Fire Stick 4K Max - choking on mkv files that include both DV and HDR10+

[phunzie 42]

I have a Samsung tv that obviously doesn't support Dolby Vision, only HDR10+.  When using a Fire Stick 4K Max with the Emby app to play an mkv that includes both DV and HDR10+ encoding, playback is completely screwed up. If I play an mkv with only HDR10+ it plays fine.  Kodi has a setting that allows you to choose which HDR type to play, HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, and has no problem playing the files without issue.

Any setting like this for Emby?

Edited March 17, 2025 by phunzie

[phunzie 42]

i read in another thread about the 2 different Emby apps.  Tried both, same results with each when playing mkv that includes both HDR types, DV and HDR10+.  

[Luke 42078]

Hi, yes we are looking into incorporating some sort of fallback like that. Thanks for reporting.

[MagicDoubleM 121]

On 3/17/2025 at 4:01 AM, phunzie said:

I have a Samsung tv that obviously doesn't support Dolby Vision, only HDR10+.  When using a Fire Stick 4K Max with the Emby app to play an mkv that includes both DV and HDR10+ encoding, playback is completely screwed up. If I play an mkv with only HDR10+ it plays fine.  Kodi has a setting that allows you to choose which HDR type to play, HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, and has no problem playing the files without issue.

Any setting like this for Emby?

"Just Player" is an interesting fallback player to have installed on fire sticks, and it integrates well with emby. I don't know if this will give you what you desire, but I had success with certain HDR-stuff that didn't work otherwise, but I also have a completely different setup.

If you don't need the DV-layer anyway, you can always get rid of it with Dovi Scripts, which can do other fun things too.

[phunzie 42]

thanks for the advice, but i tried out Just Player and same poor results playing the problem mkvs...it would have been a great solution if it worked...i also tried using Kodi as external player, but although it played the mkvs fine, kind of clunky launching Kodi and all the add-ons from within Emby...might as well just launch Kodi from the start in that case

regarding external players, how do you choose a different external player if you've already chosen to "Always" use another player?...when trying out Just Player, i chose "Always" use, and couldn't choose another player until i completely uninstalled Just Player from the Fire Stick

[ebr 16176]

Hi.  This is an issue with that particular chipset.  There are a number of threads on the forum about it.

We have to figure out some way around it.  For now,  you can use playback correction.

[phunzie 42]

thanks for pointing out the Playback Correction tool...solved my problem!...but it took some playing around to find the setting, as my playback issue didn't result in a black screen like many others, but rather the tv image was shifted like 20% to the left, and there was an opaque gray band along the bottom of the screen, which blocked me from seeing the choices available after pushing the down button...had to figure out i had to push Down button, then blindly press Right button 6 times , then Enter, to access the Playback settings menu

i also noticed the Playback Correction tool doesn't seem to be available in the regular Android version of the Emby app

 

Edited March 19, 2025 by phunzie
added pic

[miguelfiel31 0]

Hi, I have the same problem, is there any solution for this error? This is very annoying, this happens in 4k movies with HDR10+ if I'm not mistaken

[miguelfiel31 0]

Em 17/03/2025 às 18:03, Lucas disse:

Olá, sim, estamos procurando incorporar algum tipo de fallback assim. Obrigada por relatório.

Você já tem uma solução para o problema?

[phunzie 42]

as EBR mentioned in the post above marked as "Solution", use "Playback Correction..." for now 

Edited March 27, 2025 by phunzie

[miguelfiel31 0]

I have already tested these external players, such as: VLC, KODI, JUST PLAYR, however, they all show the same error, it only resolves when the bit is reduced to 20m, however it loses quality

[Luke 42078]

2 hours ago, miguelfiel31 said:

I have already tested these external players, such as: VLC, KODI, JUST PLAYR, however, they all show the same error, it only resolves when the bit is reduced to 20m, however it loses quality

Hi, can the device and your network handle higher bitrates?

[miguelfiel31 0]

Yes, I have the PLEX app, running the same movie, it runs normally, however, in emby and jellyfin there is still this problem on the fire tv stick 4k, the image is still cut off

[miguelfiel31 0]

The only app that is running is PLEX, apparently it removes the HDR10 metadata or something similar, because it is working correctly, I thought that for the time that this problem has been occurring, both emby and jellyfin would have already fixed it, however, the error still persists

[Luke 42078]

On 3/27/2025 at 8:09 PM, miguelfiel31 said:

The only app that is running is PLEX, apparently it removes the HDR10 metadata or something similar, because it is working correctly, I thought that for the time that this problem has been occurring, both emby and jellyfin would have already fixed it, however, the error still persists

Hi, yes that is something we can look at doing. Thanks.

[RanmaCanada 495]

As EBR mentioned, this is a known hardware limitation of the chipset and Google et al do not want to address it. If you don't want to use playback correction, use the very same scene tools that were used on your pirated material to remove the fake HDR10+ metadata. It's not really Emby's problem that your hardware is "defective". Plex strips the problematic layer on the fly with specific, proprietary code for their app.