Emby Live TV sound only no video playback

[stevenism 1]

Samsung TV model: QN65Q70AAFXZA

Software / Firmware version: 2210

emby version: 1.8.0

Emby on QNAP, live TV from HDHomerun Prime. Recently when running Live TV, when tuning to channel, only audio is present, there is no video playback, only a black screen is shown. All other control is available. Looking at the stats shows that the MPEGTS stream is recovering from playback error.  Both the audio & video is showing as direct play. 
 

Any help is appreciated. 

TIA

[Luke 42077]

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[stevenism 1]

Hello, Logs attached. Let me know if more logs are needed.

Thanks

ffmpeg-directstream-70bd60aa-6484-4755-8487-1eb56ff4e04a_1.txt embyserver.txt

[Luke 42077]

HI, does this TV not have built-in support for mpeg2? Do you have any recordings you can test with to see how that compares?

@SamES

[stevenism 1]

@LukeI am not sure; streams from HDHomeRun is MPEG2, usually in the "stats for nerds" screen it will show converting to compatible container, but now it shows as recovering from playback error.

Recorded shows in MPEG2 video also shows black screen but with audio. Shows converted to H264 format does play though.

Is this a settings issue? 

[Luke 42077]

I'm wondering if your model might not support mpeg2 and therefore we need to have the server transcode it.

@SamES

[SamES 1056]

1 hour ago, stevenism said:

Recorded shows in MPEG2 video also shows black screen but with audio. Shows converted to H264 format does play though.

Can you please share a recording via a PM and I can test check this?

Has the TV  (or HDHR)  had any recent firmware updates?

I'm going to take a guess that it's the 60fps that's causing the issue.

Do you have any older recordings that still work, preferably from the same channel?  That would help to rule out a TV firmware update issue and would help us to understand if the HDHR is recording differently now.

[stevenism 1]

@SamESI assume you want a recording of what happens when I tune to a channel? I will get that for you.

The TV nor the HDHR had recent firmware updates. The only item updated in the chain was the Emby server on QNAP NAS.

This behavior seems to be happening across all the channels, not just a particular one.

Recorded videos are in mpeg2 format with .ts extension. Video playback is showing black screenfor mpeg files.

Playback is fine if the recording is converted to H264.

[SamES 1056]

12 hours ago, stevenism said:

@SamESI assume you want a recording of what happens when I tune to a channel? I will get that for you.

You mentioned in your earlier post that

Quote

'Recorded shows in MPEG2 video also shows black screen but with audio'. 

Can I get one of those recordings please?

[stevenism 1]

@SamES PM sent with the title of this forum post.

Thank you!

[stevenism 1]

@SamES@LukeThis is more of a general question regarding transcoding.

The QNAP NAS that runs the emby server has hardware transcoding capabilities, but client devices does not always take advantage of it.

the Samsung TV is using directstream, no transcoding was done, but opening on Edge Browser, transcoding happens.

Is there a way to force transcoding? Am I missing some settings to force transcoding?

Thanks

ffmpeg-directstream-SamsungTV.txt ffmpeg-transcode-Edge_Browser.txt

[SamES 1056]

7 hours ago, stevenism said:

Is there a way to force transcoding?

Only by dropping the quality setting during playback to a value less than the bitrate of the actual file. 

I'll review your samples and if we can confirm why this is the case and can identify the case reliably then we can try and automatically have this transcode.

[stevenism 1]

I have managed to solve the issue - seems like the quality setting is the problem. If the quality setting is set to Auto, it goes all the way up to 1080p - 60Mbps, and then video does not play. If I force the quality down to 1080p - 6Mbps, videos are working again.

Setting the video quality any higher results in some channels not playing, as the stream from the HDHomeRun can dip to 7Mbps.

As to why the Auto setting cannot be able to adjust with the incoming stream bandwidth, I will leave it to your team.

Thank you so much for the assistance. Let me know if we want to troubleshoot this further, glad to provide more logs if needed.

[MALLINDER 10]

2 minutes ago, stevenism said:

I have managed to solve the issue - seems like the quality setting is the problem. If the quality setting is set to Auto, it goes all the way up to 1080p - 60Mbps, and then video does not play. If I force the quality down to 1080p - 6Mbps, videos are working again.

Setting the video quality any higher results in some channels not playing, as the stream from the HDHomeRun can dip to 7Mbps.

As to why the Auto setting cannot be able to adjust with the incoming stream bandwidth, I will leave it to your team.

