video encoding failed?

[Jägs 85]

I've been having some problems with certain TV series that I've ripped from DVDs, so I decided to finally dig into it to see what might be going on.  For example, I was trying to watch Space:  Above and Beyond tonight, and Emby would not play it back.  Attached is the ffmpeg log.  The same video files play back fine in VLC and on Kodi, so I assume they are OK.

 

Any idea what might be causing this?  Google was not much help when I searched for "invalid VAContextID."

Thanks!

[Luke 42077]

Hi there, can we please look at an example? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks! 

[Jägs 85]

Sorry, I swear I attached the ffmpeg log file when I first posted.  Let me try that again.

ffmpeg.txt

Edited February 20, 2019 by Jägs

[Luke 42077]

@@softworkz

[Jägs 85]

I also just rolled the logs, retried, and have attached the resulting Emby log as well.

emby.txt

[softworkz 5066]

@@Jägs - Please install the latest AMD Radeon drivers from the AMD website!

[Jägs 85]

@@softworkz:  Thanks for the response!  I'm running 18.04 LTS and, according to AMD's website, the latest drivers--from 12/2015--are only available up to 14.04 LTS:

 

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/amd-radeon-hd/amd-radeon-hd-8000-series-oem/amd-radeon-hd-8730

 

I have found some tutorials describing how to make these work with 18.04, but both say the open source drivers are probably fine:

 

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-the-latest-amd-radeon-drivers-on-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-linux

 

I just installed all of the updates available as of today and rebooted, but am still experiencing the issue.  That said, if you could confirm that I should go with the older proprietary drivers, I'll attempt to do so.

Edited February 23, 2019 by Jägs

[Jägs 85]

&@softworkz & @Luke:
 
I just wanted to follow up on this.  Can either of you confirm that I need to download and install the older proprietary drivers from AMD versus the open source ones, especially given that said drivers are not listed as compatible with my version of Ubuntu?

 

@@softworkz

[softworkz 5066]

Since AMD simply dropped driver support for your hardware, you may be out of luck.

 

If you want to try something, I would rather experiment with installing newer AMD drivers that support the Ubuntu version but not the GPU instead of an older AMD driver supporting your GPU but not Ubuntu.

 

e.g.: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-prorad-lin-18-40

 

This could totally fail of course. But I think that chances are better this way than the other way round.

 

But don't blame me when you screw your system...

[Jägs 85]

@softworkz

 

Yeah, I'd rather avoid something potentially breaking my system, especially given that I can just use Kodi for playback.  The thing is, though, I do not recall having such issues prior to 4.x., but I can't say that I thoroughly test all of my content in 3.x.

 

So, let's take this in a different direction:  would this be remedied by installing a dedicated GPU, rather than relying upon the APU?  If so, any suggestions for something in $100 (or less) range?

[Jägs 85]

@@softworkz

 

For example, something like this:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MG0733A/

 

That is based on a bit of scrounging on the forums, and based on the fact that I do have HVEC and a number of 4K videos.  Two decodes should suffice for my needs, at least for the short- to mid-term.

 

EDIT:  I've also found an AMD card that is similar:  https://www.amazon.com/PowerColor-570-AXRX-4GBD5-3DHD-OC/dp/B06ZYRRW9T

 

This does not seem to have the decoding limitations but has higher power consumption.  Also--and I'm not sure this is still the case--but I've heard that NVIDIA is generally not as good as supporting Linux, so that's why I'm leaning towards the AMD--my recent experience notwithstanding. 

 

If there is something else you'd recommend, let me know.  I'd rather avoid scrapping the motherboard/CPU, if possible, so hopefully this would be a solution.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Jägs

[Luke 42077]

Our nvidia support will be further improved for the next release of Emby Server, but I'll leave it to @@softworkz to provide advice to your question. Thanks.

[Jägs 85]

Thanks, Luke.  I appreciate all of the time you guys spend in the community, answering questions and providing insight.  It's the primary reason I switched from Plex to Emby and why I went with the lifetime option for Emby Premiere.

[Luke 42077]

Thanks for the feedback !

[softworkz 5066]

@@softworkz

 

For example, something like this:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MG0733A/

 

That is based on a bit of scrounging on the forums, and based on the fact that I do have HVEC and a number of 4K videos.  Two decodes should suffice for my needs, at least for the short- to mid-term.

 

EDIT:  I've also found an AMD card that is similar:  https://www.amazon.com/PowerColor-570-AXRX-4GBD5-3DHD-OC/dp/B06ZYRRW9T

 

This does not seem to have the decoding limitations but has higher power consumption.  Also--and I'm not sure this is still the case--but I've heard that NVIDIA is generally not as good as supporting Linux, so that's why I'm leaning towards the AMD--my recent experience notwithstanding. 

 

If there is something else you'd recommend, let me know.  I'd rather avoid scrapping the motherboard/CPU, if possible, so hopefully this would be a solution.

 

I would recommend Intel and Nvidia over AMD.

[Jägs 85]

OK, thanks for the advice, @@softworkz and @@Luke:
 
One other thing I was just thinking about, though--and maybe I am misunderstanding what's happening:  I'm using an NVIDIA Shield for playback (via the Emby app).  Shouldn't MPEG-2 files direct play on it like my other content, instead of transcoding through ffmpeg?  According to NVIDIA, they expose the Shield's MPEG-2 hardware engine to Android TV apps (https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/841786/shield-android-tv/mpeg-2-support-guide-for-using-hdhomerun-network-attached-tv-tuner-with-shield/).
 
To test this, I did run the same videos through Kodi (via Emby for Kodi) and VLC (via Emby's UPNP) on the Shield and they all played back fine.
 
Again, I'm not going to pretend to know all of the nuances of what's going on under the hood, but I thought I'd double check.

[Luke 42077]

In some cases yes. You may want to create a topic in the android tv section with a question about why it is not direct playing:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/forum/147-android-tv-fire-tv/

 

Thanks.