Force Trasnscoding or Disable DirectPlay / x265 Stuttering (FireTV)

[zeegy.net]

Hi all,

TLDR?
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Is there any way, to enforce transcoding videos (ideally to a specific account or device) regardless of whether the playback supports the codec or not?
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I skimmed through a good number of pages, and conducted some searches to see if anyone else has a solution for me. to no avail, so posting to see if anyone else has the same issue.

I have a Windows Server for Jellyfin server, I also have a Quadro card installed for transcoding (both for Jellyfin and Tdarr)

Most of the content is streamed to an Amazon TV, with the Jellyfin app installed.

Since running tdarr, most of my content is now X265, rather than x264. when viewing videos, they will play, but feel like <10fps. GPU load on server is none, suggesting the direct play is used.

IF i drop the bitrate to 1Mbps (yes i know) THEN, the transcoding occurs and framerate is perfect, but naturally, quality is rubbish
Setting to even 2Mbps goes back into Direct Play mode, especially for x265 720p content, as an example.

As the Fire TV, is closed source, i see no way, or available options to disable to x265 compatibility.
Same issue appears with the app, and the silk browser.


Is there any way, to enforce transcoding videos (ideally to a specific account or device) regardless of whether the playback supports the codec or not?

[TheDreadPirate]

Negatory. What you've described is the only way I am aware of. What kind of Fire TV is this and what resolution is the video?

It would have to be a pretty old FireTV to not support HEVC.

When you play this file in other devices, are they also direct playing there? Or are they transcoding or remuxing?

[zeegy.net]

Negatory.  What you've described is the only way I am aware of.  What kind of Fire TV is this and what resolution is the video?

It would have to be a pretty old FireTV to not support HEVC.

When you play this file in other devices, are they also direct playing there?  Or are they transcoding or remuxing?

Thanks for the response, The TV is a JVC Fire TV, not very old at all, 6 months at most.
Spec of problematic video is 1920 x 960, HEVC. Content bit-rate is around 900 - 1400 kb/s

It does support it (and plays), but some x265 videos, it clearly is struggling with playback and the FPS noticeably drops. This is why, I would like to set a preference for a user, or a device to transcode, regardless of the source file to get around this. 

Direct play is working fine elsewhere, (on my Google Pixel 7 pro mobile, as an example) so I know the issue is not with the video, but the TV struggling with this codec.

I appreciate the response

[zeegy.net]

so, playing with this in a little more depth, it seems to be that HEVC works fine for videos with single Audio streams, IF the video has more than one audio option (this example file has Korean and English audio options) then, the performance starts to tank.

[TheDreadPirate]

Are you certain it is the decoding performance? Or is it network performance? Is the video stuttering or buffering?

When it is direct playing, Jellyfin sends the entire file. Including any audio tracks you aren't playing. When it is transcoding or remuxing it is only sending the audio stream you're actually listening to.

[zeegy.net]

I am confident that network performance is not an issue, the video is using at most, 1.5 Mbits, both the TV and the server are on the same network, same subnet and are 1Gb throughout.

The audio channel that is being used in my instances are the second audio channel, does this mean that it is likely to be remuxing? i assume, that, it is not transcoding, as i am not witnessing any gpu load.

that said, the same video, on an android device on the same network doesnt exhibit the same issues - something is odd there.

maybe i should remove all, bar one audio channel from a video and test direct play again?

[TheDreadPirate]

It is possible that the SoC in the JVC TV just isn't up to snuff. Smart features in TVs are treated as a box to be checked. Even in some of the high end TVs my friends and family have bought, they are several Android versions behind, the amount of RAM isn't great, the SoC is a few years old, they're full of ads, and so on.

One thing you can try is to uninstall as many unused apps as possible. And I'm not sure if FireOS has an "app only" mode, but enable it if it does. All of this reduces memory usage and background apps consuming precious little CPU resources.