Large files & remuxes buffer while streaming in the same network

[Sash]

Tone mapping is the process of gracefully converting HDR to SDR.  Jellyfin, currently, will always convert HDR to SDR when transcoding video.

Most browsers, including Opera and Chrome, can't play HEVC regardless if it is HDR or SDR.  So you are transcoding the video, but don't have tone mapping enabled, which is why the colors are washed out.

If you want to watch HDR on your desktop, you will need to use MPV Shim.

Even though Jellyfin Media Player can direct play HEVC, the way that the rendering engine works it will always locally tone map HDR to SDR.

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-mpv-shim

IIRC, there are a couple more steps after installing MPV Shim to get it to properly display HDR.  But I don't have an HDR monitor to verify.

So I realized that web browsers are not ideal for playing media on desktop, at least in my case. I was experiencing stutters while using web-ui. I also noted that network speeds caused stutter issues on my TV.

I unchecked every transcoding option and disabled hardware acceleration, and I wasn't able to play the same file 64Mb/s bitrate file on the web browser (the one that I shared mediainfo of in previous post), and my CPU was running at 100% while I was trying to play it. The same file worked flawlessly in the Jellyfin Media Player with the same settings. I'm not sure why it did that. 

My only concern is that will I be able to see the actual HDR10 without any tone mapping or transcoding enabled or does Jellyfin turns media to SDR when H/A and tone mapping is disabled? My assumption is that the files won't either play or if they do then the colors will be washed out. Also wanted to know if H/A impacts the quality of the videos.

I read the JF documentation regarding Hardware Acceleration and it has suggested to avoid H.264 / AVC 10-bit videos. I also assume that Dolby Vision videos would not play if Hardware Acceleration is disabled since my monitor doesn't support DoVi, but I take it that HDR10 would be playable since my monitor does support it, right? 

Thanks for the insight btw. I appreciate your help!

[TheDreadPirate]

So I realized that web browsers are not ideal for playing media on desktop....

...

I unchecked every transcoding option and disabled hardware acceleration, and I wasn't able to play the same file 64Mb/s bitrate file on the web browser (the one that I shared mediainfo of in previous post), and my CPU was running at 100% while I was trying to play it. The same file worked flawlessly in the Jellyfin Media Player with the same settings. I'm not sure why it did that. 

Your videos were HEVC.  The only browser I know of that actually plays HEVC is Microsoft Edge (requires extra software to make this happen).  Turning off all the hardware acceleration options will only result in CPU transcoding.  Which is very very demanding even at 1080P.

Re-enable NVENC hardware acceleration. Your GPU supports every codec EXCEPT AV1. Also enable tone mapping.

My only concern is that will I be able to see the actual HDR10 without any tone mapping or transcoding enabled or does Jellyfin turns media to SDR when H/A and tone mapping is disabled? My assumption is that the files won't either play or if they do then the colors will be washed out. Also wanted to know if H/A impacts the quality of the videos.

Read my previous post about using Jellyfin MPV Shim as the player on your desktop.

I read the JF documentation regarding Hardware Acceleration and it has suggested to avoid H.264 / AVC 10-bit videos. I also assume that Dolby Vision videos would not play if Hardware Acceleration is disabled since my monitor doesn't support DoVi, but I take it that HDR10 would be playable since my monitor does support it, right?

AVC 10-bit has nothing to do with HDR10 or Dolby Vision.  Ignore that part.  Hardware acceleration only comes into play if the client can't directly play the video.

Regarding your monitor's capabilities, my understanding is that it shouldn't matter since the player you use with Jellyfin would decode the HDR signal.  I might be wrong.  I'm still a bit of an HDR noob.  But, again, see my prior post about Jellyfin Media Player's limitations and suggestion you use MPV Shim.

[DazzlingTap2]

So assuming you want to playback your media on your PC on a HDR10 monitor (not TV).

