SOLVED: Direct Play Issues for Fire TV Stick 4K Max

[hov]

Hi I currently have issues direct playing certain 4K movie files on Jellyfin. I use an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max with Jellyfin installed through Amazon's app store. I believe this hardware is capable of video playing this file, but even if direct play fails there is no transcoding that is done as a fallback. My current server is capable of transcoding a few streams as welll. Please assist in any solutions for this issue.

Below is the following info/logs:

Logs:

• FFmpeg.Transcode-2023-07-03_21-24-15_eae72f4ff67b90bbaba103e591edce8a_e35abd38.log (I have like 10+ variants of this ffmpeg log, this is the latest one)
  
• log_20230703.log (I tried to press play multiple times, so may be a few lines repeated in this log)
  

Media Info of file that can't be played:

Code:

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (2160p BluRay x265 10bit HDR Tigole)
Container: mkv
Path: /14TB/downloads/4K/Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (2160p BluRay x265 HEVC 10bit HDR AAC 7.1 Tigole)/Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (2160p BluRay x265 10bit HDR Tigole).mkv
Size: 15547 MB

Video
Title: 4K HEVC HDR
Codec: HEVC
Profile: Main 10
Level: 150
Resolution: 3840x1636
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Interlaced: No
Framerate: 23.976025
Bitrate: 18851 kbps
Bit depth: 10 bit
Video range: HDR
Video range type: HDR10
Color space: bt2020nc
Color transfer: smpte2084
Color primaries: bt2020
Pixel format: yuv420p10le
Ref frames: 1

Audio
Title: Eng - AAC - 7.1 - Default
Language: eng
Codec: AAC
Profile: LC
Layout: 7.1
Channels: 8 ch
Bitrate: 815 kbps
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Default: Yes
Forced: No
External: No

Subtitle
Title: Tha - SUBRIP - External
Language: tha
Codec: SUBRIP
Default: No
Forced: No
External: Yes

Subtitle
Title: Eng - SUBRIP - External
Language: eng
Codec: SUBRIP
Default: No
Forced: No
External: Yes
Video
Title: 4K HEVC HDR
Codec: HEVC
Profile: Main 10
Level: 150
Resolution: 3840x1636
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Interlaced: No
Framerate: 23.976025
Bitrate: 18851 kbps
Bit depth: 10 bit
Video range: HDR
Video range type: HDR10
Color space: bt2020nc
Color transfer: smpte2084
Color primaries: bt2020
Pixel format: yuv420p10le
Ref frames: 1

Audio
Title: Eng - AAC - 7.1 - Default
Language: eng
Codec: AAC
Profile: LC
Layout: 7.1
Channels: 8 ch
Bitrate: 815 kbps
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Default: Yes
Forced: No
External: No

[TheDreadPirate]

Code:

( PlayMethod=Transcode, TranscodeReason=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit )

Looks like there are possibly two issues. As far as I can tell, your GPU does not support transcoding 10 bit color AND HDR video. Looks like one or the other but not both. And that the above log line says that it is transcoding in the first place due to some bitrate limit. Are you globally limiting bit rates? Or limiting bitrate to this particular device?

[hov]

Code:

( PlayMethod=Transcode, TranscodeReason=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit )

Looks like there are possibly two issues.  As far as I can tell, your GPU does not support transcoding 10 bit color AND HDR video.  Looks like one or the other but not both.  And that the above log line says that it is transcoding in the first place due to some bitrate limit.  Are you globally limiting bit rates?  Or limiting bitrate to this particular device?

So after browsing my Jellyfin Android TV app settings, I do see that the Max Streaming Bitrate in the Playback settings option was set to Auto. Do you happen to know how Auto is defined?

I will try changing it to 120Mbit/s (the highest allowed). Hopefully my fire tv stick 4k max can direct play. This movie file is like 18Mbit bit rate.

[TheDreadPirate]

Code:

( PlayMethod=Transcode, TranscodeReason=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit )

Looks like there are possibly two issues.  As far as I can tell, your GPU does not support transcoding 10 bit color AND HDR video.  Looks like one or the other but not both.  And that the above log line says that it is transcoding in the first place due to some bitrate limit.  Are you globally limiting bit rates?  Or limiting bitrate to this particular device?

So after browsing my Jellyfin Android TV app settings, I do see that the Max Streaming Bitrate in the Playback settings option was set to Auto. Do you happen to know how Auto is defined?

I will try changing it to 120Mbit/s (the highest allowed). Hopefully my fire tv stick 4k max can direct play. This movie file is like 18Mbit bit rate.

Looking at the Fire Stick specs, it definitely should be able to direct play.  I'm wondering if this is a client side bug or something.  Let us know if specifying the max bit rate changes anything.  I don't have any 10 bit HDR content, but when I play content via the Android TV app on my Chromecast with Google TV it direct streams.

Also, is "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" checked in the Playback settings of your Fire Stick?

[hov]

Code:

( PlayMethod=Transcode, TranscodeReason=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit )

Looks like there are possibly two issues.  As far as I can tell, your GPU does not support transcoding 10 bit color AND HDR video.  Looks like one or the other but not both.  And that the above log line says that it is transcoding in the first place due to some bitrate limit.  Are you globally limiting bit rates?  Or limiting bitrate to this particular device?

So after browsing my Jellyfin Android TV app settings, I do see that the Max Streaming Bitrate in the Playback settings option was set to Auto. Do you happen to know how Auto is defined?

I will try changing it to 120Mbit/s (the highest allowed). Hopefully my fire tv stick 4k max can direct play. This movie file is like 18Mbit bit rate.

Looking at the Fire Stick specs, it definitely should be able to direct play.  I'm wondering if this is a client side bug or something.  Let us know if specifying the max bit rate changes anything.  I don't have any 10 bit HDR content, but when I play content via the Android TV app on my Chromecast with Google TV it direct streams.

Also, is "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" checked in the Playback settings of your Fire Stick?

Can confirm that changing to 120Mbit/s now allows direct play for this movie. Thank you again for the assistance.

I can't find "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" in my Jellyfin android tv app. Where is this?

[TheDreadPirate]

.....

I can't find "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" in my Jellyfin android tv app. Where is this?

Ignore that.  I just checked and that is not an available option in the Android TV app.  Just the full Android and desktop app.

Glad to hear manually specifying a max bitrate helped.  You should definitely submit an issue on the github.

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/issues

[thornbill]

The default bitrate for the Android TV app has been 120Mbps for a long time now because the automatic detection is known not to be reliable.

[tomstephens89]

Are you actually able to use the firestick 4K max anymore?

Ive just got one and am suffering major issues:

https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-firestick-4...jor-issues