.avi transcoding

[gnollo 17]

Good morning everyone. Is there a plan to stop avi being transcoded when using the Emby client on fire TV? I also tested playback via the browser on a PC, and it also kicks off transcoding. Using MRMC or Infuse for playback it does not cause transcoding, which means the video quality of the playback is far superior.

I prefer the functionality of the Emby client, of course, but anytime I play an old film, which is not in MKV format, it bothers me that I have to switch client to be able to enjoy it. And I do not want to re-encode all the avi's that I have in the library, as it will take me forever to do a/b comparisons before I delete the avi files. I already have a solution, I just don't want to abandon the Emby client just yet.

Thank you for your help on this one. 

[neik 873]

Emby is customizing their Exoplayer which will allow direct playing Avi files.

Iirc it will be in the next beta round of ATV.

[vdatanet 1617]

Exoplayer does not support avi container. Emby for Android Mobile beta has modified exoplayer to support avi direct play. It is assumed that sooner or later these changes will apply to the version for Android TV / Fire TV.

[vdatanet 1617]

1 minute ago, neik said:

Emby is customizing their Exoplayer which will allow direct playing Avi files.

Iirc it will be in the next beta round of ATV.

Writting the same at the same time but you have beaten me 

[gnollo 17]

Good point, I also have an ATV so I can test if I can replicate the issue there.

[ebr 16169]

8 hours ago, gnollo said:

which means the video quality of the playback is far superior.

The video quality should not be affected much by a simple container swap - which is all that should be needed depending on the contents of the AVI.  Can we look at a specific example?

[gnollo 17]

Sure. I also tested a mkv conversion of my fargo dvd. Also transcoding. Also macroblocking / tearing on both apple tv and fire tv. No transcoding with Infuse connected to the Emby server on the Apple TV. Do you want me to cut samples? What program shall I use and where do I post it?

[neik 873]

What is the codec of the video inside the avi?

If it's MPEG4, then transcoding is unavoidable with the current ATV version. To work around transcdoing I personally convert those files to h264 with the convert function of Emby.
Might also work for you...

Edited November 28, 2020 by neik

[gnollo 17]

1 hour ago, neik said:

What is the codec of the video inside the avi?

If it's MPEG4, then transcoding is unavoidable with the current ATV version. To work around transcdoing I personally convert those files to h264 with the convert function of Emby.
Might also work for you...

The codec for all my dvd rips according to Emby is mpeg2video. They are over 1000 mkv that I created from video_ts folders with makemkv once Emby stopped playing them. And I will have thousands of avi files across movies and TV series. I am not going to attempt to convert those files with the risk of drop in quality and potentially synch. It just doesn't make sense. I'll keep MRMC, which plays direct without transcoding, when I want to watch a movie or series that looks blotchy on Emby. I was wondering if there are plans to improve direct playback. I must not have had issues in the past as I used an HTPC, which now I have abandoned for Fire TV and ATV.

[Carlo 4560]

Hi, gnollo, if you don't mind me asking what GPU do you have in your system?

[gnollo 17]

Serverside? No GPU, only CPU. Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad Proccessor - 2.83 GHz,12MB L2 Cache,1333MHz FSB,Socket LGA775

[gnollo 17]

It's an unraid server, running only an emby docker

[Carlo 4560]

OK got ya.  What I was going to suggest wouldn't be good on that system.

[gnollo 17]

CPU usage transcoding an avi is under 30%. Does not explain the drop in quality on the screen. You can see that playing any avi on my system. And mkv made with makemkv from video_ts ripped folders

[Carlo 4560]

The drop in quality is likely do to it transcoding the video.  If it was a low bitrate file to begin with there isn't enough pixels and data present to pull off a "near" quality conversion.

[gnollo 17]

I seriously doubt it. The mkv files of the dvd are a straight copy of the dvd. No downconversion. The fargo MKV is over 4Gigs. It looks like I am streaming it across a 33.6 modem line. Instead I am on a Gigabit Lan.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Can you post a ffmpeg log for the item that is transcoding.  This will let us know what it transcoding to.

[Carlo 4560]

No need to guess, play it back and look at the console, stats for nerds or look for an ffmpeg log file generated during playback.  The log file won't lie.

But honestly I can't see how it could look different unless the video is transcoded.  If it direct plays or is just remuxed that won't change video quality.

[gnollo 17]

ffmpeg log for the avi fileffmpeg-transcode-e750dc55-e995-4902-9035-bdc1540cdc21_1.txt

[gnollo 17]

ffmpeg log for the mkv conversion of a dvd using makemkv

ffmpeg-transcode-ce9a0db0-829f-4d81-9786-98b1fa5b3408_1.txt

[Carlo 4560]

What device/app did you play these back on.  When you played them, what did stats for nerds tell you?

[gnollo 17]

I was using my laptop. Where do I find stats for nerds?

[pwhodges 2012]

Bring up the control bar, and click the cog icon at the right-hand end.

Paul

[gnollo 17]

Fargo

8.3
1996
Rated R
2:58
1:31:08
Ends at 11:52
Playback Info
Player:
Web Video Player
Play method:
Transcode
Protocol:
http
Stream type:
HLS
Video Info
Video resolution:
1024x576
Dropped frames:
17
Corrupted frames:
0
Transcoding Info
Video codec:
H264
Audio codec:
MP3
Bitrate:
566 kbps
Transcoding progress:
6.6%
Transcoding framerate:
52 fps
Reason for transcoding:
Subtitle format not supported
Original Media Info
Container:
mkv
Bitrate:
6.0 Mbps
Video codec:
MPEG2VIDEO Main
Video bitrate:
6.0 Mbps
Video framerate:
25 fps
Audio codec:
AC3
Audio bitrate:
448 kbps
Audio channels:
6
Audio sample rate:
48000 Hz

[Carlo 4560]

They are transcoding because "Subtitle format not supported" per the SFN (stats for nerds) screen.