I unchecked every transcoding option and disabled hardware acceleration, and I wasn't able to play the same file 64Mb/s bitrate file on the web browser (the one that I shared mediainfo of in previous post), and my CPU was running at 100% while I was trying to play it. The same file worked flawlessly in the Jellyfin Media Player (JMP) with the same settings. I'm not sure why it did that.

Since you said unchecked options and disabled HA, you probably didn't disable transcoding, just HA. Which is why on a browser where the 64Mb file isn't supported, jellyfin is transcoding the file, but you disabled HA so it's only using your CPU causing heavy usage. While in Jellyfin Media Player, the file is supported hence direct play.

My only concern is that will I be able to see the actual HDR10 without any tone mapping or transcoding enabled or does Jellyfin turns media to SDR when H/A and tone mapping is disabled? My assumption is that the files won't either play or if they do then the colors will be washed out. Also wanted to know if H/A impacts the quality of the videos.

I read the JF documentation regarding Hardware Acceleration and it has suggested to avoid H.264 / AVC 10-bit videos. I also assume that Dolby Vision videos would not play if Hardware Acceleration is disabled since my monitor doesn't support DoVi, but I take it that HDR10 would be playable since my monitor does support it, right?

If you PC/player software can playback HDR or can tone-map HDR to SDR, no server-side tonemapping™/transcoding from Jellyfin is needed. Tone-mapping is just a process that convert HDR video into SDR video, if you need to use the server for TM, you must have HA enabled. If you disable HA, you can't tonemap and likely your local player doesn't support HDR that's why colors are washed out? Any transcoding (except for direct streaming) convert the original video into another video HA or not, but the impact on quality should be negligible. 

Currently there is no way to get actual HDR on Windows if you're using JMP, it's always tonemapped to SDR by the player, unless you do some workaround which will break the player. The other user suggest MPV Shim which will work. Many other players VLC/Potplayer/MPC will do actual HDR just fine.

The H264/10-bit don't have much to do with Dolby Vision (DV). DV is a standard of HDR while H264 is a codec. Even though your monitor/Windows doesn't support DV, it will play fine, your player depending on your configuration will either tonemap it into SDR or standard HDR10. HDR10 would be playable with the right player.

In order to get MPV Shim working, you need to use an external MPV and edit config.json of MPV Shim to use it. And also need mpv.conf placed in %appdata%\mpv with these options
config.json

Code:

    "mpv_ext": true,
    "mpv_ext_ipc": "mpv",
    "mpv_ext_no_ovr": true,
    "mpv_ext_path": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\mpv\\mpv.exe",
    "mpv_ext_start": true,
    "mpv_log_level": "info",

mpv.conf

Code:

vo=gpu-next
gpu-api=vulkan #or gpu-api=d3d11
fullscreen=yes
target-colorspace-hint=yes

You can also put the following mpv.conf into a configuration section of JMP under Client Settings, however this workaround to get HDR working will spawn a new MPV player where you cannot control anything. Alternatively, there are third party scripts which allow you to play jellyfin content in any player installed on your PC. In that case, you'll need to configure your 3rd party player correctly, most popular player you are able to get real HDR working to your display, some even support DV (but as standard HDR).

[Efficient_Good_5784]

The only browser I know of that actually plays HEVC is Microsoft Edge (requires extra software to make this happen).

Brave (so should also include Chrome) can now also direct play HEVC. Most likely the reason Microsoft Edge can too since it's now built with Chrome in the background.
Just keep in mind everything else in the container has to be direct playable to avoid the transcode.

If it makes any difference, I have enabled the "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" option in the client display settings.

[Sash]

Your videos were HEVC.  The only browser I know of that actually plays HEVC is Microsoft Edge (requires extra software to make this happen).  Turning off all the hardware acceleration options will only result in CPU transcoding.  Which is very very demanding even at 1080P.

This makes sense and I believe that is what was happening. And as for the browsers I have given up on them because they will convert everything to SDR so it's not a good option. 

Right now, I have HDR10 enabled, I turned H/A on, and tone mapping with BT.2390 algorithm selected. Could you tell me by doing this are the videos still being tone mapped to SDR on JF player or am I seeing HDR? I don't see a difference in the colors even when I have tone mapping disabled, but H/A is something that I should leave on because my CPU obv won't be able to process these files even if JF Media Player supports them.

