The issue DOES NOT happen for 1080P h.265 HEVC encoded videos, or 4K h.265 HEVC encoded videos. I can fast forward and rewind with zero issues. But, weirdly, the smaller videos REFUSE to Fast Forward/Rewind. All of the videos in question are in MKV containers. MP4 encoded videos playback fine, and can fast forward and rewind.
Here are the 2 most recent logs from the server. You can see the playback starting and stopping in the logs as I try to fast forward and rewind an episode of Spin City. Same issue happens on another 480P HEVC encoded video as well. But the 1080P video and the 4K videos I tested both played fine, and fast forward and rewind find as well.
Okay, well in that case, no it didn't generate any ffmpeg logs. Only logs in the logs view in the emby admin control panel are are insane number of hardware detection logs (why on earth does it need to scan the hardware that often?) and the occasional emby server playback logs.
I just now went and checked the physical logs location as well, just to be sure, but %appdata%\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\logs doesn't have the ffmpeg logs in some hidden state now showing in the dashboard.
From File Explorer you should be able to sort by date and that will show the most recent files at the top. If you play something that generates an ffmpeg log file it would be right at the top likely next to the currently written server log file.
My guess is these are MKV which have a compressed header or have put chapters at the end. You might have to simply Remux those MKV with MKVToolNix GUI or run them through MKClean. That should clean up the headers. That is all this is. The Roku is imcompatible with the media because it cannot read the header of the MKV to determine the runtime correctly.
We cannot detect in the application when headers are this way. We do not know what the Roku does not like about those headers. We assume it will play correctly and DirectPlay just fine. In this case that isn't happening and we do not know what the Roku dislikes about certain MKV headers just that it is a fact. Running the MKV through MKClean or MKVToolNix GUI will solve your problem guaranteed.
You can also use "Attempt Playback Correction" to force the container to change to TS and remux both streams directly but that will DirectStream instead of DirectPlay. It still will copy both video/audio and any other streams but the container will change from MKV and use segmented TS inside an m3u8 manifest using HLS.
I am trying to find where on earth I can check the stats for nerds setting. But I am not finding that setting in any of the settings menus. As soon as I figure out where it is, I will turn it on and tell you what it says
Play any item. Once the video player takes over press down on your Roku remote. The video player OSD (on screen display) appears. On the OSD find the cog/gear and click it once. It will open the "Playback Menu". Inside this menu will allow you to change behavior of the video player on-the-fly during playback. Using "stats for nerds" will be persistent for the session. That means once you turn on stats for nerds it remains on until you turn it off, log off as that user, or exit the app. This way you can use it to solve issues or check things during playback without having to toggle the setting every time.
I apologize we don't make this easier to discover these settings. We need to do better and provide some one-time tips for users to discover these things more intuitively without having to be told to look for them.
Interestingly, I tried the "attempt playback correction (remux)" option up on the screen, let is buffer for a second, THEN tried to FF/rewind and it worked fine. So ... yeah, not sure what is wrong. I am using the same exact process to generate the 480P MKV HEVC-encoded files as I am for their 1080P and 4K bretheren. It's weird to me that the little files are the ones having problems o_O
I examined one of the MKV files in question in the MKVToolNix tool, and the headers seemed more verbose than they needed to be (since I have no idea what they are supposed to look like, that is the best description I can provide). So I then downloaded the MKClean tool which was recommended, and did a test run of the tool on a copy of one of the MKVs. It did its thing and then generated a "clean" version of the MKV, which I renamed back to the original name, and copied that back to the Media NAS, replacing the older version.
I then ran another test, and sure enough, THAT particular MKV is now able to FF/rewind without any issues. Any of its neighbors in the same folder though -- still behaving exactly the same as before. I COULD use the "fix playback (remux)" option (which I didn't know about until today), on a per-file basis, but I think I will just solve the problem once and for all and "clean" all of the problem MKVs and be done with it.
My sincere thanks to @Speechles, @Cayars, and @ebr for your help with this. And, as promised, I will be upgrading to a "premiere" membership this month as a thank you to the team
One question before I do that, I see one of the "benefits" of Premiere is offline file backups for Emby files. I am data capped and DO NOT want it to do that. Can I turn that off?
Nothing to worry about. Unless you configure converting/backing up files including the location nothing will happen automatically.
You have nothing to worry about data cap wise with any feature like this.
What I'm referring to is the configuration backup plugin from the catalog, which copies the the system config files and a few core Emby things, not your media or large amounts of data. You can write this to any other drive in your system.plugin.
"If you're already a Verizon customer, your video resolution will be reduced to 720p on phones and 1080p on tablets whether you have a limited or unlimited data plan. Customers who purchase any Verizon limited plan in the future will see the same restrictions.
I have stuck with Verizon a long time and I am and have always been a power user. I am part of that 2% in all honesty. However, I have always been willing to pay to get the data the way I want it, when I want it. I love the Verizon network and have been with them for over 15 years. I understand the network congestion and need to provide balanced service, but this is not the best solution by any metric. This is directly going to affect innovation. I mean, what about the further development of virtual reality and virtual augmented services over the smart phone. This is an issue and I want to know what is the best way to contest this direction.
Looking for ideas and thoughts. Also, this doesn't just affect power users like me, but think about the regular customers who want to adopt the latest technologies. They will be limited and the option will not be there for them. This is truly a direction I do not desire for Verizon. This is just asking for a competitor to come with a forward thinking philosophy.
I tend to pick it up in the refresh rate and crispness. Especially since I tend to run other applications in the background. The bandwidth cap during video sessions are vary likely to have cascading issues
It's not difficult to see the difference between 720p and 1080p on a smartphone, when you use even a phone with a 1440p display made three years ago. More than likely they are catering to the common denominator, which is the iPhone, where the difference between 720p and 1080p is only seen if you have the "Plus" model of the device, because the "Plus" model has a 1080p effective display. Even then, the phone won't go above a certain quality because the YouTube and Netflix apps choose their quality based on best fit without downscaling. Meaning, 720p on a phone, and 1080p on a tablet such as the iPad.
Content which used to be able to be played at a conceivably smooth 60FPS on a phone, is now a more blurred mess, as a native 60FPS Stream at 720p, or 1080p, now must be reduced to half the framerate of it's original broadcast quality. Which brings it down to something worse than interlaced broadcast TV. A lot of content I enjoy on my phone when traveling, is now just a blurry... and as a gamer like I would say, an unwatchable mess because of this. Because of frame loss.
Anyways. I'm going to sleuth some more data out of what exactly Verizon is throttling tomorrow. If I come across anything blatant there's going to be a nice write-up on it. If YouTube runs like garbage yet I can pull higher bitrates from AOL or Yahoo video streams, that's going to make an interesting headline.
Been getting tired of the big red for some time and I'm a long time customer. No, I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080 on a 5-6 in phone screen, but I sure as [Removed] can tell the difference when it goes to 480. It seems all the carriers have acceptable or close to acceptable calling. All they seem to focus on now days is data and are doing everything they can to stretch the advertising verbiage to suit their needs. Root metric, speed test, or any other, I give a [Removed]. I care about real time use in areas that I travel. Having been testing t-mobile and at&t phones in my area of use, and right now, Verizon is at the bottom of the heap. As I own my unlocked phones, I'll shortly be making a move.
I just switched from 12yrs of AT&T to verzion 90 days ago. Paid for multiple S8+ flagship phones, five lines. Now they are changing the deal. These phones were bought for video and screen quality and with this change they will never live up to the full potential I paid for and pay for each month on the device contract. Seems there should be some consumer recourse based on how your locked to device payments and service offered at time of entering into that agreement.
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