I’ve searched around for a solution to my issue but have come up empty so far. The issues I’m running into are seemingly twofold. When I’m playing back FLAC music files through the Plex Media Player, albums encoded as regular stereo files play back fine. However, whenever I try to play a few albums mixed in 5.1 surround sound, one of two things happens:
The files aren’t played back properly. I think it’s primarily the center channel that’s not accurate, because the playback issue generally will result in very low vocals, but does also affect some instrumentation. I’m not entirely sure how these songs have been remixed, so I’m not positive that other channels aren’t also being affected, but at least the center channel seems to be.
The files won’t play at all and Plex will spit back an error code: h3 (Encode) error.
It’s possible that my 5.1 files aren’t encoded properly for playback in Plex, but it’s coincidental that I don’t have these same issues with stereo mixed records - but I do on all of my 5.1 records. All are FLAC files. My setup is as follows:
Nvidia Shield
McIntosh MX121 A/V Control Center
Outlaw Model 5000x amp
5.1 speaker setup
I use this same home theater system to watch TV, movies via Plex in surround sound, etc and have never run into any issues before. However, there’s something that it doesn’t seem to like about the 5.1 mixed music albums.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! I’ve been through settings on my Nvidia Shield itself, the PMP on the Shield, etc but no luck so far.
If nothing has changed recently the answer is simple; the plex player on a Shield TV (meaning android tv) doesn’t support 5.1 music.
I think it’s very odd since it’s obvious that plex can handle 5.1 audio from movies and TV-shows, so why not music?
I’ve asked why earlier in the forum and I know others have as well but I can’t remember reading any reply.
My workaround is to use KODI to play my music when using my shield. Another reason why I use KODI for music is because Plex skips songs every now and then for me: Plex skips songs on Shield TV
Same thing with the Plex player for Amazon Fire TV. It plays 5.1 FLAC audio files as stereo even though you’d think it should be possible to get surround sound out of that device (because it works just fine for video files).
Bummer! That’s what I had gathered through my research though, so I can’t say these replies surprise me. think I’ll probably use KODI, too, to play audio then. Thanks for the help!
I just updated Plex on my Shield TV to check if it works. Sadly it doesn’t. My server version is 1.24.4.5081. Not the very latest version sice I run Truenas but there are no mentioning of surround playback being added in the release notes of the newer versions.
Not only does this, very basic function, still not work and not only does plex still skip songs for me, it is now noticeable more sluggish while browsing and playing my music library.
It’s hard not to be bitter when there are a ton of free options out there that can handle playing music. But plex, a software I’ve paid for, can’t handle it nor do staff care enough to even acknowledge the problems.
think I’ll probably use KODI, too, to play audio then. Thanks for the help!