Please can we fix internet speed detection, once and for all.

[embylad892746 32]

Myself and friends have gigabit/10gigbit that I share my server with.

However, EVERY single time somebody connects from a new client or for the first time, it transcodes DESPITE them having 1Gb/s+ speeds when streaming 8-10Mbps due to "lowering bitrate due to quality settings".

I don't understand how the clients (or is it the server?) are so bad at detecting internet speeds. It's literally mis-calculating a client's ability to steam a video by orders of magnitude. 

Like others, I have to give "the talk" to new users where I try to explain that Emby is bad at detecting speed and can be remedied by going into settings > playback settings > and selecting some arbitrarily high video bitrate so that emby doesn't try to transcode unnecessarily again on that device. This talk isn't easy with non-technical people who are hearing the term "bitrate" for the first time. Then it get's more confusing for them when I have to explain that it's a per-device-setting and not a global ("sticky" across all devices) setting. More confusion.

 

- Is it the clients which are all terrible at detecting speed? Is it my server? Is it something else?

- Is there no possibility of adding the ability for the admin or user to set a default "playback video bitrate" for users across ALL devices?

I'm open to other fixes.

Sorry if this is abit "rant-y" 

Thanks.

[yocker 1247]

It's a problem with the clients as discussed in another thread.

Only Emby for Android TV and the FireTV clients run a test once in a while and set bitrate accordingly if set to auto.
Would be awesome if all TV clients ran a test once in a while to some google server and sat bitrate according to sat and then server admins could set a max bitrate to what their server can handle.

Maybe a popup when installing the client like many other programs like "Are you on wired, wireless or mobile connection?", do a test and set accordingly, if on wireless/mobile then set a bit lower.
Or do what the big streaming companies used to do back in the time, If stutter is detected then popup a "is the stream stuttering/buffering? Consider lowering your quality".

Another thing that could help would be if changing the quality while watching a video would stick and people didn't have to look for the quality settings in a (for people with little technical knowledge) hidden place.

Until it's fixed our graphics cards are just going to be working hard and we have to laugh off that people are watching bottom tier streams on their 4K OLED TVs because they don't know any better.

[Killface69 96]

I'm currently usiing the QNAP app version, used the Docker version before.

I also see this behaviour. I have 50 MBit upstream, which ist actually available. But every time someone starts a stream from outside, it's getiing transcoded.

2024-11-02 19:34:55.658 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectPlay limit: media bitrate: 7175481, max bitrate: 4000002
2024-11-02 19:34:55.658 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectStream limit: media bitrate: 7175481, max bitrate: 4000002
---------
2024-11-02 22:27:31.534 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectPlay limit: media bitrate: 4640202, max bitrate: 4000002
2024-11-02 22:27:31.534 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectStream limit: media bitrate: 4640202, max bitrate: 4000002

Happening with all devices on all platforms. If set to direct play, it seems as if Emby can't keep up with the upstream.

[yocker 1247]

4 hours ago, Killface69 said:

I'm currently usiing the QNAP app version, used the Docker version before.

I also see this behaviour. I have 50 MBit upstream, which ist actually available. But every time someone starts a stream from outside, it's getiing transcoded.

2024-11-02 19:34:55.658 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectPlay limit: media bitrate: 7175481, max bitrate: 4000002
2024-11-02 19:34:55.658 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectStream limit: media bitrate: 7175481, max bitrate: 4000002
---------
2024-11-02 22:27:31.534 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectPlay limit: media bitrate: 4640202, max bitrate: 4000002
2024-11-02 22:27:31.534 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectStream limit: media bitrate: 4640202, max bitrate: 4000002

Happening with all devices on all platforms. If set to direct play, it seems as if Emby can't keep up with the upstream.

Looks like you have set a bitrate limit on the server.

[Killface69 96]

1 hour ago, yocker said:

Looks like you have set a bitrate limit on the server.

No, I checked all settings. Sometimes, max bitrate is only 3 Mbps

[Neminem 1518]

Client or server side ?

[Q-Droid 989]

Is there an FR to add a server setting as an option to disable bandwidth detection? I would add my support to an FR for that.

[yocker 1247]

2 hours ago, Killface69 said:

No, I checked all settings. Sometimes, max bitrate is only 3 Mbps

Just to be 100% sure, look at the picture i have attached. There is also a similar settings in the user section when you click on individual users.

[rbjtech 5284]

I would also be interested in the algorithm used - as I see some of my family having zero issues (well over the '3 Mbit/sec) and they are on Auto but they are the same ISP as me, but others are transcoding.   Is it related to the number of hops maybe ?   Latency ?  How exactly is it 'working' ?

 

[Killface69 96]

29 minutes ago, yocker said:

Just to be 100% sure, look at the picture i have attached. There is also a similar settings in the user section when you click on individual users.

Thank you, it's verified. No limit in the server or the user settings.

It's weird. I just tested the Emby client on iOS on cellular, and I could stream UHD media with 30 mbps.
My windows machine e.g. at work with lan 1 Gbps has issues, impossible to stream from Emby without transcoding/any bitrate higher 4 without stutter.

[ebr 16169]

30 minutes ago, Killface69 said:

My windows machine e.g. at work with lan 1 Gbps has issues, impossible to stream from Emby without transcoding/any bitrate higher 4 without stutter.

