Help me solve the Green / Purple playback mystery

[musicmafia 38]

Hello to the good people of Emby! I haven't been here in a while. That's because Emby works so damn good I rarely have any problems. But I've got a weird one:

For some reason, I have a DV movie file that plays back on my Sony A90J TV in a weird green and purple tint. All other DV files play fine on this TV. That said, this weird green purple file plays fine on Emby with my desktop browser or VLC. Even weirder, after I play the file in Emby on my TV and then exit Emby, my TV screen will be half green/purple artifacts, even going back to the cable box as the source. It requires many reboots to get rid of. 

I figure it's something weird in the file since everything else plays fine, but if that's the case, I'd like to know what I should look for in future files, to avoid this issue. Thanks!

[Sammy 790]

Does your TV and device support DolbyVision?

[musicmafia 38]

14 minutes ago, Sammy said:

Does your TV and device support DolbyVision?

Absolutely. I have many movie files in DV and this is the only one that does this. I have no problem trashing it and getting another, but I'd just like to know what makes one DV file do this and not another. 

[Lessaj 467]

Can you provide metadata details for one that does play properly?

[rbjtech 5284]

It's a DV 7.6 Profile - your TV/Device may not play DV 7 from a file/stream source - only via HDMI.

I suspect the files that play are either DV5 or DV8 ?

btw - you can convert the DV7 to DV8 easily with tools online.

Edited November 8, 2024 by rbjtech

[musicmafia 38]

12 hours ago, Lessaj said:

Can you provide metadata details for one that does play properly?

Sure, here's one: 

Edited November 8, 2024 by musicmafia

[musicmafia 38]

9 hours ago, rbjtech said:

It's a DV 7.6 Profile - your TV/Device may not play DV 7 from a file/stream source - only via HDMI.

I suspect the files that play are either DV5 or DV8 ?

btw - you can convert the DV7 to DV8 easily with tools online.

Thanks, can you recommend a free online tool? It's a 4gb file.

[musicmafia 38]

12 hours ago, Lessaj said:

Can you provide metadata details for one that does play properly?

Just watched this one recently with no issues:

 

[musicmafia 38]

9 hours ago, rbjtech said:

It's a DV 7.6 Profile - your TV/Device may not play DV 7 from a file/stream source - only via HDMI.

I suspect the files that play are either DV5 or DV8 ?

btw - you can convert the DV7 to DV8 easily with tools online.

Looking through some of my other DV files, it does look like the rest of them say Profile 8. I did not know about this previously, so thanks for solving the mystery! I will pay more attention in the future and/or hope to find a free online tool to convert properly. Thanks again

[Lessaj 467]

31 minutes ago, musicmafia said:

Sure, here's one:

This is an SDR 4k file since it's bt709 and not bt2020. It looks like the playback info is just indicating what it does support.

With regards to your other posts yes it looks like you'll need to convert your 7.6 to 8.1, you can use dovi_tool for free to do that and it wouldn't take that long for a 4GB file - it runs locally on your computer, not online. I couldn't find any reference for what specific DV profiles your TV supported but it was a really quick search. I also don't recall off hand if dovi_tool provides a super easy way to do the conversion like in a menu system, I followed some instructions at one point which basically involved pulling some metadata out and recombining it in a different way. There might be some wrapper that's been made available to do it easily. Unfortunately the commands aren't in my bash history anymore. It took a long time to run because it was a large remux but it did work. My Shield can play any DV profile so to me it doesn't matter if it's 7.6 or 8.1 but I think 8.1 is more widely compatible across devices.

https://github.com/quietvoid/dovi_tool

EDIT: May be other methods too, this is just the tool I found when I was first curious about converting from 7.6 to 8.1. I also found the text I sent someone about it, I did it back in August and it looks like the file size also got a little smaller as a result so that's an added bonus.

Edited November 8, 2024 by Lessaj

[musicmafia 38]

3 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

This is an SDR 4k file since it's bt709 and not bt2020. It looks like the playback info is just indicating what it does support.

