1080 HEVC SDR files choppy on Roku Ultra 2021

[viriiguy]

Describe the bug

When trying to play a 1080 HEVC SDP video file, on a Roku Ultra 2021, the video frame rate is choppy and unwatchable.
Watching the exact same file, on a Roku Ultra 2020, on the same network, results in perfect playback. I even went and purchased another, new ultra 2021. Same issue.

JellyFin is hosted on a Windows 10 box and is up to date. All other media, including 4k plays perfectly. But all 1080 HEVC SDR files do this same thing.

To Reproduce

Run a 1080 HEVC SDR video file on the current 1.4 Build 8 of Jellyfin Roku, on a Roku ultra 2021

Expected behavior

Video should run smoothly. It will not. It will be choppy.

Logs

I have been unable to get Jellyfin to spit out any logs, but when I check the status, the video is direct playing, no transcoding.

Screenshots

Additional context

[entropicdrifter]

Have you tried putting the video on an SD card or flash drive and playing it directly on the Roku Ultra 2021? If it's still choppy in that case, it's probably a Roku-specific issue like a driver.

[Willsr71]

I'm having this same issue on a Roku Express 4K 3941X. Jellyfin is hosted on unraid in docker.
Here's an extract of direct play logs from two files that have this issue:
https://hastebin.com/ifubamawuq.csharp

[Artiume]

I'm having this same issue on a Roku Express 4K 3941X. Jellyfin is hosted on unraid in docker.
Here's an extract of direct play logs from two files that have this issue:
https://hastebin.com/ifubamawuq.csharp

@Willsr71 you arent direct playing if ffmpeg is involved. In fact, by your logs, you're transcoding down from hevc to x264.

[rikonor]

Having the same issue. Any idea why transcoding is happening? I even have video transcoding disabled in the User settings. Is there a way to instruct the Jellyfin Roku app to direct play?

[Artiume]

You have to disable audio transcoding and remuxing as well. Clients can't yet force direct play

[rikonor]

@Artiume, I tested on a Roku Streaming Stick+ and the issue seemed to not have presented itself. Are you saying that it's likely a Roku issue and not a Jellyfin issue? I tried looking at the code (VideoPlayer.brs#L244) and I'm trying to understand if this fixable on your end or whether it's an issue with the Roku itself, any ideas or guidance?

[Artiume]

Direct Play is only forcible via the Jellyfin server, I was instructing you on how to force Direct Play. I can't say for sure but so far it does seem to be a Roku issue of some sort.

[rikonor]

I have a Roku Ultra - is there anything I can do to help pin down the root cause of this issue?

[neilsb]

The first thing would probably be to install the beta version if you haven't already, or if you have check it's up to date (new build pushed last night) and check if the issue is still happening. This beta version should be better not forcing transcoding when it's not required.

[rikonor]

Issue still manifests with the Beta build (Roku Jellyfin v1.4.9), even though I disabled any transcoding support for the given user. See Jellyfin logs attached as well.