Regarding your monitor's capabilities, my understanding is that it shouldn't matter since the player you use with Jellyfin would decode the HDR signal.  I might be wrong.  I'm still a bit of an HDR noob.  But, again, see my prior post about Jellyfin Media Player's limitations and suggestion you use MPV Shim.

My monitor is able to handle HDR as I have been gaming with that on, and I can see a noticeable difference, but it's hard to tell with movies. I do use MPV player, I'm not sure if it is developed by the same people that made MPV Shim. MPV player is able to handle every format, and I'm not sure what it actually does to make everything work. I could stick with MPV player, but I honestly like using Jellyfin since I'm able to browser my entire collection on it and stream media across my devices. I also have MPC-BE, along with madVR & LAVfilters which also runs every format except for Dolby Vision. I think I have read somewhere that it won't support DoVi. 

AVC 10-bit has nothing to do with HDR10 or Dolby Vision.  Ignore that part.  Hardware acceleration only comes into play if the client can't directly play the video.

I know this, I mentioned DoVi because I wanted to know how JF handles that format. I turned off H/A and tried to play DoVi on JF player, but my cpu went crazy.

[Sash]

So assuming you want to playback your media on your PC on a HDR10 monitor (not TV).

Yes

Since you said unchecked options and disabled HA, you probably didn't disable transcoding, just HA. Which is why on a browser where the 64Mb file isn't supported, jellyfin is transcoding the file, but you disabled HA so it's only using your CPU causing heavy usage. While in Jellyfin Media Player, the file is supported hence direct play.

Yes, that is what I think happened, and how can I disable transcoding completely to do some tests? I did unchecked every option under Playback settings. 

you can't tonemap and likely your local player doesn't support HDR that's why colors are washed out?

I see that issue sometimes only with browsers. MPC-BE, and MPV are able to handle it but I think they tone map the videos because I have turn off HDR while using those two players or the picture becomes too bright. 

Currently there is no way to get actual HDR on Windows if you're using JMP, it's always tonemapped to SDR by the player, unless you do some workaround which will break the player. The other user suggest MPV Shim which will work. Many other players VLC/Potplayer/MPC will do actual HDR just fine.

The H264/10-bit don't have much to do with Dolby Vision (DV). DV is a standard of HDR while H264 is a codec. Even though your monitor/Windows doesn't support DV, it will play fine, your player depending on your configuration will either tonemap it into SDR or standard HDR10. HDR10 would be playable with the right player.

Ah, I see. I do use for MPV player for HDR10 and DoVi, but not sure how it process the media. Read my previous post about it. I have also attached a screenshot of the config I used for MPV. I also have MPC-BE with madVR & LAVFilters but DoVi doesn't work on it.

Thanks for sharing the config btw.

[Sash]

I installed Jellyfin MPV Shim and did the configuration that was mentioned in this post

1. I can play all formats on MPV Shim. 
2. When I cast videos using MPV Shim they are very stuttery, but when I use mpv.exe directly there is no stuttering or lag.

I disabled the transcoding in Jellyfin MPV Shim by right clicking on the taskbar tray icon, and then selecting "application menu" but it still caching and transcoding. 

Here are some videos of the issue

mpv: https://streamable.com/78qkx7
jellyfin shim cast: https://streamable.com/woucij

What could be causing the stutter?

[TheDreadPirate]

When you are playing in MPV Shim can you open task manager and check the CPU and GPU usage?

[Sash]

Here:

https://streamable.com/090qki

If I'm somehow able to open these videos on MPV without being casted then maybe I wouldn't have this issue.


I did look into this but the guide is very confusing.
https://github.com/kjtsune/embyToLocalPlayer

[TheDreadPirate]

How much of the directions provide by @DazzlingTap2 did you follow? I don't use MPV Shim myself, but I've seen this a couple of times and it required some reconfiguration to get MPV Shim to work smoothly.