Completed Emby Server/Apps: Support External Audio Tracks for Movies/TV

[Luke 42077]

4 minutes ago, syvcxm said:

Thanks luke, I have tested the external audio track in beta server 4.9.0.49, it works as expected and I was able to play it correctly through third-party client.

Enjoy.

[syvcxm 23]

8 hours ago, Carlo said:

You can adjust the offset of external subs in some Emby Clients.
Here a screen capture from the Emby Windows client.

IMHO, external audio will be far more problematic because the slightest bit of offset will show as lip sync issues.  I know this is something that drives me crazy. I can't watch movies or shows when the audio isn't 100% in sync with the visuals.

Subtitles don't need to have perfect timing but audio does.

Then you should encapsulate the audio into a container and adjust the track delay.

Emby should provide external audio support for users who need it, rather than cutting off the option altogether.

[Luke 42077]

We just did.

[hedeus 9]

yeaaah this works great! no more muxing everything manually! 

[SimpleX91 0]

Any plans to support tracks from subdirectories (like Sound/ or Audio/)? Couldn't find any info on this subject, so maybe it is already supported somehow.

Would be nice to have  support for cases when video and ext audio files are somehow separated.

Btw, this ext audio support feature is great, thank you!

Edited May 31, 2025 by SimpleX91

[Luke 42077]

3 hours ago, SimpleX91 said:

Any plans to support tracks from subdirectories (like Sound/ or Audio/)? Couldn't find any info on this subject, so maybe it is already supported somehow.

Would be nice to have  support for cases when video and ext audio files are somehow separated.

Btw, this ext audio support feature is great, thank you!

HI, since we do that for subtitles, and since this uses almost identical detection, yes that would be feasible. Thanks for the feedback.

[visproduction 315]

I think separate audio files can have many reasons to get out of sync that no offset adjustment can fix. One example, although sort of rare, there are pre 1990 films that are edited to actually run 4% faster for European TV.  You cannot match a European edited audio with Media that was released in the USA on DVD or media streaming.  The obvious other issue is different edits of the same media might get mismatched and then no adjustment can fix that. 

Online streaming of separate audio and video files, I would guess would have sync issues because of Internet streaming, perhaps 80% of the time or more. Someone local to the server can hear good sync, but another user far away may not get both stream in sync due to Internet issues.   

I believe it is just impractical, and hence the reason that no one, I am aware of, does it.  Everyone puts audio into the video stream.  Does anyone have an example of any online media streaming site that offers this?

More info: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=separate+file+audio+out+of+sync+drift+Media+online&ia=web

Edited May 31, 2025 by visproduction

[Louis93 3]

On 20/04/2025 at 07:02, Luke said:

Enjoy.

Is an audio track with .thd extension supported for external audio track? I don't see it appearing in the dropdown list in the movie's Emby UI.

[Luke 42077]

4 hours ago, Louis93 said:

Is an audio track with .thd extension supported for external audio track? I don't see it appearing in the dropdown list in the movie's Emby UI.

HI, the library scan is not currently looking for that audio extension, so no, not currently. Support for it would need to be added.

[Reaper47 11]

Hi, is this feature working properly for everyone? I'm having issues with it, details can be found in other thread, starting from this post: 

 I'm curious to hear if more people have issues, and if not, I would like to know what video and audio formats they are using and on which clients.

Thanks