[14:35:48] [INF] [285] Jellyfin.Api.Controllers.MediaInfoController: GetPostedPlaybackInfo profile: {"Name": null, "Id": null, "Identification": null, "FriendlyName": null, "Manufacturer": null, "ManufacturerUrl": null, "ModelName": null, "ModelDescription": null, "ModelNumber": null, "ModelUrl": null, "SerialNumber": null, "EnableAlbumArtInDidl": false, "EnableSingleAlbumArtLimit": false, "EnableSingleSubtitleLimit": false, "SupportedMediaTypes": "Audio,Photo,Video", "UserId": null, "AlbumArtPn": null, "MaxAlbumArtWidth": 0, "MaxAlbumArtHeight": 0, "MaxIconWidth": null, "MaxIconHeight": null, "MaxStreamingBitrate": 120000000, "MaxStaticBitrate": 100000000, "MusicStreamingTranscodingBitrate": 192000, "MaxStaticMusicBitrate": null, "SonyAggregationFlags": null, "ProtocolInfo": null, "TimelineOffsetSeconds": 0, "RequiresPlainVideoItems": false, "RequiresPlainFolders": false, "EnableMSMediaReceiverRegistrar": false, "IgnoreTranscodeByteRangeRequests": false, "XmlRootAttributes": [], "DirectPlayProfiles": [{"Container": "mp4,m4v,mov", "AudioCodec": "mp3,pcm,lpcm,wav,ac3,alac,aac", "VideoCodec": "h264,h265", "Type": "Video", "$type": "DirectPlayProfile"}, {"Container": "mkv,webm", "AudioCodec": "mp3,pcm,lpcm,wav,ac3,flac,alac,aac,opus,dts,vorbis,eac3", "VideoCodec": "h264,vp8,h265,vp9", "Type": "Video", "$type": "DirectPlayProfile"}, {"Container": "mp3,pcm,lpcm,wav,ac3,wma,flac,alac,aac,dts,wmapro", "AudioCodec": null, "VideoCodec": null, "Type": "Audio", "$type": "DirectPlayProfile"}], "TranscodingProfiles": [{"Container": "aac", "Type": "Audio", "VideoCodec": null, "AudioCodec": "aac", "Protocol": "http", "EstimateContentLength": false, "EnableMpegtsM2TsMode": false, "TranscodeSeekInfo": "Auto", "CopyTimestamps": false, "Context": "Streaming", "EnableSubtitlesInManifest": false, "MaxAudioChannels": " 6", "MinSegments": 0, "SegmentLength": 0, "BreakOnNonKeyFrames": false, "$type": "TranscodingProfile"}, {"Container": "mp3", "Type": "Audio", "VideoCodec": null, "AudioCodec": "mp3", "Protocol": "http", "EstimateContentLength": false, "EnableMpegtsM2TsMode": false, "TranscodeSeekInfo": "Auto", "CopyTimestamps": false, "Context": "Streaming", "EnableSubtitlesInManifest": false, "MaxAudioChannels": "2", "MinSegments": 0, "SegmentLength": 0, "BreakOnNonKeyFrames": false, "$type": "TranscodingProfile"}, {"Container": "mp3", "Type": "Audio", "VideoCodec": null, "AudioCodec": "mp3", "Protocol": "http", "EstimateContentLength": false, "EnableMpegtsM2TsMode": false, "TranscodeSeekInfo": "Auto", "CopyTimestamps": false, "Context": "Static", "EnableSubtitlesInManifest": false, "MaxAudioChannels": "2", "MinSegments": 0, "SegmentLength": 0, "BreakOnNonKeyFrames": false, "$type": "TranscodingProfile"}, {"Container": "aac", "Type": "Audio", "VideoCodec": null, "AudioCodec": "aac", "Protocol": "http", "EstimateContentLength": false, "EnableMpegtsM2TsMode": false, "TranscodeSeekInfo": "Auto", "CopyTimestamps": false, "Context": "Static", "EnableSubtitlesInManifest": false, "MaxAudioChannels": " 6", "MinSegments": 0, "SegmentLength": 0, "BreakOnNonKeyFrames": false, "$type": "TranscodingProfile"}, {"Container": "ts", "Type": "Video", "VideoCodec": "h264", "AudioCodec": "aac", "Protocol": "hls", "EstimateContentLength": false, "EnableMpegtsM2TsMode": false, "TranscodeSeekInfo": "Auto", "CopyTimestamps": false, "Context": "Streaming", "EnableSubtitlesInManifest": false, "MaxAudioChannels": " 6", "MinSegments": 1, "SegmentLength": 0, "BreakOnNonKeyFrames": true, "$type": "TranscodingProfile"}, {"Container": "mp4", "Type": "Video", "VideoCodec": "h264", "AudioCodec": "aac,opus,flac,vorbis", "Protocol": "http", "EstimateContentLength": false, "EnableMpegtsM2TsMode": false, "TranscodeSeekInfo": "Auto", "CopyTimestamps": false, "Context": "Static", "EnableSubtitlesInManifest": false, "MaxAudioChannels": null, "MinSegments": 