this one is 256 kb/s.  Is it possible that is too low for a 5.1 track in emby?  Now, TCM's 5.1 really isn't surround but more of a "speaker fill" to make the room sound fuller, but it's still either mono or stereo source, I assume.

[Ronstang 294]

Well, it worked a few times, now it doesn't work again.  I really don't understand what the log is saying.  Anyone?

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42080]

What exactly happened?

[Ronstang 294]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

What exactly happened?

Nothing, I try to play the movie, the screen changes to the play screen, for a couple seconds I get the spinning circle, and then it just aborts.  No error pop up or anything.  It played a couple times with the new audio but when I went back a while later it wouldn't from either machine or emby server.

This was all from the computer and the web interface.  Just now I turned on one of my Sony TVs and loaded emby and the movie plays fine.  So this is a Google Chrome issue.  But still, we are talking about ac3 and AAC audio.....pretty much universally compatible from my experience.

[Luke 42080]

Can you provide the contents of the browser debug console? thanks.

[Ronstang 294]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

Can you provide the contents of the browser debug console? thanks.

Sure, if you translate that from Greek for me.

OK, I did nothing since last night and now it plays again.....except the audio is way out of sync if you use the mouse and pick a spot in the middle and advance there.

Even coming back over an hour later audio still out of sync if I resume playing.  File works fine on my Sony Google TV. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ronstang

[visproduction 315]

Ac3 is known to take time to sync.  The best solution appears to be to have 2 to 3 seconds of blank video and audio at the beginning of the media content.  If you content doesn't have this, you could perhaps add in blank time and see if that helps.  It seems that a lot of people are complaining about Ac3 audio sync issues:  https://swisscows.com/en/web?query=audio+ac3+error+out+of+sync+playback
 

[Ronstang 294]

I don't know if this is relevant but this situation involves multiple versions in the same folder with one being a STRM file pointing to the file I am having an issue with in a different folder.  Could that be the issue?  But, if so why does it keep making the original file unplayable whenever I mess with it?  The file was playing from it's location fine a few minutes ago.  I deleted the STRM file in the other folder containing multiple versions and then made it all over from scratch and double checked that it was correct.  Once I refreshed both libraries now the file doesn't play again from it's actual location, or it's STRM file.....but you can play it from either on my Sony Google TV???

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ronstang

[Luke 42080]

52 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

I don't know if this is relevant but this situation involves multiple versions in the same folder with one being a STRM file pointing to the file I am having an issue with in a different folder.  Could that be the issue?  But, if so why does it keep making the original file unplayable whenever I mess with it?  The file was playing from it's location fine a few minutes ago.  I deleted the STRM file in the other folder containing multiple versions and then made it all over from scratch and double checked that it was correct.  Once I refreshed both libraries now the file doesn't play again from it's actual location, or it's STRM file.....but you can play it from either on my Sony Google TV???

Hi, please help us help you:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks.

[Ronstang 294]

I have described it....and included 2 logs.  Here is another.  I have told you this is only in Google Chrome as it works on my TV.  You asked for the contents of the browser debug console and I told you I did not now what you meant....but you did not give me further instructions so I do not know what else to do.

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42080]

2 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

I have described it....and included 2 logs.  Here is another.  I have told you this is only in Google Chrome as it works on my TV.  You asked for the contents of the browser debug console and I told you I did not now what you meant....but you did not give me further instructions so I do not know what else to do.

embyserver.txt 2.38 MB · 0 downloads

Right but then you went and made a bunch of changes and so therefor the previous log files don't really apply to what you just mentioned.

[Luke 42080]

I would also try MS Edge and see how that compares.

[Ronstang 294]

I think I found the problem Luke.  Very strange but the audio has 4 seconds at the beginning that doesn't play except in Chrome and it doesn't actually belong there.  Yes it would have been in the original recording from TCM but it should have been cut properly but it seems it wasn't.  

So what I did was extract the ac3 file, trim it 4 seconds with DelayCut, then I used MKVToolNix to create a new MKV with the new audio.  Then I loaded it into Avidemux and copied it with a 4 second offset to resync.  The resulting file now had 4 seconds of silence at the beginning so I loaded the new MKV back into Avidemux and trimmed 4 seconds off the front which didn't affect the video since it was an intro period and nothing useful was lost.  

I then had to resync the subtitles.  But the new file plays fine in Chrome from it's actual location and the STRM file.  Now since it plays on the TV this was actually a futile endeavor since I do not watch movies on the web interface but it was driving me crazy why this was happening.

The only issue I have now is the file takes much longer to seek and it pauses for a second or two before it plays again.  Any idea how to fix this??  I actually have an idea.  I'll edit the original file I encoded to HEVC and re-encode it and the problem should not be present then, correct?

Does this make sense??

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ronstang

[Ronstang 294]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

I would also try MS Edge and see how that compares.

MS Edge is garbage in Windows 11.  It is nothing but a data thief and malware that hijacks the system and consumes lots of CPU in the background at random times and it was bringing my machine to its knees when I was encoding with it's random background activity so I disabled that piece of junk.

[Ronstang 294]

BTW....I was correct.  Fixing the source file and re-encoding fixed the seeking lag.