Jellyfin Playback Issues on Fire TV Stick 4K Max

Danny

Issue

When using the native Jellyfin app on a Fire TV Stick 4K Max, video playback experiences frequent interruptions, including freezing, stuttering, and reloading. Audio may continue playing even when the video freezes.

Probable Cause

The default hardware acceleration settings in Jellyfin may not be compatible with the Fire TV Stick 4K Max's video decoding capabilities. Additionally, the default player might not handle the video codecs efficiently.

Solution

Adjust Jellyfin's transcoding settings and use an external video player:

  1. In Jellyfin's admin settings, navigate to Playback.
  2. Set Hardware acceleration to None.
  3. Ensure "Allow encoding in HEVC format" and "Allow encoding in AV1 format" are not selected.
  4. Set Tone mapping range to Auto.
  5. Set Transcoding thread count to match the number of CPU cores on your Jellyfin server (e.g., 4 if you have a quad-core CPU).
  6. Install MX Player on your Fire TV Stick 4K Max.
  7. In the Jellyfin app on Fire TV, go to Settings > Playback > Advanced and enable External player.
  8. When playing media, select MX Player as the preferred player.

 

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