4K videos freezing and sound popping/dropping

[MyronAub 13]

I've just upgraded my home cinema to 4K (FireTV Cube -> Denon AVC-X6700H -> Optoma UHD51) but am having problems with every single 4K video played via Emby freezes and/or the sound either drops out or makes a recurring popping noise.

Server: i7-6700K @ 4GHz, 16 GB RAM, Windows 10 Pro

Client: hardwired (via hubs/switches [not directly]) Amazon FireTV Cube

Sample file is 1 GB, 3840x2160 at 24FPS HDR10 Stereo Sound

Basically I hit play on any 4K video and at some random point from a few seconds to a couple of minutes later the video freezes then restarts some seconds later and/or every say 30 seconds or so the sound either drops out momentarily or there's a little "popping" noise.

Any suggestions on where I can start looking for what may be the cause?

ffmpeg-remux-7b6f007a-2e9c-41fa-87d4-a70284cee420_1.txt embyserver.txt

[ebr 16178]

Hi.  Have you tried any real media files?  This sample has a strange audio track as it is reported as 0 channels of AAC (which we are trying to convert to AC3).

17:20:36.527     Stream #0:1[0x102](und): Audio: aac ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 0 channels, Start-Time 1.167s

 

[MyronAub 13]

Sorry, I had to have my 4K Projector replaced so only now got around to re-testing.

Yes, I've just tried with "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" that I ripped myself (50GB file; 49.3Mb/s, 3840*2160 at 23.976 FPS, HEVC, HDR10, DTS-HD MA 5.1) from my UHD. The movie freezes momentarily a few seconds in, then plays for 3.5 minutes then freezes again, then briefly plays, then freezes etc.

Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

 

 

embyserver.txt

[Carlo 4561]

When you play this what does the stats for nerds screen show?  Is it direct playing or streaming?

[vdatanet 1617]

Can FireTV Cube handle that bitrate? Fire TV 3rd gen can handle up to 20 Mbps, but I can't that info for FireTV Cube.

[MyronAub 13]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

When you play this what does the stats for nerds screen show?  Is it direct playing or streaming?

Direct Play.

 

1 hour ago, vdatanet said:

Can FireTV Cube handle that bitrate? Fire TV 3rd gen can handle up to 20 Mbps, but I can't that info for FireTV Cube.

Good question. I've found one article claiming the Fire TV Cube max bitrate is 35 Mb/s but I get the same freezing on another 4K video that's only 27 Mb/s so the article may not be accurate. Is there other Emby hardware with higher bitrates, Nvidia Shield perhaps?

 

[vdatanet 1617]

1 minute ago, MyronAub said:

Nvidia Shield perhaps?

Yes, with Nvidia Shield 217 and 2019 Pro (not 2019 Tube), I can play movies at 70 Mbps. 

[Carlo 4561]

@MyronAub

May I suggest you download a few test files from http://jell.yfish.us/ to test the different bitrates you might be able to support?

This should definitely help figure out what bitrates you can stream locally through Emby.

[MyronAub 13]

 

On 15/11/2020 at 20:44, cayars said:

May I suggest you download a few test files from http://jell.yfish.us/ to test the different bitrates you might be able to support?

This should definitely help figure out what bitrates you can stream locally through Emby.

Thanks for that, the jellyfish site appears to be down at the moment but I managed to download a couple of those files yesterday; 30 Mbps worked fine while 50 Mbps kept freezing so the problem does seem to be bitrates. I guess the checking question is whether the bitrate issue is a fundamental limitation of the new FireTV Cube or a bottleneck in my (fairly extensive and convoluted) home network between the Cube and the Emby server. I'll do further testing tomorrow with the Cube and server both connected to the same network switch.

On 15/11/2020 at 20:29, vdatanet said:

Yes, with Nvidia Shield 2019 Pro , I can play movies at 70 Mbps.

Sounds great thanks and looks like I'll be ordering a 2019 Pro once I've ruled out my own network being the cause of the problem.