SOLVED: 4K HEVC on 1080P Roku

[wenzelja]

Playing a 4K HEVC SDR FILE on 1080P Roku

I’m having troubles playing this file on my Roku. I’ve enabled hardware transcoding using Intel QSV and HEVC checked in options, but the movie only plays a few seconds at a time then pauses, loads, plays, then pauses repeatedly. How can I get this to play smoothly. What settings in the Roku player can I use to help this along? There are a few settings in the Roku Jellyfin app for HEVC decoding, just not sure what to select/unselect.

Movie plays fine on my iPhone 14 after an initial loading delay, but doesn’t pause unless I hit the pause button. I’m using Streamyfin and Swiftfin as my apps for testing, but planning to go strictly with Streamyfin when rolling out for public (I.e. my wife) use.

I haven’t tried anything else client-wise, though I do have a 4k TCL Roku TV I can try.

Server is Windows 11 running on 12Gen Core i7 w/ 16GB RAM and UHD770 graphics. Roku is a Premiere+ and TV is a 1080p Samsung.

P.S. the movie is a straight mux (no edits, transcodes, etc.) from a 4K Blu-ray ISO file.

[TheDreadPirate]

Can you share your logs via pastebin? Is it possible the connection speed isn't fast enough? 4K remuxes need 75+Mbps. Usually more since Jellyfin needs to buffer.

[wenzelja]

My router is an AC2400 and my isp is 300 up/down.

[rezseeker]

I had the same buffering issue with 4k footage and a Roku Premiere 4k stick. Couldn't for the life of me find a fix in various Jellyfin settings though I have plenty of bandwidth.
I also have a Google Chromecast with Google TV 4k. The Google device has no problem at all with any of my 4k content.

[wenzelja]

I don't have the 4K Premiere, just the regular HD Premiere+. So, I get that the server will have to transcode the 4K stream, but this makes the movie un-watchble with this behavior.

P.S. @TheDreadPirate, I did not get a chance to get my server logs, but I don't know how to use Pastebin.

[TheDreadPirate]

You open your logs either in a browser or in a text editor, copy, go to pastebin.com, paste, save, it creates a link that you share here.

[wenzelja]

@TheDreadPirate

Let me know what you find from this:

https://pastebin.com/h5VBmVgB

P.S. I checked my router and Dynamic QoS was turned on, though I thought I turned it off since it does nothing nowadays. After turning it off and rebooting the router, I initiated a new viewing of the movie (picking up where I left off yesterday. Stuttering, freezing, and video artifacts are still present, but it seems to have improved marginally. Here's the log on this latest transcode session:

https://pastebin.com/QNpEWean

[wenzelja]

In the client Roku Jellyfin app settings, there are 2 settings related to HEVC:

Playback->Compatibility->Disable HEVC “Disable the HEVC codec on this device. This may improve playback for some devices (ultra).” I have this set as Enabled. I tried Disabled, but no difference in playback.

Playback->Video Profile Level Support->HEVC “Attempt Direct Play for HEVC media with unsupported profile levels before falling back to transcoding if it fails. “ I have this set as enabled. Disabled again had no difference in playback

[TheDreadPirate]

Both of those videos are being transcoded to 1080P H264, so the two settings you toggled wouldn't have made a difference.

Long shot, is your CPU overclocked? Memory overclocked?

[wenzelja]

Both of those videos are being transcoded to 1080P H264, so the two settings you toggled wouldn't have made a difference.

Long shot, is your CPU overclocked?  Memory overclocked?

@TheDreadPirate
No overclocking on either CPU, iGPU, or Memory.  

I can certainly understand transcoding to 1080P, since the Roku and TV are both only 1080p.  Shouldn't it be able to leave it as HEVC/H265, and just downscale the resolution from 2160p, or am I understanding that incorrectly, and transcoding to H264 is normal/expected behavior?