4K HEVC shows as 1080p, think I can't find any setup to fix?

[PeteGul 45]

Hi

I have an movie, that wont show in 4K. It is 4K as far as I know. And as I understand from mediainfo it is.

Using an nVidia Shield 2019 pro, latest Android universal app and lates Beta server.

Hope for feedback

embyserver.txt hardware_detection-63923023893.txt MediaInfo.txt

[ebr 16664]

Hi.  Did you confirm via your TV menus what mode it is actually in?

[PeteGul 45]

Yes, avr and tv says 1080p.

This movie (see attached file) plays as it should. And I think they are almost the same as far as I can see of MediaInfo

MediaInfo2.txt

[ebr 16664]

Do you have refresh rate switching and/or match resolution enabled in the app settings?

[PeteGul 45]

Both are turned on 

[visproduction 369]

Is 4K possible to play direct on your TV?  I assume that works.  So, is it just the playback info Display mode that does not list 4K?  Is that the problem?

Minimum 4K video is normally considered to be a height of 2160px.  Your media copy height is 2076px.  Therefore, it misses the height, normally considered to be 4K.  This could have happened if the media top and bottom black bars were removed from an original 16:9 aspect ratio which would have been 3840 x 2160.  I think that having 3840 width should be enough to qualify for 4K, but I suspect that the code looks only at the height to designate 4K, because that is the standard.  Maybe these values can be tweaked so 4K 1.85 aspect ratio without black bars doesn't get recognized as Display mode 1080P.

I have not looked at Emby's code, but typically 4K height 2160 is the minimum.  Maybe media released in 4K is 2160 with black bars for movie content with aspect ratio higher than 1.78 (16:9).  I have not checked all the blu-rays and online media standards for 4K.

Media edit metadata, you can label it 4K if you wish just manually so 4K shows up on the media page.  You can also put it in the file name after a dash.

[Luke 42969]

Hi, can you please provide an app log?

Thanks.

[yocker 1842]

3 hours ago, PeteGul said:

Both are turned on 

Try turning off match resolution.
Some movies are in resolutions like for example 3840x1600 (amongst others) some TVs and AVRs don't recognize those resolutions and scale down to 1080p to be able to view them.
Turning off match resolution will keep the TV in 4K and show the movies in that instead.

Turning off the option can introduce a slight judder when watching 1080p and below videos though.
@LukeMaybe an option to automatically turn it on at specific video resolutions could be made?

[PeteGul 45]

6 hours ago, visproduction said:

Is 4K possible to play direct on your TV?  I assume that works.  So, is it just the playback info Display mode that does not list 4K?  Is that the problem?

Here I don't understand what you mean. MediaInfo and Emby shows it as 4K, if you see the first picture it shows as 4K, but streams at 1080p. So all units in the chain streams it at 1080p. 

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, can you please provide an app log?

Thanks.

Log is attached.

4 hours ago, yocker said:

Try turning off match resolution.
Some movies are in resolutions like for example 3840x1600 (amongst others) some TVs and AVRs don't recognize those resolutions and scale down to 1080p to be able to view them.
Turning off match resolution will keep the TV in 4K and show the movies in that instead.

Turning off the option can introduce a slight judder when watching 1080p and below videos though.
@LukeMaybe an option to automatically turn it on at specific video resolutions could be made?

Did not see any difference.

emby_android_1787463722072.txt

[yocker 1842]

13 hours ago, PeteGul said:

Here I don't understand what you mean. MediaInfo and Emby shows it as 4K, if you see the first picture it shows as 4K, but streams at 1080p. So all units in the chain streams it at 1080p. 

Log is attached.

Did not see any difference.

emby_android_1787463722072.txt 134.5 kB · 0 downloads

Is the shield it self set to use 4k in it's settings?

[PeteGul 45]

Yes and no. Tried both of them, the same problem.

The other movie used as reference, shows in 4K with 4K or 1080p as native resolution for the UI of Shield.

[ebr 16664]

Hi.  Set your Shield/TV to 4K and turn off resolution matching in the app.

You are saying this still ends up in 1080?

[Teddyknuddel 137]

On 8/24/2026 at 12:10 AM, ebr said:

Set your Shield/TV to 4K and turn off resolution matching in the app.

So now the 200-euro Chinabox is supposed to do the job (upscaling Full HD footage to 4K) that a TV costing 1, or perhaps 2,000 euros more would do much better? You should NEVER let the source device do the upscaling – ALWAYS let the TV do it!

[ebr 16664]

2 hours ago, Teddyknuddel said:

So now the 200-euro Chinabox is supposed to do the job (upscaling Full HD footage to 4K) that a TV costing 1, or perhaps 2,000 euros more would do much better? You should NEVER let the source device do the upscaling – ALWAYS let the TV do it!