With regards to your other posts yes it looks like you'll need to convert your 7.6 to 8.1, you can use dovi_tool for free to do that and it wouldn't take that long for a 4GB file - it runs locally on your computer, not online. I couldn't find any reference for what specific DV profiles your TV supported but it was a really quick search. I also don't recall off hand if dovi_tool provides a super easy way to do the conversion like in a menu system, I followed some instructions at one point which basically involved pulling some metadata out and recombining it in a different way. There might be some wrapper that's been made available to do it easily. Unfortunately the commands aren't in my bash history anymore. It took a long time to run because it was a large remux but it did work. My Shield can play any DV profile so to me it doesn't matter if it's 7.6 or 8.1 but I think 8.1 is more widely compatible across devices.

https://github.com/quietvoid/dovi_tool

Thanks. I'm not that tech savvy, so I am not familiar with some of the terms you used, but I will Google some converters and try and find something easy.

PS I have Handbrake, which I havent used much. Would that work?

[Lessaj 467]

Sorry I'm not familiar with using handbrake for that, I want to say no but I'm not sure.

[musicmafia 38]

According to my Google search, Dovi is the most popular tool for this, but I didn't last long on their page. Way above my pay grade. Couldn't find anything that looked free and simple, so I will just trash the file and try to be more aware of this file issue in the future. 

Thanks again to everyone for all the help!

[Lessaj 467]

I tried to find the instructions I previously followed but didn't find it, but I remember it was on the makemkv forums, and I thought I kept a small script to do the conversion but I can't find that either so I guess not. It's a good skill to have, to know how to convert it if needed, but agreed it's not that simple if you're not tech savvy.

[justinrh 260]

13 hours ago, rbjtech said:

may not play DV 7 from a file/stream source - only via HDMI.

Please explain a bit more.  Are you saying it might not play if the Emby app is on the TV's OS, but it might if coming from an Emby app on an external player, e.g., Shield?

Edited November 9, 2024 by justinrh

[rbjtech 5284]

16 hours ago, justinrh said:

Please explain a bit more.  Are you saying it might not play if the Emby app is on the TV's OS, but it might if coming from an Emby app on an external player, e.g., Shield?

Exactly that, yes  - the Shield plays DV 7(+5 +8 ) just fine and because it's TV output is HDMI, the TV doesn't care and as long as the TV supports DV, it will play as DV.  ie no different to a 4K Blu-ray player.

However 'internal' versions (apps) 'may' play DV 7 - but is is much less likely because DV7 is a 'blu-ray' profile - ie physical disk and thus it must have been 'ripped' and TV manufacturers steer away from supporting this.  Thus DV 5 and DV8 only are supported - because that's what the streamers use (Netflix/Prime etc).

Some TV's do support DV7 internally - LG do for example, but then they go and spoil it by only supporting it on MP4 ... 

In short - just get a Shield Pro and it will all work on any TV (any flavour of DV + HDR10 - but no HDR10+) ...

Edited November 9, 2024 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 5284]

19 hours ago, musicmafia said:

According to my Google search, Dovi is the most popular tool for this, but I didn't last long on their page. Way above my pay grade. Couldn't find anything that looked free and simple, so I will just trash the file and try to be more aware of this file issue in the future. 

Thanks again to everyone for all the help!

In all honesty,  probably the best approach.

dovi_scripts is free and it is menu driven (windows based batch script) - you literally drag and drop the file onto it and it converts it.

I use my own custom scripts to convert, strip HDR10+ and all sorts - but if you avoid these file types in the first place, then no need to post process them

Edited November 9, 2024 by rbjtech

[Lessaj 467]

I found my scripts and stuff from before so if you want to revisit this I can break down the high level steps, pretty much just need mkvextract mkvmerge and dovi_tool to convert it. I did look at dovi_scripts a little, didn't try it though since I don't run Windows.

[musicmafia 38]

3 hours ago, Lessaj said:

I found my scripts and stuff from before so if you want to revisit this I can break down the high level steps, pretty much just need mkvextract mkvmerge and dovi_tool to convert it. I did look at dovi_scripts a little, didn't try it though since I don't run Windows.

I REALLY appreciate it! Awesome of you to offer, but I've never done any script-based stuff. I do like to learn new stuff and if I wasn't so crunched for time I might accept the challenge, but easier at this point to just replace the file, since it is the only one I've run into and my others seem to be DV8. Thanks again!!! 

[Lessaj 467]

The script is geared towards linux, I'd just break down what the steps are to do it with the same tools on Windows. No worries if not.