Hi.  That sounds like the detection is working properly and reducing the bitrate if you say anything over 4Mb stutters...

[yocker 1247]

1 hour ago, Killface69 said:

Thank you, it's verified. No limit in the server or the user settings.

It's weird. I just tested the Emby client on iOS on cellular, and I could stream UHD media with 30 mbps.
My windows machine e.g. at work with lan 1 Gbps has issues, impossible to stream from Emby without transcoding/any bitrate higher 4 without stutter.

Don't have any real idea then what can be wrong.
Can we get you to post some logs? Bet the Emby team would be able to make sense of it all with them.
 

[Neminem 1518]

1 hour ago, Killface69 said:

My windows machine e.g. at work with lan 1 Gbps has issues, impossible to stream from Emby without transcoding/any bitrate higher 4 without stutter.

Is this only a problem are your work ?

If it is, then there might be some sort of network throttling, at you work place.

[Q-Droid 989]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

Hi.  That sounds like the detection is working properly and reducing the bitrate if you say anything over 4Mb stutters...

You might also want to consider if the QNAP can't encode at a rate higher than 4mpbs without choking AND/OR the combined workload of decoding+encoding at these rates is too much for it which could depend on the source media.

 

[Dariusz 25]

10 hours ago, Killface69 said:

Thank you, it's verified. No limit in the server or the user settings.

It's weird. I just tested the Emby client on iOS on cellular, and I could stream UHD media with 30 mbps.
My windows machine e.g. at work with lan 1 Gbps has issues, impossible to stream from Emby without transcoding/any bitrate higher 4 without stutter.

This might be a longshot but I had an issue with one of my users before where no matter what it would transcode (no limits set anywhere).. the fix for that was in the actual app (not server), go to Settings/Playback.  My user had the Max Streaming Bitrate speed set to AUTO.. He set it manually to 1000mbit/s and the issue with transcoding went away.  

[seanbuff 1315]

44 minutes ago, Dariusz said:

My user had the Max Streaming Bitrate speed set to AUTO.. He set it manually to 1000mbit/s and the issue with transcoding went away.

[Happy2Play 9780]

6 hours ago, Dariusz said:

My user had the Max Streaming Bitrate speed set to AUTO.. He set it manually to 1000mbit/s and the issue with transcoding went away.

Yes as the overall issue would be why does AUTO fallback to hardcoded limit on the majority of systems?

But as mentioned in other AUTO topics, the I have my users set to Max and throttle them via user settings if needed.

[rbjtech 5284]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

But as mentioned in other AUTO topics, the I have my users set to Max and throttle them via user settings if needed.

Yes but you need to ask the users to do this.   It's poor that you have to call the user and say "Emby Auto doesn't work properly, so ignore that and set it to Max... " 

[Happy2Play 9780]

And per other topic a true explanation of AUTO is needs as to me it is not what it appears to be.   Or just needs renamed as AUTO has nothing to do with what it is doing.

[Q-Droid 989]

18 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Yes but you need to ask the users to do this.   It's poor that you have to call the user and say "Emby Auto doesn't work properly, so ignore that and set it to Max... " 

15 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

And per other topic a true explanation of AUTO is needs as to me it is not what it appears to be.   Or just needs renamed as AUTO has nothing to do with what it is doing.

Yes. So let us disable bandwidth detection centrally at the server. Those who want it could leave it on and adjust rates with their users individually. Those who don't need it could check a box or put in a higher override value for the low bitrate default.

 

[yocker 1247]

2 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Yes as the overall issue would be why does AUTO fallback to hardcoded limit on the majority of systems?

But as mentioned in other AUTO topics, the I have my users set to Max and throttle them via user settings if needed.

Wouldn't it be easier to just set 0.0.0.0/24 as considered local at that point?

In my opinion fastest bandaid fix they can do for now is just call auto for "Low" Calling it anything else is just confusing and borderline lying.
And put the settings somewhere easier to find for none tech savy people.

[Neminem 1518]

4 hours ago, yocker said:

Wouldn't it be easier to just set 0.0.0.0/24 as considered local at that point?

That would mess with these settings.

[yocker 1247]

1 hour ago, Neminem said:

That would mess with these settings.

It would but smaller problem than having to call all your family and friends you have given access to and explain them to set max quality.
Something that's a problem to do to start with anyway.

It was also meant more as a joke than any thing else, sorry i didn't communicate that properly.

With that said though...
I did actually test with that in my settings just for one day, didn't have one single complaint so i at least know now my users can handle what ever the server can trow at them, certainly more than "auto".

For any one reading this:
Use at your own risk, it will make it so that admin account is accessible from the internet no matter what settings you have,

[ebr 16169]

3 hours ago, Neminem said:

That would mess with these settings.

The only one of those that is really necessary/useful anymore is the third one.  It covers both remote and local and makes no distinction - which is really the proper approach since we know local can be spoofed.

[Jeryd 1]

7 hours ago, ebr said:

The only one of those that is really necessary/useful anymore is the third one.  It covers both remote and local and makes no distinction - which is really the proper approach since we know local can be spoofed.

Then can we get rid of the 1st 2 options?