[Help] Official Emby Theater RPi4 Image on Armbian: Choppy H.264, Missing v4l2m2m, Invisible Playback Overlay

[Modify3453 4]

I'm running into a frustrating combination of issues with the Official Emby Theater Raspberry Pi 4 image (Armbian). It seems to lack the necessary hardware acceleration stack, resulting in choppy playback and a missing playback Overlay.

Hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 4B (8GB)
• Storage: SD Card (Class 10) (32GB)
• OS: Armbian (Custom build based on the Emby Theater .img)
• Client: Emby Theater (Official RPi4 .img)

The Symptoms:

1. Choppy Playback: Standard H.264 1080p videos stutter in a very noticeable way.
2. Invisible UI Overlay: The "Now Playing" bar (controls, timeline, info) is completely invisible, though the video plays (albeit poorly).
3. Audio: Passthrough freezes video.

Troubleshooting & Findings:

I performed some diagnostics to isolate the issue:

• Driver Status: lsmod confirms that bcm2835_codec and bcm2835_v4l2 are loaded. The kernel sees the hardware.
• FFmpeg Capabilities (apt install required) Running ffmpeg -hwaccels returns:
  • vdpau, cuda, vaapi, drm, opencl
  • MISSING: v4l2m2m (The critical Raspberry Pi hardware decoder backend).
• Configuration:
  • Emby Hardware Acceleration is set to "Auto".
  • /boot/firmware/config.txt: dtparam=i2c_arm, i2s, and spi are commented out.
  • Audio output is set to "Auto"
  • All audio codecs unchecked for passthrough.
• Packages:
  • Attempted to install libraspberrypi-bin to get the missing userland libraries.
  • Error: libc6 version mismatch. My Armbian base is too new for the pre-compiled Pi libraries.
  • vcgencmd and rpi-firmware commands are not available.

The Core Question: Is the Official Emby Theater image for RPi4 either:

• Built on an older OS version that is incompatible with current Armbian kernels/libc6.
• Missing the proprietary firmware blobs and libraspberrypi libraries entirely.
• Relying on a ffmpeg build that wasn't compiled with --enable-v4l2m2m.

What I'm Looking For:

• Has anyone successfully patched the libc6 mismatch to get libraspberrypi working on a newer Armbian base?
• Is there a specific Armbian kernel version or config that enables v4l2m2m without needing the proprietary rpi-firmware package?
• Should I just abandon this image and switch to LibreELEC + Emby addon for a working experience?
• Is there an external player option that is reliable?

Any insight on how to force v4l2m2m detection or fix the invisible overlay would be appreciated!

[Luke 42266]

Hi, how did you install the app?

[Modify3453 4]

8 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, how did you install the app?

It was pre-installed within the image here: https://emby.media/emby-theater-rpi.html

[Modify3453 4]

LibreELEC is playing smoothly with Emby for Kodi set up but I would very much prefer a native Emby Theater experience.

[Luke 42266]

OK are you able to use our new app?

 

[Modify3453 4]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

OK are you able to use our new app?

 

Somewhat - with some additional modifications, I can launch and navigate the app and the interface is definitely snappier and smoother. Playing videos does not work though - the server starts streaming and it looks like its playing from the server dashboard (direct play for all) but emby theater freezes up with a glitched interface (twitchy or frozen loading circle, some overlapping copies of text, etc). It's not unresponsive though; Home button stops playback and goes to main menu.

Steps

1. sudo apt purge emby-theater
2. Install with script from here: curl https://pkg.emby.media/get.sh | sh
3. Had to also edit /usr/local/bin/emby-theater which had some exports and was pointing to /opt/emby-theater

New /usr/local/bin/emby-theater:

#!/bin/sh
APP_DIR=/opt/Emby-Beta
exec $APPDIR/media.emby.client.beta "$@"

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Modify3453

[Modify3453 4]

Trying to force non-direct (1080p 4mbps for example) briefly loads the player interface more completely but then gets stuck in a playback error loop (popup/screen takeover).

A few fixes and this ought to be a great improvement I hope though!

Edited 1 hour ago by Modify3453