Default audio track not selected

[ctaranto 16]

I have a encoded a video to have two audio tracks:

• Audio Track 1: DTS-HD MA
• Audio Track 2: AAC Stereo

The AAC Stereo track is marked as "Default".  The intention is:

• The Emby App on my nVidia Shield to use the DTS-HD MA track because it can.  The app is configured to pass through digital audio.
• The Emby web player to choose the default since it cannot play DTS-HD MA without transcoding.  It should realize that and pick up the default track which is can direct play.

Both the Emby App and Emby web player are using the DTS-HD MA track.

I looked through settings in both the native Emby App and Emby webplayer.  I was not able to find anything which would provide a hint to the player to choose the proper audio stream.  I can select the stream for the video and it does play properly, but with a TV series, if I choose AAC Stereo in the web player, when it proceeds to the next episode, it selects the DTS-HD MA (forcing a transcode).

Emby Server 4.9.1.90 on Linux.

Thoughts?

 

Edited February 11 by ctaranto

[Luke 42077]

Hi there, how have you configured your Emby user audio settings?

[ctaranto 16]

Hi Luke.  See attached.  Is this was you were referring to?

 

[visproduction 315]

CT,

DTS is also tagged as English audio.  I would think that causes the confusion. 

Can Emby automatically try DTS for a user, see it won't work and then go to AAC track 2? Hmmm, I think maybe that's not possible.  The only way around, that I can think of, is to put DTS only content in its own library and then assign that library, per request, to users who can play it on their setup.  You can label the posters with DTS.  Of course that doubles up your media.  Then the versions that only have AAC play back fine for users who can only do that audio because that content is in the general library which no longer has an DTS.  Not pretty, but it would fix it per user's needs.

 

[ctaranto 16]

Thanks for the thought.  I definitely do not want to duplicate my media.  The transcoding works fine, but it occasionally causes issues when pausing, jumping around, etc.  Direct Play is a smoother experience.

The "Play default audio track regardless of language" should instruct the player to use the default track, regardless of other tracks and/or languages.

For the fun of it, I changed "English" to "Any".  It did not help.

 

Edited February 11 by ctaranto

[Neminem 1516]

Ok so what audio track is set to default in MKVToolNix, if its a MKV file.

Example

This is the audio Emby defaults to.

[visproduction 315]

Ah, what about adding a preferred audio type that users can pick?  Two issues with this, even it if worked.  It's a complicated setup, easy to get lost in the settings.  How many users would actually switch such an option on?  In order to make it nice, it might be an automatic feature or when the user first sets up an account, a pop-up windows asks what audio and video the user thinks their system can handle, then this is tested and the user gets a choice to turn that preference on.  It's so complex, I don't think even 1% of users would ever take advantage of this.

In commerical content sites, the user pays more and is let into higher end content that has a poster image showing 4K or DTS or Dolby.  Then if playback doesn't work, it's the user's problem.
 

[ctaranto 16]

2 minutes ago, Neminem said:

Ok so what audio track is set to default in MKVToolNix, if its a MKV file.

Example

This is the audio Emby defaults to.

Here's what MKVToolnix is reporting:

 

[ctaranto 16]

I turned off "remember track selections" and then chose "clear saved track selections".  That seemed to have resolved this.  Though I'm not sure why doing that was required.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Neminem 1516]

Ok I see now This is a pickle.

When combined with same user.

Does a new / other user not see AAC 2.0 as default ?

[ctaranto 16]

Now I have the opposite issue.

Emby App on my nvidia shield is logged in as a different user.  I configured that user to not play the default track, and not remember audio tracks.  I cleared saved track selections.

The Emby App now also picks the default AAC track instead of the best track it can play: DTS-HD MA.

Question:  Is there a way for the Emby App to pick up the best track possible while also the Emby Web Player to pick up the default?

 

[Luke 42077]

4 hours ago, ctaranto said:

Now I have the opposite issue.

Emby App on my nvidia shield is logged in as a different user.  I configured that user to not play the default track, and not remember audio tracks.  I cleared saved track selections.

The Emby App now also picks the default AAC track instead of the best track it can play: DTS-HD MA.

Question:  Is there a way for the Emby App to pick up the best track possible while also the Emby Web Player to pick up the default?

 

The track selection is more based on languages then it is about which one is best.

 The secondary criteria becomes the default flag,  which the aac track seems to have.

 You’d probably be better off with the dts track marked as default.

[ctaranto 16]

Thanks, Luke.  I'm wondering if there's a way for me to "hack" this.

If the web player defaults to Any language and default track, perhaps I should make the DTS-HD MA track as English, and the AAC track as Undefined language and default.

I can then configure my nvidia shield Emby App to play only English, which should pick up the DTS-HD track, and all of the web players across various laptops and browsers will pick up the default AAC track.

 

[Neminem 1516]

Or different user for each platform.

Ohh wait that wont work for watch status.

[ctaranto 16]

I do have separate users.

1 user configured on all the Emby Apps running on nvidia shields (3 of them)
1 user per person for their own devices (one for me, one for my wife, one for each kid, etc).

I'm thinking I could configure the user for the Emby Apps to do something different (since it's only 3 and will always be 3 devices).

I'll experiment when I have some free time and report back.

I also just moved my instance to Docker so it's always running the latest - previously I was stuck behind the maintainers of Arch/Manjaro to update.

Edited February 12 by ctaranto

[Luke 42077]

14 hours ago, ctaranto said:

Thanks, Luke.  I'm wondering if there's a way for me to "hack" this.

If the web player defaults to Any language and default track, perhaps I should make the DTS-HD MA track as English, and the AAC track as Undefined language and default.

I can then configure my nvidia shield Emby App to play only English, which should pick up the DTS-HD track, and all of the web players across various laptops and browsers will pick up the default AAC track.

 

Those audio settings are used on all platforms. So each user can configure them once, from any Emby app and it will apply everywhere.

[ctaranto 16]

On 2/11/2026 at 4:33 PM, Luke said:

The track selection is more based on languages then it is about which one is best.

 The secondary criteria becomes the default flag,  which the aac track seems to have.

 You’d probably be better off with the dts track marked as default.

I'm curious about this.  If the both audio tracks are marked as English, and I tell the Emby App on nvidia that my preferred audio language is English, shouldn't it pick the first audio track which matches the language?  If so, it doesn't.  It's picking the default track (2nd audio track), even though I also have "play default audio track regardless of language" unchecked.

Note that the same issue happens with the Web Player.  I set the default language to English, unchecked "play default", cleared selection history, and it's also picking the default AAC  audio (Track 2).

Recap of the audio tracks:

• Track 1: DTS-HD MA (English)
• Track 2: AAC (English; default)

 

Edited Saturday at 08:40 PM by ctaranto

[Luke 42077]

Quote

If the both audio tracks are marked as English, and I tell the Emby App on nvidia that my preferred audio language is English, shouldn't it pick the first audio track which matches the language?  If so, it doesn't.

Hi, no. In this case, when both tracks match on language, the default flag becomes a secondary priority and this is why the default track gets picked up.

 

[ctaranto 16]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, no. In this case, when both tracks match on language, the default flag becomes a secondary priority and this is why the default track gets picked up.

 

Thanks, Luke. I confirmed this by changing the AAC Stereo track to "Undefined", setting up the web player as English Preferred, and Don't pick default.  It picked the DTS stream.  I then changed the settings to "pick default", and it picked the AAC Stereo track.