Graphic artifacts at higher bitrates than film

[Grzegorz93 1]

Hi.

I've noticed that with the VC-1 codec, graphical artifacts occur at higher bitrates than the video supports. If the video has a bitrate of 20 and I force a higher bitrate than the original, the image flickers (pixelated), as shown in the photo. I switched from Jellyfin and the problem disappeared. Why? How can I fix it?

[Luke 42077]

 

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

 

[Grzegorz93 1]

Sorry it took so long. Hardware that supports the VC-1 codec does not display any problems.

ffmpeg-transcode-b338d33b-3755-4ada-ad04-65636f6c9832_1.txt

embyserver.txt

Edited August 31, 2025 by Grzegorz93

[Luke 42077]

Hi, when you force the higher bitrate, does that cause it to direct play?

[Grzegorz93 1]

56 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, when you force the higher bitrate, does that cause it to direct play?

Yes.

[Luke 42077]

VC1 is an extremely demanding codec. If your device doesn't have built-in hardware decoding for it, then I would not expect it to play very well.

[Grzegorz93 1]

I understand, but why does this error appear in Emby and not in Jellyfin?

[Luke 42077]

On 9/1/2025 at 1:34 AM, Grzegorz93 said:

I understand, but why does this error appear in Emby and not in Jellyfin?

It could be that they are not even trying to direct play and just going right to server transcoding. This is the most likely answer.

What we generally do is try to play with software decoding on the device. You can make Emby operate the same way as the other app by going into playback settings and forcing a conversion for VC1. Then all VC1 will be transcoded by the server.

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.