4k Movie Buffering & Disk Usage High

[Bob1969 11]

I am currently getting buffering problems when i stream 4k HDR movies to my Samsung Emby tv app. In the past it used to happen with 360p content too but that seems fine now. The movie plays fine on the pc app. When the movie start to buffer you can hear the fans in my pc get louder. My cpu and memory seem to be fine but the disk usage on C drive and F drive goes high. The C drive is the most affected and its the system drive and maxes out at 100%, the F drive is the external USB 3.2 drive.

I have a cat 6 cable going from my pc to my router and then an unmarked cable going from the router to the tv, it came with the router.

I moved the movie file to my D and E drives but it did not help at all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bob1969 11]

log files attached

embyserver-63914109240.txt ffmpeg-remux-996851ac-d1a8-43e2-ad44-dae6eb873e85_1.txt

[Lessaj 502]

The provided server log doesn't correspond to the ffmpeg log. Seems pretty straightforward to me, it's transcoding the audio and your transcoding temp directory is on C. I don't see any mention of throttling being active, so it's processing as fast as it can. The server log that corresponds would show the time taken by the client to request for the ts segments. Between the video and audio bitrates it's actually getting quite close to the 100 Mbit limit of the ethernet jack on pretty much any TV. Ironically wifi can often be faster, but there are a lot of factors.

Looks like a bandwidth problem to me.

[Bob1969 11]

15 hours ago, Lessaj said:

The provided server log doesn't correspond to the ffmpeg log. Seems pretty straightforward to me, it's transcoding the audio and your transcoding temp directory is on C. I don't see any mention of throttling being active, so it's processing as fast as it can. The server log that corresponds would show the time taken by the client to request for the ts segments. Between the video and audio bitrates it's actually getting quite close to the 100 Mbit limit of the ethernet jack on pretty much any TV. Ironically wifi can often be faster, but there are a lot of factors.

Looks like a bandwidth problem to me.

Many thanks for your reply. When i tried to find the correct emby server log, it was blank for some reason and i could not download it, im not sure if that is because i was still watching the movie at the time. Even today i cannot find the correct log for yesterday.

What do you mean by throttling being active? My pc is running slow when this is happening and things are not as responsive. 

Its very strange because today i played the same movie and it was just fine, i had a couple of slight pauses, yesterday it was freezing for a while while it caught up. The disk usage on C and F drives was zero or very low. 

Do we know how to fix this temperamental problem?

[ebr 16430]

6 minutes ago, Bob1969 said:

Do we know how to fix this temperamental problem?

Hi.  If you can find the appropriate server log, it may have a clue but it could have been anything on the machine that was also I/O intensive - anti-virus scan, Emby library scan, some other disc management software doing something...

[Lessaj 502]

23 minutes ago, Bob1969 said:

What do you mean by throttling being active? My pc is running slow when this is happening and things are not as responsive. 

This option.

[Bob1969 11]

23 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  If you can find the appropriate server log, it may have a clue but it could have been anything on the machine that was also I/O intensive - anti-virus scan, Emby library scan, some other disc management software doing something...

Many thanks for your reply. Windows 11 only runs short regular virus scans so that can be ruled out. Emby does not run scans at that particular time either. If and when it happens again i will look to see what other processes are running. 

[Luke 42528]

@Bob1969are you still having an issue with this?

[Bob1969 11]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

@Bob1969are you still having an issue with this?

Thanks for your reply. It has not happened since my post however it has happened a few times in the past. I reinstalled Emby server to see if this helps, ill also look at my pc processes to see why my resources are running high.

Edited May 20 by Bob1969

[visproduction 361]

Possibly Related?
 https://windowsforum.com/threads/boost-windows-11-performance-by-disabling-search-indexing-using-faster-alternatives.372160/

Quote

• Improved Performance: No more background indexing means less CPU and disk churn, particularly valuable on laptops and systems with older or lower-grade hardware.
• Accuracy and Speed: Both Everything and Listary index and search large file sets in real time, outpacing even the most finely tuned Windows Search installation.

 

[Neminem 1734]

AV doing file scan

[Bob1969 11]

On 20/05/2026 at 17:07, Neminem said:

AV doing file scan

Many thanks for your reply, Windows only does 'quick scans' lasting around 1 to 2 mins and my problem can be for a long period of time.

[Bob1969 11]

On 20/05/2026 at 17:00, visproduction said:

Possibly Related?
 https://windowsforum.com/threads/boost-windows-11-performance-by-disabling-search-indexing-using-faster-alternatives.372160/

 

Many thanks for your reply. I have disabled the windows search and installed the Everything app. Lets hope it solves the issue but only time will tell. I have a well specced gaming pc so its hard to imagine thats its anything to do with my hardware. 

[Bob1969 11]

Guys i am no longer getting these major buffering problems. My windows search is still off. I am still getting these minor pauses when playing videos, even old top gear episodes which are SD. The screen sometimes pause for a split second up to a few seconds. There is no spinning circle when this happens.

I recorded this happening this morning at 1am, it happens 57 seconds into the video. No virus scans and all my pc resources are low, cpu temp low too. I have attached the log too and the film is Platoon. Like i said its doing it with SD content too with a stereo track.

This is using the Samsung app, my pc is connected using network cables.