Awful Audio glitches!

[DarrenClimie-Newman 6]

Hi All

I'm currently getting awful Audio glitches with Emby Theater running on my Windows 10 machine, which I never used to get.

Current set up is:

Emby Sever running on QNAP. V 4.5.2.0

Windows 10 with Emby Theater App, all latest versions.

My devices is connected to a Logitech z906 surround sound, and I've tried setting the Audio within Emby Theater to non-passthrough and passthrough of AC3, EAC3, DTS and DTS-HD, all of which the Logitech System can decode.

No matter what config I set, I get awful Audio glitches / micro buzzes every few seconds. It never used to do this, and nothing has really changed.

If I play the same content via Emby on a Firestick or mobile device, I get no issues at all, and it's all on the same network/wifi. 

Its either the Emby Theater client or my Windows 10 Machine, but nothing I do seems to eliminate it. It's actually unwatchable most of the time.

Any helps would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Darren

[DarrenClimie-Newman 6]

Just to add to this, I thought I would try a quick test, and I uninstalled Emby Theater, and installed the Windows Store version. Straight away, the issue has gone, and I get perfect playback.

I assume the Store Version is not the latest version or Theater? Which if not, isn't ideal, as I'd like to be running the latest versions of server and client.

Thoughts??

[sooty234 266]

The store version uses a different player. You can't compare them. Try the test version and see if it's better.

 

[Darren & Gemma 12]

Nope same issue. I tried watching back via just a straight up chrome browser, same glitches.

I tried v.3.011 and v.3.010

I'm starting to think it may be a GPU driver update issue.....

[sooty234 266]

If you experience the issue in a browser, then that is pointing to something local to your machine.

[Luke 42077]

17 minutes ago, sooty234 said:

If you experience the issue in a browser, then that is pointing to something local to your machine.

Yes indeed.

[Luke 42077]

But we're still happy to help. Let's look at an example. Please see how to report a media playback issue. thanks !

[Darren & Gemma 12]

Hi @Luke, @sooty234,

 

I've reinstalled Emby theater from, the website, so running 3.011. I rolled back my Nvidia drive a few versions , from 456.71 (7th Oct) to 451.67 (7th Sept), and its still producing the audio glitch/micro stutter.

I've attached the latest logs from the server for you to look at, I played something today around 11.04am.

Is there anything in the logs that you can see that's abnormal?

Thanks

Darren

ffmpeg-remux-1c0e442d-ae4e-4bad-a74b-e05a778565cf_1.txt

[DarrenClimie-Newman 6]

Something else to add is that I do not have any issue with any other media source, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon all play perfectly fine with no video or audio issues.

[DarrenClimie-Newman 6]

Attached are 2 log files from last night also for reference. This was when I was going back and forth on different versions of app to try and resolve. 

Not sure if you can see anything in these two?

Thanks

Darren

 

ffmpeg-transcode-9af3d38d-4676-4f2a-9da5-7690f65bc1da_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-4a3519ae-61e7-4578-a97b-63da92389b25_1.txt

[sooty234 266]

Assuming it's direct playing, we'll need to troubleshoot mpv. Post a screenshot of your audio settings.

[Darren & Gemma 12]

10 minutes ago, sooty234 said:

Assuming it's direct playing, we'll need to troubleshoot mpv. Post a screenshot of your audio settings.

Current audio settings in Emby Theater. The only setting you cant see is the Speaker Layout, and that's just set to Auto.

I get the same results if I enable AC3, EAC3, DTS and DTS-HD Passthrough to my Logitech 5.1 Surround

 

[sooty234 266]

Turn off music upmix and enable exclusive mode.

[Darren & Gemma 12]

29 minutes ago, sooty234 said:

Turn off music upmix and enable exclusive mode.

Same result....

I tried the same content using an external player, just the basic Windows Media Player, and it players perfectly fine...?! I don't want to use an external player however, so that isn't a fix for me.

Edited October 24, 2020 by Darren & Gemma

[sooty234 266]

That was just an experiment. In a little while I will go through much more detailed testing with you. I need to see the mpv logs which I'll have you configure. Do you have the spare time today?

[Darren & Gemma 12]

Yes I should do.

 

[sooty234 266]

Ok, so we need to get mpv to generate a log. It's fairly easy. Unzip the folder to:

mpv.zip

C:\users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming

In that folder there is a text file called mpv.conf, open it. You'll see the line:

log-file="

You need to add the address for where the file will be written. You will also need to name the file. I suggest using your desktop, so you can find it easily. So the line will look something like this:

log-file="C:\Users\Peter\Desktop\mpv log.txt"

Play a video once, and post the log here.

[Darren & Gemma 12]

Hi

Here you go. I played the file for about 40 secs and it happened about 4-5 times. It's never the same twice, sometimes it will happen every few seconds, sometimes I can get a few minutes before it does it.

 

mpvlog.txt

[sooty234 266]

So you're using optical, right? What audio device are you using to play the audio? And did you re-enable audio passthrough?

[DarrenClimie-Newman 6]

Yes using optical out from PC, always have so nothing has changed there.

Straight in to a Logitech Z906 5.1 surround sound system, again, had this same setup for last 4 years.

Yes that test and log file was based on AC3,EAC3,DTS and DTS-HD pass-through enabled.

[sooty234 266]

OK, couple of things. Optical doesn't support anything other than Stereo PCM, Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1. No support for DTS-HD, EAC3 (DD+), TrueHD. It doesn't have the bandwidth, and the manual for your device also stipulates what it supports. Other players you are testing with are probably resampling. So you should only enable AC3 and DTS in Theater. How have you configured your windows audio speaker setup? In your case, it should be 5.1.

First make sure all of that is configured correctly, and then we'll go from there. 

[Darren & Gemma 12]

OK. Firstly, i did a retest with just AC3 and DTS enabled in Theater, log file attached. Same result.

My Realtek Audio is configured as follows, and I've never touched this. Which is why i'm total lost, this hasnt been an issue for nearly 5 years with the exact same config, and its just started playing up. The only changes can be Video Driver updates, Windows Updates, Emby Server updates or Emby Theater updates, everything else has stayed static.

Was there anything in the first log file?

mpvlog.txt

[sooty234 266]

No, your Windows audio. Right click on the speaker icon next to the clock on the taskbar.

 

[Darren & Gemma 12]

I don't have that option?

 

I wonder if this has anything to do with it? - https://superuser.com/questions/1095458/windows-10-and-realtek-optical-output-5-1-dts-how-to-enable

[sooty234 266]

OK, that' good, and probably because it's using SPDIF.

Disable all audio passthrough and post the log from that, please.