My suggestion was a troubleshooting step to confirm the behavior but, there are some devices that may upscale better than (or be preferred over) the TV - the Shield being one.

[yocker 1842]

18 minutes ago, ebr said:

My suggestion was a troubleshooting step to confirm the behavior but, there are some devices that may upscale better than (or be preferred over) the TV - the Shield being one.

Very much agree but sadly watching 1080p and lower with the shield set to 4k introduces massive judder.  

[Teddyknuddel 137]

36 minutes ago, ebr said:

My suggestion was a troubleshooting step to confirm the behavior but, there are some devices that may upscale better than (or be preferred over) the TV - the Shield being one.

Yes, it does, but not if you set it rigidly to 4K. Then, to the box, all content is 4K – whether it’s 720p, 1080p or 2160p. Then EVERYTHING becomes 2160p. And that looks rubbish. That’s why the Shield 2019 has AI upscaling, so the box can decide for itself. As you can see, your suggestion just introduces further problems.

[PeteGul 45]

Nope it does not show everything as 4K, when set to 4K. So this is a good troubleshooting. Shield set to 4K, movie still shows in 1080p, in one location, but not in another.

But I'll check again tomorrow, before I am certain about this.

Maybe it is right, but still wrong. I'll check.

Be patient

 

Edited 10 hours ago by PeteGul

[visproduction 369]

Related?
 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=shield+TV+recognize+4K+playback+content&ia=web

 https://www.howtogeek.com/251204/how-to-enable-4k-playback-on-the-nvidia-shield-android-tv/

Maybe everything needs settings, just right, so they can all dance together.  Also saw metnion of HDCP 2.2-compatible port and 4K HDMI cables are needed to allow 4K to arrive and play on the TV.  Is it possible one of those is not right?

Edited 9 hours ago by visproduction

[ebr 16664]

12 hours ago, Teddyknuddel said:

As you can see, your suggestion just introduces further problems.

Again, my suggestion was to confirm a behavior the OP stated (which didn't make sense to me).  I was not suggesting anything for playback quality.

[Teddyknuddel 137]

7 hours ago, visproduction said:

Maybe everything needs settings, just right, so they can all dance together.  Also saw metnion of HDCP 2.2-compatible port and 4K HDMI cables are needed to allow 4K to arrive and play on the TV.  Is it possible one of those is not right?

I don’t think the thread starter has changed anything about their cables that could be causing these problems! The problem is simply that nothing is being properly tested here before the release is made available to users.

[PeteGul 45]

Ok, here is my follow-up.

Stats for nerds says it now plays in 4K, when Shield is set to 4K. But it says 1080p in the settings "quality", add pictures of both.

@visproductionMy gear i relatively new, and generally new cables and everything is HDCP 2.2 compatible, I don't see this as a problem. I do think my stuff dances good together.

@TeddyknuddelThat's right, nothing is changed on my side. 

This is a question to find what's going wrong, when everything says it is an 4K movie. Why does that not that movie show in 4K. Should not need to "trick" the system to do so.

[ebr 16664]

4 minutes ago, PeteGul said:

Stats for nerds says it now plays in 4K, when Shield is set to 4K. But it says 1080p in the settings "quality", add pictures of both.

Okay, that makes sense.  Then it was the "match resolution" setting that was causing this item to switch to 1080.  It was due to the cropping of this particular item which fooled our logic into thinking it was 1080.  We are addressing that to have more leeway and that should address this case.

Thanks.

[Teddyknuddel 137]

@PeteGul

Why not install Kodi as a trial, use the EmbyCon or EmbyNextGen add-on for Kodi, and don’t forget to install the Emby Kodi Companion plugin; set everything to DirectPlay, and see for yourself the difference between the app and proper, smooth playback.

[Teddyknuddel 137]

@ebr

These problems all stem from the fact that you no longer want to integrate DirectPlay. You’re simply sticking stubbornly to your concept, regardless of what users want. Proper quality on Emby is now only possible with Kodi itself. Your app may look nice, but if the basic functionality isn’t there, you can forget all your fancy talk.

[ebr 16664]

1 minute ago, Teddyknuddel said:

@ebr

These problems all stem from the fact that you no longer want to integrate DirectPlay. You’re simply sticking stubbornly to your concept, regardless of what users want. Proper quality on Emby is now only possible with Kodi itself. Your app may look nice, but if the basic functionality isn’t there, you can forget all your fancy talk.

Sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about nor how it relates to this thread - which concerned display modes not transcoding at all...