0, "SegmentLength": 0, "BreakOnNonKeyFrames": false, "$type": "TranscodingProfile"}], "ContainerProfiles": [], "CodecProfiles": [{"Type": "VideoAudio", "Conditions": [{"Condition": "Equals", "Property": "IsSecondaryAudio", "Value": "false", "IsRequired": false, "$type": "ProfileCondition"}], "ApplyConditions": [], "Codec": "aac", "Container": null, "$type": "CodecProfile"}, {"Type": "Video", "Conditions": [{"Condition": "EqualsAny", "Property": "VideoProfile", "Value": "high|main|baseline|constrained baseline", "IsRequired": false, "$type": "ProfileCondition"}, {"Condition": "LessThanEqual", "Property": "VideoLevel", "Value": "51", "IsRequired": false, "$type": "ProfileCondition"}], "ApplyConditions": [], "Codec": "h264", "Container": null, "$type": "CodecProfile"}], "ResponseProfiles": [], "SubtitleProfiles": [{"Format": "vtt", "Method": "External", "DidlMode": null, "Language": null, "Container": null, "$type": "SubtitleProfile"}, {"Format": "srt", "Method": "External", "DidlMode": null, "Language": null, "Container": null, "$type": "SubtitleProfile"}, {"Format": "ttml", "Method": "External", "DidlMode": null, "Language": null, "Container": null, "$type": "SubtitleProfile"}], "$type": "DeviceProfile"}
[14:35:48] [INF] [285] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: User policy for dany. EnablePlaybackRemuxing: False EnableVideoPlaybackTranscoding: False EnableAudioPlaybackTranscoding: False
[14:35:48] [INF] [285] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: Profile: Unknown Profile, Path: /path/to/file.mp4, isEligibleForDirectPlay: True, isEligibleForDirectStream: True
[14:35:48] [INF] [285] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: Profile: Unknown Profile, Path: /path/to/file.mp4, isEligibleForDirectPlay: True, isEligibleForDirectStream: True
[14:35:48] [INF] [285] Jellyfin.Api.Helpers.MediaInfoHelper: Profile: Unknown Profile, Path: /path/to/file.mp4, isEligibleForDirectPlay: True, isEligibleForDirectStream: True
[14:35:48] [INF] [302] Jellyfin.Plugin.KodiSyncQueue.EntryPoints.UserSyncNotification: Starting User Changes Sync...
[14:35:48] [INF] [302] Jellyfin.Plugin.KodiSyncQueue.EntryPoints.UserSyncNotification: "USERSYNC" User e255e7764ea14255b3036bf782d1e738(dany) posted 2 Updates: da073ffe853d44843003cffefa8bf7a2,996642f857847609f7b52bbc490b27cd
[14:35:48] [INF] [302] Jellyfin.Plugin.KodiSyncQueue.EntryPoints.UserSyncNotification: User Changes Sync Finished Taking 00:00:00.0323732
[14:35:58] [INF] [301] Emby.Server.Implementations.Session.SessionManager: Playback stopped reported by app Jellyfin Roku 1.4.9 playing Dumbo. Stopped at 8000 ms
[14:35:58] [INF] [301] Jellyfin.Plugin.KodiSyncQueue.EntryPoints.UserSyncNotification: Starting User Changes Sync...
[14:35:58] [INF] [301] Jellyfin.Plugin.KodiSyncQueue.EntryPoints.UserSyncNotification: "USERSYNC" User e255e7764ea14255b3036bf782d1e738(dany) posted 2 Updates: da073ffe853d44843003cffefa8bf7a2,996642f857847609f7b52bbc490b27cd
[14:35:58] [INF] [301] Jellyfin.Plugin.KodiSyncQueue.EntryPoints.UserSyncNotification: User Changes Sync Finished Taking 00:00:00.0166090

Any ideas how to debug further?

[Artiume]

so the audio in that file looks like aac 5.1, that might be part of the issue. we've recently noticed aac 2.0 and 5.1 issues with the new OS update

[rikonor]

Are you guys able to reproduce this issue on your end? I'm happy to run some test files through my Roku here if you have any.

[Artiume]

yes, we can reproduce it. i don't have any files to readily share. for testing in your end, try and see if you can isolate the issue to specific audio types.