Chromecast playback issues with recordings

[sle118 4]

I've been a long term supporter of Media browser and now emby. For a while, I've been building my TV recording collection and using emby to transcode in sync folders for my binge watching during travel.

Recently, however, I have been attempting to use emby on one of my multiple dlna devices which include 2 Chromecast V2. Not without a struggle, I abandoned the idea of watching anything recorded with my hdpvr, since I discovered after hours of searching the web and troubleshooting, that hauppauge encodes mp4 interlaced which generates shitty output on any device I want to watch these on. My only hope is to transcode everything into a non interlaced format that can be digested by typical devices since emby won't do it for me (at least not for now, as interlaced files are considered good for direct play).

So I thought, well let's watch recordings done from my hdhomerun! These are mp2, and emby is running on a beefy core i7 with nothing else on and everything should be just fine!

Or not.

It started well, though, but playback just stopped after a few minutes. So in my mind I was like... Nothing to worry about, let's just resume. And everything was just fine, until the playback stopped again after a few minutes. This pretty much ruined the experience for me and I'm losing faith. What a waste of time, I'm so disappointed.

What have I done wrong this time? What sort of file can I expect to play with emby? Is it that limited or what?

 

if someone can help, log files are here

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5I4AMklqDsqaG1hUElYVHFnYjA?usp=sharing

 

and the issue was on latest emby for android casting to chromecast v2. i played with bit rates with no luck. then i tried casting from the server after a long pause for dinner. this was a bad idea, and my significant got bored, so i stopped playback and we watched conventional reliable cable tv.

 

thanks for any help

Edited December 30, 2016 by sle118

[Luke 42083]

Hi there, we're very sorry to hear about this. Can you please provide the emby server and ffmpeg logs? you can learn how to do that here:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

 

Thanks !

[sle118 4]

Hi there, we're very sorry to hear about this. Can you please provide the emby server and ffmpeg logs? you can learn how to do that here:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

 

Thanks !

Luke, there is so much weight on your shoulders! Hoping you can help. At some point I was contemplating the idea of smashing the server to vent off, but this would be counter productive.

 

You already know about the interlaced mp4 playback issues and I think I sent you a massive 8gb example to play with, although for some mysterious reasons you aren't having issues with any of my videos while I can't pay them on anything but a Windows machine.

 

Thank you

[Luke 42083]

Ok, I see you've updated with log files on google drive. I will review those and update. thanks @@sle118

[sle118 4]

I see you did some editorial changes on my thread title. I guess it's better for the record...

 

I'm losing faith, but I still have hope because this is something I WANT to see working.

 

Thanks again

[Luke 42083]

It looks like you've customized your ffmpeg. can you please try this version?

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Resources/tree/master/ffmpeg/windows

 

You can then configure it in the emby server dashboard under the Transcoding menu. thanks !

[sle118 4]

Luke,

 

I changed back my ffmpeg version and tried again. The playback still stops, but this time after a longer play. I uploaded be logs and compressed the old ones in case you want to have a look.

 

Oddly enough, it seems that ffmpeg was continuing to transcode even after Chromecast was frozen on a frame. There were glitches during playback, though, and the ffmpeg log had several errors from the stream so I'll try to sync the video and see if pre transcoded does better.

[Luke 42083]

@@sle118, thanks for the update.

[sle118 4]

@@Luke,

 

FYI, I have transcoded all my Hauppauge interlaced mp4 files to progressive mp4 files and going forward I'll only record content in a TS container as Hauppauge's mp4 just aren't rendering correctly on Android machines. I am still unsure why you were able to read them successfully; maybe you have some Android hardware that can decode these files but it's not my case. Even VLC has trouble with them on my tablet!

 

So I think we can mark this thread as resolved and leave it there for others as a reference if they have the same issue

[Luke 42083]

Interesting info, thanks !

[sle118 4]

Furthermore, some of the shows recorded OTA had corrupted bits in the stream.  Transcoding the files on the fly seems to alleviate some of that, although the playback is still quite bumpy.