Playback of 4K media on Emby for Android on NVIDIA SHIELD starts to stutter after playing first movie

[ElwoodBlues 1]

52 minutes ago, sa2000 said:

Before splitting this into a separate forum topic as it is not related to DVR recordings audio/video sync issue which was what this topic/forum thread was about, I would like to know if this issue with the 4K movies playback arose also for the Emby for Android TV app or is only arising now after switching to the Emby for Android app to see if the recordings video/audio sync issue is resolved?

I can usually get 1-2 weeks of nearly constant playback of widely varying bitrate material before the Emby for Android TV requires a reboot because of sluggish or non responsive behavior on the Nividia Shield. 

When playing 4k content via Emby for Android on the same Nividia Shield, I can play 1 featured length 4k movie successfully.  When trying to play another 4k movie the video begins to stutter and the device becomes unresponsive until a reboot of the Shield is preformed,.  

So, the obvious answer is..  stay with the Emby for Android TV version. Right?  Well.. not so fast..  

The Emby for Android TV has a different problem.  The Emby for Android TV won't play most subtitles from TV shows recorded with my HD Homerun Flex 4K ( other subtitles play normally ) ..  But they will play on Emby for Android on the same Nivida device.  

So, yeah. that's pretty much were we are..  Exactly where we started..  

[sa2000 674]

Bringing in info previously provided from the original forum topic from which this was split:

Emby for Android TV app in App Settings > Playback Settings

Max stream bitrate=Auto ( wired connection )
Still watching prompt = hell NO
Screensaver during pause = no
Resume rewind = no
Audio Output = Auto
Allow TrueHD Pass-Thru = Yes
Allow DTS Pass-thru = Yes
Allow DTS-HD Pass-thru = Yes
Allow Direct Play of TS files = Yes
Skip forward =30
Skip Back = 10
Enable refresh rate switching = Yes
Prefer exact refresh rate = no
Match video resolution = no
De-interlace HD content = no
 Allow Untrusted ssl playback = yes
Pass direct path = Selection greyed out

This topic was created from post in this forum topic https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/144112-hdhomerun-flex-4k-problems-recomendations/ 

Advice was given to switch to Emby for Android from Emby for Android TV to see if that resolves the audio / video sync issue for playback of recorded live tv airings. 

However, this brought in this issue with playback of 4K movies where it appears to get progressively worse requiring a reboot of the NVIDIA SHIELD

 

Edited December 11, 2025 by sa2000

[sa2000 674]

@ElwoodBluesI am running tests with playback of a 4K HEVC movie on Emby for Android 3.5.17 on NVIDIA SHIELD and will repeat the playback several times to see if I start to get stutterring. It is Direct Playing the movie in my test.

Could you get me emby server logs for when you have the problem and if it is not Direct Playing to also include the ffmpeg log files.  Is the playback with subtitles? We do have reported playback issues with HLS Subtitles - see this post

 

[ElwoodBlues 1]

On 12/11/2025 at 3:11 AM, sa2000 said:

@ElwoodBluesI am running tests with playback of a 4K HEVC movie on Emby for Android 3.5.17 on NVIDIA SHIELD and will repeat the playback several times to see if I start to get stutterring. It is Direct Playing the movie in my test.

Could you get me emby server logs for when you have the problem and if it is not Direct Playing to also include the ffmpeg log files.  Is the playback with subtitles? We do have reported playback issues with HLS Subtitles - see this post

 

The Emby for Android isn't my favorite version. However last night I thought I had better try to reproduce this problem and give you some server logs.  So, I started out by watching 2-3 4K movies then moving onto a number of 1080p TV shows. When I returned to a 4K movie the Emby for Android/the Nivivia Shield stopped responding and after a few min the Nividia did a self reboot. I'm sure you can figure out the total playtime exactly from the logs but I think it was somewhere between 14-18 hours. 

