SOLVED: Playback looks worse through Jellyfin than VLC

[bigdrock44]

I'm setting up my Jellyfin server for the first time, and I'm noticing that the quality of my movies is much worse than when I directly play the file through Windows Explorer using VLC.

For some background, I'm mostly noticing it with my DVD rips. The files in question were originally just ISOs which I converted to MKV. No compression has been done to them at this point. Playback is currently through the web browser. My PC is connected via ethernet to the same network as my server (Synology DS923+). I do not have hardware transcoding enabled due to the lack of a iGPU on the DS923+. However, it is my understanding that this should not be a major issue because A) the content is low res, B) I'm accessing the files locally, and C) there is low traffic on this server (it's just me).

Originally, I thought the poor quality was simply due to these being low resolution, but when I do a side by side comparison between the web app and directly playing the file through Windows Explorer using VLC, the quality is noticeably worse.

Hoping some of you can help me troubleshoot this further. This is all relatively new to me, so apologies if I haven't provided enough enough or some of my assumptions are incorrect. Happy to post any logs that would be helpful.

[crobibero]

Sounds like Jellyfin is transcoding the file to a supported format. When playing the file through Jellyfins web client you can hit the gear and open Playback Info, or look in the logs directory to see if there is a file that starts with ffmpeg

[bigdrock44]

That's what I was thinking as well. I missed the playback info button though. Now, I can see that it is indeed transcoding because "the video's bitrate exceeds the limit". The original is 7.2Mbps while the transcoded video is 3Mbps.

So I guess the next question is, is there a way to increase the bitrate limit? When I go to Settings → Playback, the max that I see for 480p is 3Mbps. If that's already the max, would I benefit from processing these MKVs through Handbrake ahead of time? I'm wondering if I'd see better results transcoding them myself rather than relying on Jellyfin to transcode them for me.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

You can try using either MPV Shim or the Jellyfin Media Player clients to direct play them.

At least with MPV Shim, you can edit the mpv.conf file it uses to change the max bitrate allowed.

As for transcoding beforehand, it depends on what settings and codec you use to get it under the 3Mbps limit.

[TheDreadPirate]

That's what I was thinking as well. I missed the playback info button though. Now, I can see that it is indeed transcoding because "the video's bitrate exceeds the limit". The original is 7.2Mbps while the transcoded video is 3Mbps.

So I guess the next question is, is there a way to increase the bitrate limit? When I go to Settings → Playback, the max that I see for 480p is 3Mbps. If that's already the max, would I benefit from processing these MKVs through Handbrake ahead of time? I'm wondering if I'd see better results transcoding them myself rather than relying on Jellyfin to transcode them for me.

Is your client an Android TV device?  The auto bit rate detection is not great.  Most people set the "max bit rate" to the highest (120Mbps) to get around the issue you are desribing.

[bigdrock44]

After doing some more digging and research, I think I'm slowly getting my brain wrapped around all this. It looks like all these old DVD rips are MPEG2VIDEO inside of MKV containers. I was initially viewing these on Chrome and Firefox. Looking at the codec support table (https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/client...c-support/), I don't see MPEG2 listed, but I'm guessing it's not supported hence the need for transcoding.

Realistically, I'll be consuming this media mainly on iOS and Android TV (Amazon Fire Stick 4K), so I can live with it transcoding for web clients. If I really want to watch on my PC, I'll just use Jellyfin Media Player.

Is there a way to view "Playback Info" on iOS and Android TV? I don't think it's transcoding for those devices, but I'd like to confirm. I'm also trying to decide if there will be any benefit to transcode my library to H.265 to avoid Jellyfin having to transcode for me. If I decide to go this route, it will be many hours of transcoding time. The reduction in file size alone may be worth it, but I want to make sure I fully understand the consequences of that before committing to it.

EDIT: I answered my question "Is there a way to view 'Playback Info' on iOS and Android TV" by going to Dashboard and clicking the "i" button on my various playback devices. Looks like direct play is working for iOS and Android TV which is great. That said, is there any pros/cons transcoding my library to H.265, other than the obvious space savings it would create?

[TheDreadPirate]

EDIT: I answered my question "Is there a way to view 'Playback Info' on iOS and Android TV" by going to Dashboard and clicking the "i" button on my various playback devices. Looks like direct play is working for iOS and Android TV which is great. That said, is there any pros/cons transcoding my library to H.265, other than the obvious space savings it would create?

Only if you have a lot of devices that don't support H265 that would require a lot of transcoding.  But it's been around for a while so anything relatively recent will support direct playing it.

[bigdrock44]

Thanks! I'll go ahead and mark this one as resolved. Thanks guys!