I'm getting playback errors trying to watch local H.264 MKV movies

[Ronstang 294]

I finally started watching some of the movies I have been collecting for a long time the last few nights but I'm getting playback errors.  The video and audio will freeze for a moment or two but then pick right back up all on it's own .  it is almost like I pause and then paly again because it is a perfect  still frame with no video corruption and no audio hiccups once it plays again.  It seems to be random because sometimes the movie plays fine for 30 minutes between freezes and other times it freezes every 5-10 seconds.  I have re-winded and watched the same section of video over again and the freeze happens on different frames on the next playback so I didn't think it was the files themselves.  I confirmed this by playing the same files back in VLC or PotPlayer and playback is perfect....unfortunately I need them to play back correctly in EMBY to watch them on my network.

This happens both watching over the network on my XBOX 360 and in the web browser on the MediaCenter PC. using EMBY as the playback engine but does not happen with other video players.

The following log files are all from the time period I was watching a movie last night when this issue was occuring.  

Any help would be appreciated.  

embyserver-63730621922.txt hardware_detection-63730621943.txt ffmpeg-remux-4573b3fb-5f97-4c97-92b3-f1e0cccc83e3_1.txt embyserver-63730627200.txt

[ebr 16183]

Hi.  Can you try disabling transcode throttling and see if this is still an issue?

[Ronstang 294]

Thank you, I will if you tell me how

[Carlo 4561]

2 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

Thank you, I will if you tell me how

Click on the Transcoding menu option on the left from web admin.

Then on the right side scroll down until you see an option called "Enable throttling".

Uncheck that option.

[Ronstang 294]

Thank you but it is already unchecked so that is not the problem.....I wanted it to be that simple 

[Ronstang 294]

Why would files that are already compressed need transcoding anyway......they are already in a file format any video play should play natively these days.

[Carlo 4561]

Can you post a picture of the MetaData for one of these files you think shouldn't transcode?

This info should be on the detail page in the web app at the bottom.

[Happy2Play 9780]

The Remux log above is converting Audio since Chrome does not support Dolby.  Go to html5test.com to see what your browsers support.  I believe Edge is the only current browser that does.

&TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported

22:33:54.288 Stream mapping:
22:33:54.288   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
22:33:54.288   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (ac3 (native) -> mp3 (libmp3lame))

 

[Ronstang 294]

12 minutes ago, cayars said:

Can you post a picture of the MetaData for one of these files you think shouldn't transcode?

This info should be on the detail page in the web app at the bottom.

I know where all that information is but how do I post a picture of it?

[Ronstang 294]

8 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

The Remux log above is converting Audio since Chrome does not support Dolby.  Go to html5test.com to see what your browsers support.  I believe Edge is the only current browser that does.

&TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported

22:33:54.288 Stream mapping:
22:33:54.288   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
22:33:54.288   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (ac3 (native) -> mp3 (libmp3lame))

 

I'm using WMC to stream, I'm not using any browsers on my XBOX 360 and I dont't even need Dolby in my bedroom

[Ronstang 294]

18 minutes ago, cayars said:

Can you post a picture of the MetaData for one of these files you think shouldn't transcode?

This info should be on the detail page in the web app at the bottom.

Here you go

[Happy2Play 9780]

But your media only has Dolby audio tracks ie AC3.  So your audio will always need converting.

10 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

I'm using WMC to stream, I'm not using any browsers on my XBOX 360 and I dont't even need Dolby in my bedroom

The log shows you are using Chrome

App: Emby Mobile 4.5.0.13
Chrome

 

If you are referencing a different playback session on a different client you will need post that ffmpeg log.

[Ronstang 294]

I am using my XBOX 360 as an extender, the logs I got out of the emby console,  and the only media I was playing was that on the XBOX 360.  If there are specific logs to the XBOX I need to know where to retrieve them please.

[Ronstang 294]

What should the audio be to not need any transcoding?

[Ronstang 294]

BTW, last night I had a movie where every once in a while the video playback would speed up and then the audio/video would get out of sync so I would rewind 30 seconds to a minute and it would re-sync and play fine 

[Ronstang 294]

Audio transcoding should be a low resource draw anyway since I can remux the entire audio of a movie in 2 minutes or less so I don't understand the video completely freezing.

[Carlo 4561]

Audio transcoding doesn't use much CPU especially compared to Video.

To answer your other question, AAC 2 channel marked as default will pretty much play on any platform.

I add an AAC 2 channel to every file in my system and then have the Dolby and DTS audio as extra streams. This way I have the best chance of direct playing content.

[Ronstang 294]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

Audio transcoding doesn't use much CPU especially compared to Video.

To answer your other question, AAC 2 channel marked as default will pretty much play on any platform.

I add an AAC 2 channel to every file in my system and then have the Dolby and DTS audio as extra streams. This way I have the best chance of direct playing content.

