Playback issues with certain shows on Sony Bravia using Emby app

[Zaryt 0]

Hi everyone, I’m new to using Emby and streaming from a NAS, so I could use some guidance. I have a 2019 Sony Bravia TV and most streaming apps like YouTubeTV and Netflix work fine. Emby mostly works too, but one show is causing problems. The first episode freezes on the first frame and eventually plays, but there’s no audio. The next episode just shows a black screen, with sound for a few seconds before it stops. All the files were created with MakeMKV and play fine on my Apple TV and Roku TV, so I know the files themselves aren’t the problem. I’m not sure if it’s an Emby setting, a codec issue, or something else. Any tips on how to fix this?

[Luke 42578]

 

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

 

[jonniekerry 0]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to using Emby with a NAS setup and could use some advice. I have a 2019 Sony Bravia TV, and most streaming apps, including YouTube TV and Netflix, work without any issues. Emby generally works well too, except for one particular show.

The first episode freezes on the opening frame for a while before it eventually starts playing, but there's no audio. When I try the second episode, I only get a black screen. Audio plays briefly for a few seconds and then cuts out completely.

All of these files were created using MakeMKV and play perfectly on both my Apple TV and Roku TV, so I don't think the files themselves are corrupted. I'm wondering if this could be related to an Emby setting, a codec compatibility issue, or something else specific to the Sony TV app.

Has anyone experienced something similar or have suggestions on what I should check? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ebr 16445]

 

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

 

[cnieuweboer 2]

Also having issues with the Android (not the tv version) playback on specific files, on a Sony tv. While the Android tv app plays those without problems. But that has other (lesser) problems, where the proposed fix seems to be to use the normal Android app. The attached image is what I see on my tv.

In the server log it's the last played file "Blood-C - S01E01.mkv"

embyserver.txt

Edited June 3 by cnieuweboer

[cnieuweboer 2]

The codec info is as follows (from MPC-HC file properties)

Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1920x1080 23.976fps [V: BD 1080p 10bit [Yousei-raws] [jpn] (h264 high 10 L4.1, yuv420p10le, 1920x1080) [default,forced]]
Audio: FLAC (framed) 48000Hz 6ch 6912kbps [A: English 5.1 FLAC [eng] (flac, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), s24) [forced]]
Audio: FLAC (framed) 48000Hz stereo 2304kbps [A: Japanese 2.0 FLAC [jpn] (flac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s24)]
Subtitle: Advanced SubStation Alpha [S: Signs & Songs [eng] (ass) [default,forced]]
Subtitle: Advanced SubStation Alpha [S: Full Subtitles [Underwater modified] [eng] (ass)]
Subtitle: Advanced SubStation Alpha [S: Full Subtitles [Doki modified] [eng] (ass)]
Subtitle: UTF-8 [S: No subtitles]

Disabling de subtitles doesn't make a difference.

Edited June 3 by cnieuweboer

[visproduction 361]

Maybe your Sony TV does not support this video codec high 10? 
DNLA settings for this particular Sony TV model?

6 Channel Flac is a very high bitrate audio that could be too much for transcoding to manage in real time. The audio is forced.  Can you remux the audio with some 3rd party transcoder to a more standard AAC stereo and see if that helps.  I suspect the high end audio to be perhaps the cause.

Related to video rowbyte stride error?
 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52162053/can-an-sdp-error-cause-stream-corruption
 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/microsoft-edge/development/video-playback-issues

Possible code that can help:
 https://github.com/opencv/opencv/issues/25886

From search for video:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=video+rowbyte%2Fstride+error+playback&ia=web

[cnieuweboer 2]

If my tv didn't support the codec, why would the Emby Android tv app play it without issues, without transcoding?
Selecting the Japanese stereo track (before the video starts) didn't change anything. And that is far lower bitrate.
The audio itself plays fine, the problem is the video as shown in the screenshot.

But still, I tested by converting to stereo AAC:

Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1920x1080 23.976fps [V: h264 high 10 L4.1, yuv420p10le, 1920x1080]
Audio: AAC 48000Hz stereo [A: aac lc, 48000 Hz, stereo]

Didn't change anything.

[cnieuweboer 2]

Just transcoding the video to "-c:v av1_nvenc -rc constqp -qp 23 -preset slow -pix_fmt p010le", and copying the audio/subtitle tracks, did allow the normal Android app to play the video. So it's 100% the video track that only the normal Android app struggles with, while the Android-tv app plays it fine.

[visproduction 361]

Interesting... Good testing...  It would be nice to find out where this happens in the Android app.

[Luke 42578]

Hi, can you please provide a log from the android app?

Thanks !

[cnieuweboer 2]

I enabled logging and played about 20 seconds of the anime series with the problem.
Took a while to figure out how to get that from the tv to my computer. The share function doesn't seem to work on the tv. I can click on any app in the share screen, and gives a ping sound, but doesn't do anything else. So had to do it the hard way:

Enable Developer Options on tv (Settings > System > About > Build, press OK 7 times).
Enable ADB on tv (press back once > Developer options > ADB Debugging)

Download ADB https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools-latest-windows.zip
extract, open cmd in extracted folder

.\adb.exe connect <tv IP>:5555

.\adb.exe shell

find /sdcard -iname "*emby*"

copy the path and filesnames of log files

exit

.\adb.exe pull <full path to log files>

 

(edit one moment. this is a raw log file, looking over it to see if there is anything I want to remove)

 

Edited Friday at 08:56 PM by cnieuweboer

[visproduction 361]

Related?
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/44301
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/17sedjr/no_sound_on_any_website_using_brave_browser_solved/

From search:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brave+browser+unable+to+play+surround+sound+center&ia=web

[cnieuweboer 2]

Since I have no idea how to properly anonymize the logs, I send that in a PM to Luke. Hope that is acceptable.

[visproduction 361]

CN,

I think just search for any metnion of your remote IP address and replace it with "(redacted)".  That should be the only data you would prefer no to post in a log.
The 192 IP address is not any risk. 

Edited yesterday at 03:11 PM by visproduction

[Luke 42578]

Does this device support 10-bit video?

[cnieuweboer 2]

The exact same video plays without problems on the Emby Android-tv app, without transcoding. Transcoding manually with handbreak to "AV1-10bit SVT" also lets the Android (not tv) app play the video. So yes, it should support 10bit video.

[cnieuweboer 2]

Tried to transcode to h264 (x264) 10bit with handbreak. That has the same problem as the screenshot I posted earlier.
Then transcoded to 264h (x264) not 10bit, that plays fine. 
Then transcoded to 264 (x65) 10bit, also plays fine.
Already tried AV1 10bit before, that also played fine.

So it does seem to be the specific combination of h264 + 10bit. But again, only in the Android app. The Android-tv app handles the video fine without transcoding, on the same device. When I look at the webinterface, while it plays the original h264 10bit version without problems in the Android-tv app, it shows:

[cnieuweboer 2]

Also tried using the "external player" function in the Emby app. The sony "Media Player" app plays the h264 10bit video fine.

[visproduction 361]

Of interest.  Is h.264 10 bit worth making, at all?
 https://gist.github.com/YamashitaRen/2dcea6fd5830ecd53236

[cnieuweboer 2]

From a codec point of view that link answers the question.

Quote   This brings us to the real advantage of higher bit depths: We can save bandwidth even if the source only uses 8 bits per channel. That’s right: Not only do we no longer need to hardcode any dithering, but higher bit depth also means higher error tolerance.   With the main disadvantage. Quote   That’s terrific, but there has to be a catch to this, right? Unfortunately, yes. Software support is currently lacking in a lot of places, but it’s being worked on.