Unable to play 4K DV AV1 files

[amateurgod 33]

I have an issue on both android apps the android TV app and normal android app. 

 

Both apps are able to play 4K AV1 and 4K Dolby Vision HEVC just fine, however when I go to play 4K Dolby Vision AV1 it just buffers forever. 

I also tested with other AV1 files like 4K HDR 10 AV1, all played fine, only DV AV1 failed to play 

I have also tested on other devices, and methods, 4K DV AV1 plays fine in browser and on my PC, it also plays fine on the android app on my phone, it only seems to become an issue when trying to play via an android app on the TV 

On the server dashboard 

Normal android App, nothing shows up, the request to play doesn't even seem to get to the server. 

AndroidTV app, the request to play gets to the server, the server shows it as playing, everything shows as direct play and the progress bar and everything is moving along like it would if it was being watched, however on the TV all you see is a buffering circle, the stats for nerds on the TV shows it as playing and as direct play, but there's nothing except for a buffering circle being displayed

However the android TV app seems to have issues playing any 4K AV1 files while the emby for android app plays all except DV AV1 fine

 

I have attached log files, I was trying to watch house of the dragon, season 1 episode 1. 

 

My TV supports both AV1 and Dolby Vision

My servers GPU is an Intel Arc A40 pro and supports AV1 decoding and encoding. 

The issue only appears to be with Dolby vision AV1, there is no issues with Non DV AV1 files and no issues with DV HEVC files 

 

embyserver.txt

[amateurgod 33]

Anyone able to help with this, know if it's a me issue or an app issue?

[amateurgod 33]

An addition to this if I disabled Dolby vision in my TV settings so it has to use the HDR fallback option so it's 4K AV1 using HDR fallback instead of DV the exact same file plays fine, if I then re-enable DV and go to play it I get stuck back at the infinite loading loop

[amateurgod 33]

@Lukeany idea?

[Luke 42077]

hi, we are looking into it. Thanks.

[jonesy928 2]

I seem to be having the exact same issue using the android app on tv. Seems to be related to DV files. 

[Mkilbride 86]

Use Plex. 

[amateurgod 33]

18 minutes ago, Mkilbride said:

Use Plex. 

Why would I do that, Plex is less efficient and I want to be able to chose what device is used for hardware accelerated encoding, can't do that on Plex it forces CPU and only uses GPU when the CPU is unavailable for it.

[Mkilbride 86]

Because Plex will play it without issue, while Emby can't. 

[Luke 42077]

Can you give it another try?

[amateurgod 33]

9 hours ago, Luke said:

Can you give it another try?

Updated the server to the latest version and still exactly the same 

 

Emby android app is on v3.5.16

Android for TV app is on 2.1.23g

[Luke 42077]

OK we are looking into it. Thanks.

[majorsl 23]

Ah, same for me.  Came here searching for this very issue. I'm watching this and will test when there is an update.

[Cat091 1]

The fix for me was using Nova player, it’s a bit annoying but works 

[majorsl 23]

Actually, I was mistaken. I forgot I signed up for the Emby for Android TV beta.  Running eta 2.1.29a the AV1 works perfectly.  It is only the regular "Android" version on the TV/my Phone that doesn't work.

[Luke 42077]

3 minutes ago, majorsl said:

Actually, I was mistaken. I forgot I signed up for the Emby for Android TV beta.  Running eta 2.1.29a the AV1 works perfectly.  It is only the regular "Android" version on the TV/my Phone that doesn't work.

Is it having the server transcode it? I'm guessing the answer is yes. If that's true then you can achieve that in the standard app in playback settings by forcing transcoding on av1.

[majorsl 23]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

Is it having the server transcode it? I'm guessing the answer is yes. If that's true then you can achieve that in the standard app in playback settings by forcing transcoding on av1.

Nope.

Direct Play: 4K Dolby Vision AV1 & English EAC3 5.1.  Smooth as butter and looks beautiful.

This is my Fire TV (Android).

[Luke 42077]

OK we are looking into it. Thanks.

[jdennis187 1]

Just saw for the first time a file that emby showed as "4k Dolby Vision AV1" . The file plays perfectly on NVIDIA shield hooked up to LG OLED c4. It did however display "HDR" on the top right so I'm guessing that there's also an HDR container or whatever that means, as opposed to it showing "dobly vision" in the top right on the LG TV.

I then tested on the NATIVE LG app and it also worked perfectly and doesn't appear to be transcoding, at face value. The native app also displayed HDR in the top right, so I'm not sure if perhaps because this file can switch to HDR is why its working better than others. 

[FrostByte 5392]

2 hours ago, jdennis187 said:

Just saw for the first time a file that emby showed as "4k Dolby Vision AV1" . The file plays perfectly on NVIDIA shield hooked up to LG OLED c4. It did however display "HDR" on the top right so I'm guessing that there's also an HDR container or whatever that means, as opposed to it showing "dobly vision" in the top right on the LG TV.

 

Interesting.  The Shield doesn't have hardware support to decode AV1, but I believe Exoplayer added AV1 extraction and signaling support several years ago.  The app/Exoplayer may be falling back to HDR10 because of the lack of AV1 hardware support.

[jdennis187 1]

3 hours ago, FrostByte said:

Interesting.  The Shield doesn't have hardware support to decode AV1, but I believe Exoplayer added AV1 extraction and signaling support several years ago.  The app/Exoplayer may be falling back to HDR10 because of the lack of AV1 hardware support.

OK I just checked for real, I just clicked on the stats for nerds and though I couldn't tell, sure enough exoplayer is transcoding, saying "unsupported video" 

I'll have to check on the native player to see what that's doing.

Edited December 13, 2025 by jdennis187

[jdennis187 1]

Native player on an LG CX is also transcoding.