I was thinking about adding a 2 channel audio to my movies since most of them are old and were never recorded in 5.1 so I'm assuming those movies actually have had the audio enchanced  to something more like quad stereo with a sub channel so it wouldn't be like I would be losing much anyway.  

I know just enough about this stuff to sound like I know what I'm doing to a newb so I need your advice.  I assume since all my files are MKV and so being a container format I should be able to simply extract the audio, re-encode to the 2 channel AAC, and then add the extra audio stream into the MKV container as you have done without having to mess with the video at all so not to lose any quality? 

My question is how best to do this efficiently?  I have 3100 movies of recorded HDTV already on this server and almost 1000 DVDs and Blu- Rays I have not even added yet due to space restraints.  I use MCEBuddy to do all the encoding and always use multi-channel audio.  Is there any way to automate this so I can just queue up a bunch of movies or do I have to do this manually one by one?  And is there a reason for AAC being the best option over mp3 or OGG?

Either way if you could make some software suggestions I'm sure I could figure out how to do it after spending some time researching on the web.

Thanks for your help.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Ronstang

[Carlo 4561]

It's all scripted on my side but it uses ffmpeg.

https://github.com/mdhiggins/sickbeard_mp4_automator is something you will want to check into as it can do a lot of things including making sure you have a 2 channel AAC audio in each file.

[ebr 16183]

12 hours ago, Ronstang said:

I am using my XBOX 360 as an extender,

This is very old technology that does not support today's modern streaming formats.  Converting your audio may get you going but, if not, I would suggest possibly looking into one of the newer streaming boxes like a Fire Stick or Roku.

[Ronstang 294]

4 hours ago, ebr said:

This is very old technology that does not support today's modern streaming formats.  Converting your audio may get you going but, if not, I would suggest possibly looking into one of the newer streaming boxes like a Fire Stick or Roku.

It may be old technology but I now have it working perfectly and considering I have 3 XBOXs as extenders I'll use them as long as they serve me.  I have 2 FIrestick TVs and I tried them but I have to purchase the APP and you cannot apply that purchase towards the price of Emby Premier and I am currently in testing mode and although I am strongly considering Premier the decision will depend on getting it working with what I have now since all my equipment is supported by your software.  XBOXs may be old the but the video format your software prefers has been around a long time, I purposely encoded them into this format or Emby,  and XBOXs have no problem playing them.  All the issues I have been having have been Emby's need to transcode.  The same files that cause hang ups and freezes play absolutely fine through WMC and the Movie Library.  I traced the issue to every movie having problems had Dolby Sound.  I have it working now and even if I have future problems I will make EDGE the default browser for Emby which supports Dolby.

Your software is really great, I really like it and am now able to enjoy my movies. It is currently on the top of my list to replace WMC when I make that decision.  If you run an end of Summer sale this year like last I'll probably just buy Premier and use it across all the equipment I currently own.  I don't need it for live TV yet but that is on my list.

Thank you for this nice software.  Learning to tweak it has been fun.  You have done a really nice job.  Keep up the good work.

[Carlo 4561]

If you're testing software to see what you want to use to replace WMC you should really try Emby Premiere at least for one month.  That will enable your Firesticks, allow you to play with some cool plugins like the Cover Art plugin, the backup/restore plugin, hardware transcoding, the auto convert feature as well as other Premiere Features.  If you have a tuner or M3U IPTV you could even test Live TV/DVR as well.

Premiere of course unlocks all the clients so that would allow you to test and play with mobile and tablets as well.

Premiere take Emby to a whole new level of functionality!

[Ronstang 294]

I have 6 tuners so I'm currently testing and tweaking NextPVR as a DVR replacement for WMC as Emby does not have DVR function.  I like NextPVR but it has some issues and I'm ironing those out.  I can't completely trust it to record my shows yet so really important movies that only show up on TV rarely I have to record in WMC also to guarantee I get them.  The NextPVR service randomly shuts down in the middle of the night at times and I loose several recordings while WMCs DVR function is rock solid even if it adds an extra step to encoding because of the proprietary file format.  Until I can trust NextPVR completely I have no need for Emby's live TV support......but be patient, I will just buy Premier when the time is right because there is no other software out there like yours and I really like it for library management, light years ahead of WMC......but WMCs live TV features and DVR function are still impossible to beat.

[Carlo 4561]

26 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

I have 6 tuners so I'm currently testing and tweaking NextPVR as a DVR replacement for WMC as Emby does not have DVR function. 

https://emby.media/premiere.html

Emby has both Live TV and DVR functionality with a Premiere subscription.

What kind of tuners do you have?

[Ronstang 294]

I have a Ceton InfiniTV 6 and regardless of what people say this tuner has been flawless for 6 years and works perfectly for me and I can't complain about the picture quality as some say, I'm really picky and I don't see a quality issue.  No  one else offers this many tuners on a single card and there are not enough expansion slots or room in modern desktops for multiple cards.  I have 6 rooms with TV so 6 tuners for live TV are a must if the four children all want to watch something different.

 

I'll probably buy a couple of used ones just in case.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Ronstang