RPi3b with High Quality Video

Troubleshooting
1

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

  • DietPi version | G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9 G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=12 G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1 G_GITBRANCH='master' G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'
  • Distro version | bookworm 0
  • Kernel version | Linux DietPi 6.12.20+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.20-1+rpt1~bpo12+1 (2025-03-19) aarch64 GNU/Linux
  • Architecture | dpkg --print-architecture
  • SBC model | RPi 3 Model B (aarch64) or (EG: RPi3)
  • Power supply used | 5.1V, 2,5A output, 0,5A Input
  • SD card used | Sandisk Ultra 16gb

Additional Information (if applicable)

  • Software title | Emby, Plex
  • Was the software title installed freshly or updated/migrated? Feshly Installed
  • Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi? Not sure.
    ← If you sent a “dietpi-bugreport”, please paste the ID here →
  • Bug report ID | 24ed42d0-6b37-47a2-b111-7e3c5de19b89

Steps to reproduce

  1. Install Emby and/or Plex
  2. Import libraries from external drive.
  3. Play video.

Expected behaviour

  • All videos should play without problem.

Actual behaviour

  • Videos of higher quality and framerates stutter or don’t play at all.

Extra details

This is a new problem. I know I have been able to play high quality videos before without issues. I do not know what I have done that’s changed.

I contacted this forum previously to stop my Raspberry Pi crashing and freezing. That problem has stopped. But my rPi struggles to play videos. And that’s despite having plenty of available memory, as shown here:

                 total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             856         518          19           5         337         338
Swap:           1090         196         894

I created a swap file. That fixed the freezing/crashing, but video playback doesn’t work very well now.

I know my SBC isn’t very powerful but when you know you’ve been able to play high quality videos before and can’t now, that’s kind of aggravating.

I hope this output on memory usage will help.

USER       PID    %CPU     0.00     %MEM       COMMAND
emby       40741  6.4      207.50   24.2       /opt/emby-server/system/     EmbyServer
netdata    40749  3.7      113.92   13.2       /usr/sbin/netdata
roonbri+   40975  1.3      64.35    7.5        RoonBridgeHelper
plex       41392  1.3      42.31    4.9        Plex
roonbri+   41001  1.1      38.96    4.5        RAATServer
plex       40993  1.8      38.38    4.4        Plex
plex       40723  0.6      29.65    3.4        /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex
mysql      40483  0.0      19.00    2.2        /usr/sbin/mariadbd
mpd        40631  0.2      15.92    1.8        /usr/bin/mpd
roonbri+   40710  0.5      14.86    1.7        RoonBridge
plex       41378  0.1      13.07    1.5        /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex
gmediar+   40685  0.2      12.93    1.5        /usr/bin/gmediarender
root       40440  0.0      12.00    1.4        /usr/sbin/smbd
squeeze+   40677  0.1      11.57    1.3        /usr/bin/squeezelite
root       40509  0.0      11.35    1.3        php-fpm:
root       40429  0.0      7.77     0.9        /usr/sbin/nmbd
shairpo+   40654  0.8      7.26     0.8        /usr/local/bin/shairport-sync
root       1      0.0      5.93     0.6        /sbin/init
root       40442  0.0      5.91     0.6        /usr/sbin/smbd
2

Can you verify that hw acceleration is enabled in enby ( In Emby dashboard → Playback → Transcoding settings)

Can you also check the GPU/RAM memory split (dietpi-config → Display Options)

3

GPU/RAM split is deprecated and should not be needed anymore.

FFmpeg/its libs are installed already, right? Using those/FFmpeg for transcoding/decoding should always provide best hardware acceleration, as RPi engineers provide own builds on their APT repo (used by DietPi).

4

HW acceleration is enabled, but I’m not sure which method I’m supposed to use. V4L2?

As for the memory split, it was 128 but I just turned it down to 96.

I did some homework on this. Apparently the Raspberry Pi 3b isn’t supposed to do 4k videos, yet I could swear I was able to play them on emby before and now I can’t. But I might need to just bite te bullet and upgrade.

Most videos play fine, but some with a 60fps framerate don’t work as they should.

I also switched to Jellyfin, which seems to work better but not for 4k videos. The weird thing is that the WebOS client on my TV can’t play some videos that my laptop can, so I can only assume that part of the blame is on the client? I might contact Jellyfin support and investigate.

Either way, thanks for trying to help me out on this.

5

Yeah that sounds correct: 1080p works well on older RPi models but 4k as output and AFAIK also transcoding only since RPi 4.

6

I hear Raspberry Pi 5 doesn’t have hardware acceleration, so should I get a 4? Or is there some way to make 4k streaming work on 5?

7

But the RPi 5 is powerful enough to handle 4k regardless, just less efficient.

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