Emby transcoding instead of direct playing

[tbutz12 0]

On my NVIDIA Shield, it is transcoding on Emby instead of direct playing on my LAN. Any reason why or anyone know how I can fix it?
 

ffmpeg-transcode-69e6be42-ffb4-499f-94fc-261a3d22d923_1.txt

Edited January 1, 2025 by tbutz12
Fixing images

[Luke 42077]

Hi, did you see the conversion reason in your first screenshot?

[tbutz12 0]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Hi, did you see the conversion reason in your first screenshot?

Yes. I do not understand why it is an "unsupported video level" though. This is the first time I've had this issue.

[GrimReaper 4739]

14 minutes ago, tbutz12 said:

Any reason why

Reason is stated in your SFN screenshot:

"Unsupported video level".

You're playing HEVC Main 10 Level 156 (i.e. profile level 5.2) item :

Quote

"Codec":"hevc", "Profile":"Main 10", "Level":156

while your Shield reports support for HEVC Main 10 up to level 153 (i.e. 5.1).

Quote

hevc-profile=Main,Main10&hevc-level=153

 

[tbutz12 0]

1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

Reason is stated in your SFN screenshot:

"Unsupported video level".

You're playing HEVC Main 10 Level 156 (i.e. profile level 5.2) item :

while your Shield reports support for HEVC Main 10 up to level 153 (i.e. 5.1).

 

Do you know how i can fix it?

[GrimReaper 4739]

You can:

1) Edit header and change Level, basically "lie" to your Shield - note that that only changes the meta information in the header, but does not change the properties of the actual stream - you might or might not get lucky

2) Re-encode the item

3) Try using some external player, see what gives

[tbutz12 0]

2 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

You can:

1) Edit header and change Level, basically "lie" to your Shield - note that that only changes the meta information in the header, but does not change the properties of the actual stream - you might or might not get lucky

2) Re-encode the item

3) Try using some external player, see what gives

How do I change the header or re-encode the item? And do you mean try a player like Kodi? Is there a custom quality profile I can add so that I do not download movies or TV shows like this anymore? That would also be appreciated. I am confused though, to my knowledge the shield should support all video formats.

[GrimReaper 4739]

3 minutes ago, tbutz12 said:

How do I change the header

With some external tool of your preference (like MKVToolNix). 

4 minutes ago, tbutz12 said:

or re-encode the item

Again, with some external tool of your preference (like Handbrake). 

6 minutes ago, tbutz12 said:

And do you mean try a player like

Like any Android player (MPV, VLC, Just Player...).

[tbutz12 0]

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

With some external tool of your preference (like MKVToolNix). 

Again, with some external tool of your preference (like Handbrake). 

Like any Android player (MPV, VLC, Just Player...).

Weird, i looked up some other people having my same issue and I saw another post on here about using the default emby app instead of the "emby for android tv" one. I switched to that one to try, and it's no longer transcoding. Is this an issue with the android tv emby app?

[GrimReaper 4739]

12 minutes ago, tbutz12 said:

Is this an issue with the android tv emby app?

That would be a question for the Devs. 

[Luke 42077]

The standard app is ahead with video player updates and we recommend using it going forward on all android devices.

The TV app is generally checking compatibility based on what the hardware natively supports, so it's probably true that it doesn't support this. But sometimes even when it's not supported by the hardware, the device may have enough horsepower to play it with software decoding. This is one area where the standard app is ahead.