Solving playback issues

[Danorag]

I have a Roku Express 4K set up on my 1080p television. It is connected via my network to a Raspberry Pi 4 with Raspberry Pi OS (Bullseye) 64bit, OpenMediaVault and Jellyfin. I have always had hardware acceleration enabled using V4L2 as advised.

Everything has been working perfectly until a few days ago and now the Roku will not play HEVC. A box comes up saying this cannot be played an error has occurred with an 'ok' button. This seems to have happened after the Jellyfin 10.8.1 hotfix a few days ago. I have searched all the information and cannot see any known issues.

Other formats still play fine on the Roku. The HEVC files play in Jellyfin in the browser on my desktop Raspberry Pi 4, Android tablet (via Jellyfin app), my Mint Linux and Windows PCs. These use Chromium and Firefox.

I have checked the update on my Roku for the Jellyfin app and it is showing as the latest version.

I am not sure whether the problem is with the Roku or Jellyfin, but based on the above it looks like the Roku may need an update?

[DBDukes]

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@Danorag wrote:
...I am not sure whether the problem is with the Roku or Jellyfin, but based on the above it looks like the Roku may need an update?

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Except...

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@Danorag wrote:

... an error has occurred .... This seems to have happened after the Jellyfin 10.8.1 hotfix a few days ago. ...

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Since Jellyfin current server is 10.7.7, I'm assuming that update was to the Roku app. Is that correct? If so, then things broke when the Roku app was updated. That means Jellyfin would need to send an update to fix the issue.

[atc98092]

I don't use Jellyfin, but I did test HVAC on my Ultra 4800, which uses almost the same chip as the Express 4K. There's no Roku issue with HVAC video, so as @DBDukes mentioned it's something in Jellyfin, either their server or their channel app for Roku.

[Danorag]

Thank you for your replies and information.

I do now believe this is an issue with the Jellyfin app, or at least how it works as 'bridge' between the Jellyfin server and the Roku. I think the Jellyfin server hotfix/update has changed something and the app has not been updated yet to reflect that.

I will try and report this within Jellyfin support, but I am also hoping it gets picked up as I cannot be the only person this has affected.

Thank you again.

[Danorag]

i have done some further investigation and it seems that the Jellyfin GitHub has picked on this issue and the Roku.

The suggested identified issue from GitHib:

In the current device profile, we specify that we support h264 profile level up to 5.1, whereas the Roku specification says they only support 4.0,4.1. I guess in the 10.7 releases, when transcoding it was not transcoding to h254 profile level 5.1, but with the updates in 10.8 to I guess they now ARE able to transcode to a higher profile level meaning an unsupported codec is being used.

Changes

Update Device Profile to set max supported h264 profile level to 4.1
Update Device Profile to set max supported hevc profile level to 5.1

Here are the links for anyone that has this issue or is interested. They are a couple of days old, so I believe a fix is in the pipeline:

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-roku/pull/681

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-roku/issues/651

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-roku/issues/670

[atc98092]

Yeah, I don't believe H.264 should be set to anything higher than 4.1, so if they're supporting 5.1 on that codec, I can see it being rejected as unknown. Usually once the profile goes above 4.1, most media will instead use H.265. 

I did find this free Level editor, so it's possible to easily change the level of your media down to 4.1. While the H.264 specs support levels above 4.1, you're probably better off moving to H.265 for it's improved compression and playback compatibility. 

[Danorag]

Thank you Dan. 🙂

[Danorag]

For anyone following this issue/problem, as of today it is still not fixed.

It seems to have been picked up and identified on the GitHub, but the changes do not seem to have been implemented or migrated. I am not sure if we are waiting for an update to the Jellyfin Roku app or whether it will be a Jellyfin update. i am not an expert but I believe it is the latter.

[atc98092]

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@Danorag wrote:

I am not sure if we are waiting for an update to the Jellyfin Roku app or whether it will be a Jellyfin update. i am not an expert but I believe it is the latter.

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Either way it's Jellyfin that has to push the update. They are responsible for their Roku channel, as well as their server itself.