 

 

 

 

ffmpeg-transcode-81b74c7c-c14e-45c1-add8-9440403ac126_1.txt embyserver(6).txt

[ElwoodBlues 1]

I ran it for another day playing 4-5 4k movies then a TV series ( ripped by me from Blu-ray ).  This time the video froze with a ghostly image of the fanart.jpg being displayed while the audio continued.  Subsequent episodes continued to play ( audio only ) but the image was still frozen on the 'ghostly' image of the fanart.jpg.  Playtime was less than 24 hours.  

 

 

ffmpeg-directstream-ea53df6a-f285-40ab-ad88-be2a4eeda23c_1.txt embyserver(6).txt

[sa2000 674]

19 hours ago, ElwoodBlues said:

This time the video froze with a ghostly image of the fanart.jpg being displayed while the audio continued.

What time was this and was there an ffmpeg log for this playback? If you can attach that please. If you can give me the time and zip of all the ffmpeg log files, then I can identify the log

Thanks

The ffmpeg log you attached was for playback at 2025-12-15 10:38 for The Big Bang Theory S03E15 The Large Hadron Collision.mkv 

 

 

[ElwoodBlues 1]

For the 15th, there are only 2 'ff' logs

Both are attached.

ffmpeg-transcode-c77d86f3-8afe-4673-8d82-a652331e26d2_1.txt ffmpeg-directstream-ea53df6a-f285-40ab-ad88-be2a4eeda23c_1.txt

[ElwoodBlues 1]

Yesterday/today I did the same thing with Emby for Android.  Watched a few 4K movies,   watched some recorded TV, then left a 1080p tv series on for a little noise as I slept.  Woke up to find the same 'ghost' fanart.jpg being displayed while the audio continued to play.  Backing out of the program would not change the video and a reboot was required to restore normal operation.  

 

If you need more logs than that.. fine. then you tell me how to get them.. because that's all I got....

ffmpeg-transcode-dbd80d65-d377-4f0d-b158-c444ea270d23_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-5d255d12-4f7f-4c15-a8b5-5ceea7380e31_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-6e8ba930-0bd5-4729-97fd-ca5e7f185b16_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-57a6692c-61db-4541-b586-909abeb71c63_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-738b2e6e-ea1a-48e1-8e67-1c53dcf92ab9_1(1).txt ffmpeg-transcode-738b2e6e-ea1a-48e1-8e67-1c53dcf92ab9_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-5f401a6c-b3e2-423a-9ac7-84dc39cd87f0_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-2c0e62ce-2dda-4d52-a033-a7a5d9ad69ed_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-2ab4275e-d56a-411a-afb5-0a3c783fb491_1.txt embyserver(6).txt

[ElwoodBlues 1]

5 hours ago, sa2000 said:

"" This time the video froze with a ghostly image of the fanart.jpg being displayed while the audio continued. ""

What time was this and was there an ffmpeg log for this playback? If you can attach that please. If you can give me the time and zip of all the ffmpeg log files, then I can identify the log

No idea,.  that's what I woke up to.

[Luke 42077]

HI, we are looking into it. Thanks.

[Luke 42077]

For video stuttering, please try Emby for Android 3.5.25 and let us know how that compares:

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

[ElwoodBlues 1]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

For video stuttering, please try Emby for Android 3.5.25 and let us know how that compares:

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

3.5.16 is the version in the Play Store.  So, how do I side-load it onto a Shield?

 

[Luke 42077]

5 hours ago, ElwoodBlues said:

 

3.5.16 is the version in the Play Store.  So, how do I side-load it onto a Shield?

 

OK if it's not something you normally do then you may just want to wait. We'll have it in the store in the near future. Thanks.

[ElwoodBlues 1]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

OK if it's not something you normally do then you may just want to wait. We'll have it in the store in the near future. Thanks.

Yeah.. that's the Emby way..   Gotta wait a month just to be told you have to wait another month or 2 for something that might or might not work!

 

How about answering the question and letting me decide if I am comfortable with the process instead of blowing me off for another couple of months?

[Luke 42077]

22 minutes ago, ElwoodBlues said:

Yeah.. that's the Emby way..   Gotta wait a month just to be told you have to wait another month or 2 for something that might or might not work!

 

How about answering the question and letting me decide if I am comfortable with the process instead of blowing me off for another couple of months?