AV1 with 7.1 audio fails to play on Roku app

[dthree]

This is a bit of a mystery. I just started experimenting with AV1 encoding, which plays very well on the Roku Ultra, however I had trouble with some files containing 7.1 audio. The Roku app refuses to play AV1/7.1 files encoded in either flac or aac. This is on a 5.1 system, but other formats never fail to downmix automatically via direct stream. It will play files in HEVC/7.1 and it will play AV1/5.1 so I'm not sure how to troubleshoot.

The log shows:

Code:

[2024-10-11 13:45:01.262 -04:00] [INF] [48] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: User policy for "dthree_JF". EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
[2024-10-11 13:45:01.262 -04:00] [INF] [48] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: RemoteClientBitrateLimit: 20000000, RemoteIP: "10.0.0.29", IsInLocalNetwork: True
[2024-10-11 13:45:01.589 -04:00] [INF] [56] Emby.Server.Implementations.Session.SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app "Jellyfin Roku" "2.1.7" playing "MOVIE". Stopped at "0" ms
[2024-10-11 13:45:47.783 -04:00] [INF] [16] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: User policy for "dthree_JF". EnablePlaybackRemuxing: True EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: True EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: True
[2024-10-11 13:45:47.783 -04:00] [INF] [16] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: RemoteClientBitrateLimit: 20000000, RemoteIP: "10.0.0.29", IsInLocalNetwork: True
[2024-10-11 13:45:48.235 -04:00] [INF] [56] Emby.Server.Implementations.Session.SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app "Jellyfin Roku" "2.1.7" playing "MOVIE". Stopped at "0" ms

It doesn't create a transcode log. Not sure what to try next.

[TheDreadPirate]

I'm assuming both the AV1 and HEVC files have AAC 7.1, correct? Or the same audio codec. And are both in the same container type?

[vanon]

I've also noticed this AV1 + 7.1 audio problem on Roku (Ultra 4802X here). 8 channel audio (AAC/OPUS) fails to play with AV1 (MKV) on Jellyfin (same results with Plex). This problem has persisted, and after posting on various forums (here & here) without much luck, I finally assumed the source of the problem was Roku or device, and moved to Android (ONN Google TV 4K Pro).

I'm fairly new to Jellyfin, but have found their AV1 support to be outstanding (on Android, playing files that Plex and others will not). Which gives me more confidence that this problem is out of their hands. But would love to be wrong and see it fixed somehow.

[TheDreadPirate]

One issue is that Roku, for whatever reason, only supports stereo OPUS. If you don't have audio transcoding enabled, that would fail to play.

[dthree]

I'm assuming both the AV1 and HEVC files have AAC 7.1, correct?  Or the same audio codec.  And are both in the same container type?

Well, now my tests are giving different results, plus there was an update to the Roku app so I have to start from scratch. I'll come back to it over the weekend.

One issue is that Roku, for whatever reason, only supports stereo OPUS.  If you don't have audio transcoding enabled, that would fail to play.

A related issue I had posted in the forums a while back was with AV1/OPUS files. Jellyfin would transcode the audio AND video even though it only needed to transcode the audio. It's still doing this in the current version.

[dthree]

One issue is that Roku, for whatever reason, only supports stereo OPUS.  If you don't have audio transcoding enabled, that would fail to play.

Just tried a video with AV1/OPUS 5.1 on the Roku: direct play with no issues.

[dthree]

Latest I've seen on AV1 and Roku. There was a ticket for improved AV1 support on the Roku app, with some users having similar problems with audio transcoding which was "fixed" in the update this week. Well, now it just doesn't play the transcoded audio at all and still unnecessarily transcodes the video. Progress!

Meanwhile, I've spent some quality time with ffmpeg downmixing all my AV1/7.1 files to 5.1 as a workaround.