Any other solutions to HTPC to completely avoid transcoding and playback issues?

[gnollo 17]

I moved off my HTPC as I found the Amazon Fire to be better integrated with Netflix and Prime navigation. Currently using an Amazon Fire HD box but the transcoding is killing me.

I have a couple of friends with Fire HD too and one of them was transcoding a film during playback today using up 100% of the four cores on my server (Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU @ 2.833 GHz).

I used to turn off transcoding at user level when using HTPC and it would play all movies.

Now I even get instances where, although I am allowing transcoding, there are movies that it just won't play on the FIreHD.

And low and behold, I can play the files on my android phone no problem. How can the android phone play the file and the FireHD won't?

I am thinking of moving to an AppleTV but will that allow me to turn transcoding fully off? I can't have more than one person transcoding at the same time I guess, otherwise my server will struggle, I am guessing?

Sorry for the vent, I absolutely love Emby's UI and features, but I really need to have consistent direct play. I would be happy to pay £200 for a fire tv box, or a Shield TV or an AppleTV where Emby can guarantee direct play, to avoid a huge load on the server. It's cool if it is only one user transcoding but it is not scalable.

[arrbee99 1815]

Sorry. Random thought. Read somewhere might be a subtitle thing. Using any subtitles ? Try it without.

 

(just guessing till someone who's actually knowledgeable comments).

[gnollo 17]

Not using subtitles, but how do I make sure subtitles are turned off by default? 

This might cause issues when playing bluray rips which contain subtitles, I guess.

It would not be causing issues to the movies not playing at all. One of those is an avi file and there are no subtitles in the folder.

[MndWrp 101]

I fully avoid transcoding on all of my devices, by allowing only h264 files on my server with external srt subtitles. That's the law.

 

That might not be the magic solution you were hoping for, but my nas cannot transcode much, so i had to be strict and so far, that works well for me.

 

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[arrbee99 1815]

Not using subtitles, but how do I make sure subtitles are turned off by default? 

This might cause issues when playing bluray rips which contain subtitles, I guess.

It would not be causing issues to the movies not playing at all. One of those is an avi file and there are no subtitles in the folder.

 

From here I think...

 

[Deathsquirrel 745]

Transcoding needs are a function of your source media and playback devices.  You have only two options:

 

1) Convert your media to formats that all your client devices can play.

2) Covert your client devices to ones that can play back your media.

 

On the device side the most capable is HTPC followed by the Nvidia Shield.  The Shield can process most any common format without any transcoding.  If you use external, text-based subtitles it's very unlikely that any transcoding will be required.  It can also natively handle most embedded subs I've thrown at it.

[gnollo 17]

There is still no guarantee though. I don't understand why the same file plays on my android phone and not on the android fire tv HD latest generation? It just looks random, not due to the codec? How about using external players to avoid transcoding? I will also test MrMC and Kodi with transcoding off on the fire tv HD and see how they fare.

 

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[gnollo 17]

From here I think...

 

It was set to smart. Changed it to none.

I'm using the Emby app on my android phone to log on to the server dashboard, and the options under subtitles are slightly different, see below

 

Also do I need to set this on each device? It is not an option available at server level?

 

 

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Edited December 26, 2018 by gnollo

[arrbee99 1815]

Interesting. Didn't know they were different like that.

 

Anyway, sorry for not being much help - I'm really not a subtitle person, I try to avoid them wherever possible, except for the odd bit where its required, like bits of French, or German, or Klingon.

 

Another thought might be if you have different audio tracks, maybe the default requires transcoding, so maybe try an alternative ?

[gnollo 17]

This is what I get when I select sub/audio defaults under Emby settings on the fire hd

 

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[arrbee99 1815]

Yes, like it says, that for defaults for everything you might play, which you need to set on the server dashboard. I was thinking more like this...

 

 

where it says 'Eng Dolby Digital 5.1 Default', maybe the default (whatever yours may be) needs transcoding so maybe try changing that Audio track to something different (assuming you have a choice of course).

