How to set up a non-transcoding playback?

[Henkmeister 3]

I just got my Emby ready and I have a DuneHD 4K II for playback. It seems the server (witch is not that beefy) tries to transcode the video even tho there would be plenty of horsepower on the Dune to playback the full stream.

Can the transcoding be somehow by-passed for a certain playback device?

Dune uses the Emby Android app for the client.

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Henkmeister

[Luke 42078]

Hi, yes, if you play media that the device supports naitvely, then no transcoding will be needed.

What does the DuneHD 4K II support?

[Happy2Play 9780]

We would also need to see the ffmpeg log for this playback session to know why it happened.

[Henkmeister 3]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, yes, if you play media that the device supports naitvely, then no transcoding will be needed.

What does the DuneHD 4K II support?

Video file formats: MKV, MPEG-TS, MPEG-PS, M2TS, VOB, AVI, MOV, MP4, QT, ASF, WMV, BD ISO, BDMV, DVD-ISO, VIDEO_TS

Video codecs: MPEG2, MPEG4, XVID, WMV9, VC1, H.264, H.265, H.265 10-bit, VP9, VP9 profile 2; support for very high bitrate video up to 100 Mbit/s and higher

 

2 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

We would also need to see the ffmpeg log for this playback session to know why it happened.

I've been testing this with my PC and yes, it does try to transcode because I only have an i5 NUC (but it does play everything without a problem when streaming straight from the server to MPC-BE). Earlier my DuneHD did show that loading circle, but now when I press "Play" the whole player freezes and needs a reboot.

Because of this there is no ffmpeg log for it.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Henkmeister

[Happy2Play 9780]

But ffmpeg is still need or server log for a specific item as 4k will transcode if all codecs video/audio and subtitles are not directplayable.

[Henkmeister 3]

And with a little more testing I managed to narrow it to some titles.

On the Android Client when I click some thumbnails it goes to this details view, but on some it just opens a grey menu that has Play etc. options. And in this grey menu if I select Play it freezes.

I think it might have something to do with when I first scraped the details and I understood that the files need to be in folders or else the posters etc. will be all over the place. So then I just put them in folders and deleted the .jpgs. After this there were blanc thumbnails eventho I checked they have poster arts. Could there be somekind of broken paths?

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  Can we please look at the details of an example?

 

[jrwalte 17]

You didn't mention what audio codecs are supported. It may be the device doesn't support TrueHD and with some movies you copied the AC3 core and others you did not. The ones you didn't copy the AC3 core would then require a transcode. But the ffmpeg log would tell the team for sure.

[Henkmeister 3]

Thank you so much for the suggestions @Happy2Play and @ebr.

For some reason now with just watching short clips from here and there, it seems to work.

But this menu in the attachement still pops up ramdomly and does not open the details page nor does it play the movie. Then after a while it is ok. What could cause this?

 

And to @jrwalte, this player has a good selection of audio codecs too:

Audio codecs: MPEG-1/2 layer I/II/III, AAC, LPCM, WMA, WMAPro, FLAC, multichannel FLAC, Vorbis, WavPack, APE (Monkey's Audio), ALAC (Apple lossless), SACD DSD (stereo), AC3, DTS

Audio file formats: MP3, MPA, M4A, AAC, WAV, WMA, FLAC, Ogg/Vorbis, WavPack, APE (Monkey's Audio), ALAC (Apple lossless), SACD ISO (stereo), SACD DSF (stereo), SACD DFF (stereo), AC3, DTS, DTS-WAV

 

[jrwalte 17]

I see it is missing TrueHD and DTS-HD, which are the formats used for 4k UHD. If you don't also copy the 'core' DD/DTS, then you'd be forced to transcode.

Edited February 15, 2021 by jrwalte

[ebr 16184]

Are you using a standard remote?  IR or BT?  That menu is produced by long-pressing on an item.

[Henkmeister 3]

8 minutes ago, jrwalte said:

I see it is missing TrueHD and DTS-HD, which are the formats used for 4k UHD. If you don't also copy the 'core' DD/DTS, then you'd be forced to transcode.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I use downmix for those.

8 minutes ago, ebr said:

Are you using a standard remote?  IR or BT?  That menu is produced by long-pressing on an item.

Yes, I use the standard IR remote. Is this feature possible to bypass somehow? I don't feel I press the button that long.

 

And.. Thank you for this great service. I feel I will be very happy after I get through all this noobie stuff.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Henkmeister

[ebr 16184]

3 minutes ago, Henkmeister said:

Is this feature possible to bypass somehow?

No, it is not.  On the device home screen do you find it sometimes popping up a menu too?  The long-press for a menu is standard behavior on Android TV.

[Henkmeister 3]

Yes, I believe I have seen it. But it is not a biggie, so thank you for this!

[ebr 16184]

I guess we should add an "open" option to the menu...

[Henkmeister 3]

20 minutes ago, ebr said:

I guess we should add an "open" option to the menu...

Yes, replace the "Play" with "Open". Or atleast put it on top.

[Spaceboy 2573]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

I guess we should add an "open" option to the menu...

if you want to add an open option for people with faulty remotes then i guess thats ok. however, it should neither replace play nor be placed at the top. play is needed for those people that don't have fauly remotes but don't have a play button, a far higher number seeing as this is the first time this problem has come up.