Thank you so much for the assistance. Let me know if we want to troubleshoot this further, glad to provide more logs if needed.

I found this solution and posted this but does not really solve the problem if you have SD and HD channels. If I set to 1080 then sd channels wont play (or sd recordings) if I set the quality to 720 then sd channels and sd recordings play but the quality of the HD looks terrible so im guessing it transcodes it to lower quality.

[stevenism 1]

Thanks for your input @MALLINDERI have completely overlooked SD channels as all the channels I watch are already in HD. I will try some SD channels to see what it looks like.

[stevenism 1]

I can confirm that SD channels are NOT WORKING.

Is there a way to filter out the SD channels in the guide? Or its depending on what the HDHomeRun passes to?

[stevenism 1]

@MALLINDERdid you ever get to a solution for this samsung issue? Besides not watching SD channels & sell the TV...

[MALLINDER 10]

7 hours ago, stevenism said:

@MALLINDERdid you ever get to a solution for this samsung issue? Besides not watching SD channels & sell the TV...

I have not. The only temporary solution I have found is when the channel / recording starts to play then downgrade the quality. But then when watch something in HD have to turn the quality back up. Takes a while for updates to make it through the Samsung store. I cant update via USB as cant get to the port. If emby offered a way to always transcode live tv / recorded (.ts files) I think this would solve the problem but not sure if that is a possibility. Since not many people have reported this as a problem I doubt it will be high on embys list.

[Luke 42077]

18 hours ago, MALLINDER said:

I have not. The only temporary solution I have found is when the channel / recording starts to play then downgrade the quality. But then when watch something in HD have to turn the quality back up. Takes a while for updates to make it through the Samsung store. I cant update via USB as cant get to the port. If emby offered a way to always transcode live tv / recorded (.ts files) I think this would solve the problem but not sure if that is a possibility. Since not many people have reported this as a problem I doubt it will be high on embys list.

HI, does this TV not have built-in support for mpeg2? Do you have any recordings you can test with to see how that compares?

[MALLINDER 10]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

HI, does this TV not have built-in support for mpeg2? Do you have any recordings you can test with to see how that compares?

I dont have access to usb port to try one. But the same TV will play live tv through the nextprv web and desktop app (I use nextprv as the backend and a m3u with you).

[stevenism 1]

@Luke I took a recording mpeg file to USB, it plays with no problem. So the TV does have support for MPEG. 

[dazcornish 0]

Hi! 

Any updates on this issue? 

Same problem and works with fix suggested above. Can get HD working by changing from auto to 1080.

 

TV Samsung QE55QN94AATXXU. Software T-NKM2DEUC-2210.1,BT-S

[Luke 42077]

14 hours ago, dazcornish said:

Hi! 

Any updates on this issue? 

Same problem and works with fix suggested above. Can get HD working by changing from auto to 1080.

 

TV Samsung QE55QN94AATXXU. Software T-NKM2DEUC-2210.1,BT-S

Hi, yes we are looking into this. Thanks.

[SHibbard 6]

I noticed the same problem today on a Samsung Q60A (2021) model (audio, but no video on HomeRun OTA channels, IPTV works fine).  That TV had worked fine until recenly.  Not sure if Samsung updated firmware recently - it's T-NKLAAKUC-2210.0 (have software update set to auto on TV). I also have a 2019 Frame, and it has no problems.  Changing the Playback Video Quality Setting from 'Auto' to 1080p – 5Mbps as mentioned in this thread fixed the Q60A - the Frame is fine at Quality = Auto.  the problematic TV has Emby App Version 1.8.0, and I had done a cold reset of that TV before finding this Thread, so it should be the latest offered in the Samsung App Store. The 2019 Frame has 1.7.0 and claims it is the latest.  However, release notes here say the most recent is 1.8.8 (released today) - 1.8.0 is all the way back from May 2024.  1.8.8 release notes include "Avoid stream copying interlaced video" & I'm curious if it's related to this issue.  Anyone know the delay times in a new version making it to the Samsun App Store?

Edited August 27, 2024 by SHibbard

[SamES 1056]

I believe the fix in 1.8.8 related to interlaced video should fix your issues, you can try it out.

There were some 2019 models that Samsung didn't release the latest update to.  Be aware that now that your frame TV is 5 years old, Samsung will soon stop store updates of this app in which case you will need to use the USB version on it to remain current.