 

Bear in mind that that screenshot is from inside Chrome so it'll be different on the Fire. Also, of course, it might have nothing to do with your problem at all...

[gnollo 17]

Also I must correct my initial statement about the playback issues on the two files that won't play. It appears that I had set transcoding off user level for my own login. Which means I can convert those files and test playback which should fix the issues.

This actually means that my fire hd has fared better than expected so far.

 

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[arrbee99 1815]

Sounds promising. Hopefully converting those files fixes things up.

 

(Not sure what you mean by 'converting' though)

[gnollo 17]

Sounds promising. Hopefully converting those files fixes things up.

 

(Not sure what you mean by 'converting' though)

I mean using handlebreak to convert it to mkv with standard codecs. Interestingly I tried playing back using my iPad and those files play with no problems. Transcoding still off.

[Luke 42077]

This is what I get when I select sub/audio defaults under Emby settings on the fire hd

 

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It's letting you know how to adjust default settings.

[gnollo 17]

It's letting you know how to adjust default settings.

But why does the same file play on android on my phone, and not on android on the fire tv HD? I thought Emby used the android player?

 

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[Jdiesel 1431]

I believe the mobile app uses mpv and the ATV app uses exo as their players. MPV lacks the multi channel audio features that one would expect on a device connected to a home theater.

[ebr 16169]

But why does the same file play on android on my phone, and not on android on the fire tv HD? I thought Emby used the android player?

 

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Without looking at a specific example, I can't be sure, but my guess would be the audio.  The phone will only output stereo so it can use internal processing to convert to that and output it.  The Fire, however, would be trying to deliver multi-channel audio but that device has limited support for that (basically only DD and only at a max bitrate of 340k).  

 

So, the Fire may be converting your audio to a 5.1 format it can handle.  Then, in the situation where you had someone really sucking resources, I'm also suspecting they had subs enabled and, when we had to convert the audio, the only way to display the subs would be to burn them in which could be very costly.

 

Again, need to see logs to confirm all of this, but I'd say I'm 80% confident some combination of the above is the case.

[gnollo 17]

Without looking at a specific example, I can't be sure, but my guess would be the audio. The phone will only output stereo so it can use internal processing to convert to that and output it. The Fire, however, would be trying to deliver multi-channel audio but that device has limited support for that (basically only DD and only at a max bitrate of 340k).

 

So, the Fire may be converting your audio to a 5.1 format it can handle. Then, in the situation where you had someone really sucking resources, I'm also suspecting they had subs enabled and, when we had to convert the audio, the only way to display the subs would be to burn them in which could be very costly.

 

Again, need to see logs to confirm all of this, but I'd say I'm 80% confident some combination of the above is the case.

I'll get logs tomorrow, all the files in question are old avi format with mp3 audio, no subtitles in the folder and subs turned off in the application settings

 

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[Deathsquirrel 745]

But why does the same file play on android on my phone, and not on android on the fire tv HD? I thought Emby used the android player?

 

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Look in the server dashboard while it[s playing to the fire tv.  It will tell you the reason for the transcode.

[Burrito78 15]

I'm using a Vero 4k in combination with Kodi "direct play" so technically i can't ever get anything transcoded.

 

What also works is using MrMC on Apple TV as an alternative to the Vero 4k.

[Oddbin 0]

Is there a matrix at all for compatible devices/formats for direct play especially for 4k as this kind of question comes up a lot? I want to make my library as direct play as possible.

[Luke 42077]

The wiki page for each app goes over what is supported:

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Transcoding

The menu of apps is on the right hand side, closer to the bottom. Thanks.

[gnollo 17]

Couple of logs attached. One about transcoding gremlins.

emby server log.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-ea146c8e-ea22-4a7a-b900-c09f542825d8.txt

[Luke 42077]

Did you compare this file to what is listed as supported in the wiki?