Jellyfin Android TV playback problems

[justasking2025]

Hello,

I'd like someone to confirm my findings while I was trying to solve some issues with my Jellyfin setup.

So, I have a JF server on Synology DS218+ and I use JF Android TV client on a cheap, low-end Chinese Android TV box.

Some videos play just fine. Others lag extremely badly. I tried to investigate for the last 2 days and discovered that the files lagging are HEVC.265 and that my server machine is not powerful enough to transcode those. So I disabled transcoding and that resulted in the videos playing fine, but then the machine's CPU utilization would be 99% or 98%; I apparently can't go this way for repeatedly long periods of time.

So, then I tried to use an external player on the Jellyfin Android TV client, but the default external player would play no sound, the video would run smoothly though. I also installed VLC and MPV players to use as external players with the JF client, but in those cases the sound would be fine, but the video would show nothing except for 1 scrambled frame every 20 seconds or so.

My questions are:

1. One solution would be to get a better server (more powerful hardware), so it could transcode HEVC.265, correct?
2. Using 99% CPU with no transcoding is bad because it would wear the CPU down after a while, correct?
3. The external players (such as VLC and MPV) are playing bad video probably because the client machine's (the cheap Android box) hardware is too weak, correct?
4. If number 3 is correct, getting a more powerful Android TV device could solve the problem, correct?

[user5621]

Ideally you don't want to transcode, a powerful computer can do it but there will be quality loss.

It's weird the utilization is at near 100% with transcoding disabled, are you sure its not transcoding? If Jellyfin, VLC and mpv all fail to play it correctly it has to be the hardware on your streaming box.

A full desktop PC with adequate cooling can run at 100% for a long time but I doubt your Synology is designed to run full out for long periods of time. But still you don't really want to do that if you don't have too.

I would suggest you get a Roku Ultra ($99) or NVIDIA Shield ($150-200). It will be able to direct play h265 and most other codecs, the Roku Ultra supports AV1 which is starting to be used more by YouTube and is the newest codec in wide use..

The external players are playing badly because you don't have a hardware decoder for h265. A modern computer or most of the newer streaming boxes have a hardware decoder for most codecs which takes the work off the CPU.

If your client device was a full pc you could upgrade the graphics cards to one with these decoders and it would offload the work to it but of course you can't do that with a streaming box.

[justasking2025]

Ideally you don't want to transcode, a powerful computer can do it but there will be quality loss. 

It's weird the utilization is at near 100% with transcoding disabled, are you sure its not transcoding? If Jellyfin, VLC and mpv all fail to play it correctly it has to be the hardware on your streaming box.

A full desktop PC with adequate cooling can run at 100% for a long time but I doubt your Synology is designed to run full out for long periods of time. But still you don't really want to do that if you don't have too.

I would suggest you get a Roku Ultra ($99) or NVIDIA Shield ($150-200).  It will be able to direct play h265 and most other codecs, the Roku Ultra supports AV1 which is starting to be used more by YouTube and is the newest codec in wide use..

The external players are playing badly because you don't have a hardware decoder for h265.  A modern computer or most of the newer streaming boxes have a hardware decoder for most codecs which takes the work off the CPU.

If your client device was a full pc you could upgrade the graphics cards to one with these decoders and it would offload the work to it but of course you can't do that with a streaming box.

Thanks, very much appreciated