Hi
Since last beta it seems Exoplayer v2 is not able to software decode AC3 / DTS anymore? When the new player was launched in Beta, suddenly all my AC3 / DTS could be software decoded and Direct Played (nice!) I have just noticed this does not happen any more and videos are transcoding audio again, reason: ‘AC3 / DTS Audio not supported by device’. This is on a NVIDIA SHIELD TV. Doubting if it is a bug in the player or in server side, since this last one also got updated recently for the NVIDIA SHIELD TV?
If you need more details just let me know.
Thanks for your work!
@kikeminchas said:
Hi
Since last beta it seems Exoplayer v2 is not able to software decode AC3 / DTS anymore? When the new player was launched in Beta, suddenly all my AC3 / DTS could be software decoded and Direct Played (nice!) I have just noticed this does not happen any more and videos are transcoding audio again, reason: ‘AC3 / DTS Audio not supported by device’. This is on a NVIDIA SHIELD TV. Doubting if it is a bug in the player or in server side, since this last one also got updated recently for the NVIDIA SHIELD TV?
If you need more details just let me know.
Thanks for your work!
I’d probably just post up your logs anyhow and a 30 sec sample of the file/s in questions.
Logs attached. I will try to get a small sample as well if this is not enough.
any idea based on the logs above? happens for all my AC3 content that was previously Direct Playing. Latest betas still have the issue.
OK, I found this interesting bit in the logs when trying to play a video with AC3 audio:
03-06 15:26:05.454 i: [PlaybackManager] Preparing for The Big Bang Theory - S11 E16 03-06 15:26:05.454 i: [DefaultPlaybackManager] Ignoring passthrough, since we've prompted previously. 03-06 15:26:05.457 i: [PlaybackManager] Audio codec required: ac3 03-06 15:26:05.457 i: [DefaultPlaybackManager] Playback possible, downloading codecs... 03-06 15:26:05.457 i: [CodecManager] Attempting to download: ac3 03-06 15:26:05.458 i: Fetching [method:POST] http://127.0.0.1:47855/services/codecs/decoder/ac3 03-06 15:26:05.463 i: [pms] /127.0.0.1:42722 - POST /services/codecs/decoder/ac3 03-06 15:26:05.472 e: Error parsing XML from http://127.0.0.1:47855/services/codecs/decoder/ac3: Unexpected end of document 03-06 15:26:05.473 e: [CodecManager] Unknown return code (0) 03-06 15:26:05.473 i: [DefaultPlaybackManager] Codec failed to downloading, continuing...
So it seems it detects playback is possible, tries to download codec form localhost? and fails… I have tried to access that decoder folder via web interface but I get a 401: Unauthorized obviously. I guess there is no way to check that faulty XML? Any idea of what could be causing this?
It’s not a bad XML. Since you are getting a 401, the XML you get is not what the app is expecting. This is expected when you get a 401. The issue is why are you getting a 401. There’s nothing in your log specifically saying what the problem is. The client app comes with a scaled down version of PMS used for tracking these codecs. There was 1 line in your log that indicated this little server was not working properly. It could be you have a bad installation of the client app. Maybe try uninstalling all updates from the Play store, then reinstall the latest from the Play store. Get me a new log if it still doesn’t work so I can check if the error is still there.
I noticed the same problem. 6.13 or 6.14 direct played everything on my Shield (and Sony TV) but since 6.15+ it’ll transcode again.
I’ll check the logs tomorrow or so…
@“MovieFan.Plex”
Thanks for having a look. I uninstalled all updates and installed again latest client version from Play Store. Issue persists. I’m attaching the logs after the reinstall.
Is there any progress on this one? @“MovieFan.Plex” , can this be reproduced? I have left the Beta program, uninstalled all updates / installed latest updates again and basically started from scratch but the issue is still present, no software decoding for audio streams that were previously supported by Exoplayer v2. Any idea? Does uninstalling all updates and reinstalling them can be considered as a full reinstall? Hate it that Plex comes as a system tool in the SHIELD 
, no way to backup, restore your DB, testing all of this is a pain…
thanks a lot for the support.
No update and I’m not able to reproduce. I’m not sure what is preventing your Shield from downloading the needed codec or why it even needs it. The Shield itself supports AC3, so I’m stumped. I’ve asked around but so far no ideas on what is going on.
The Shield (at least the old Exoplayer version) does not natively software decode AC3 (or any form of DTS for that matter) as far as I know? For a brief period of time, after the introduction of Exoplayer v2 I could see that videos with AC3 streams were Direct Played instead of transcoding the audio. Now audio is being transcoded again. The main problem this presents is not as much the transcoding of the audio stream (although I would like to know why it has reverted back to the old behavior) but the fact that if you add a SRT to the mix, Plex will be also forced to transcode the video (due to another bug in Exoplayer if I understood correctly fom another thread). Since I use subtitles in 90% of the cases this makes the current behavior unacceptable for me.
Now, I have checked some logs after the full reinstall / Start from scratch (I will post these later, at work now). I cannot see the error that was found in the old logs. Plex basically decides that AC3 is not supported by the device and transcodes. Could this be related to some configuration file for the SHIELD? @“MovieFan.Plex” do you have a SHIELD that is able to Direct Play videos in mkv with AC3 tracks? If not, maybe somebody could confirm this? If you all can then I’m going to assume that there is something wrong with my installation that somehow cannot be solved by the process of uninstalling/reinstalling… don’t think I’m going through the trouble of doing a Factory Reset though…
Ok, so in the end the error downloading codec message also appears after starting from scratch, sorry. It doesn’t matter though… i have tried something that i should have done before… I downloaded an old APK, precisely 6.13.0.3424. This version is from beggining of February at a time I’m pretty sure AC3 was being software decoded and videos Direct Playing. Launched my test video and indeed… It works! AC3 Direct Playing again finally! I then installed latest version from the Play store, tried again , same video… Transcoding … So there is indeed a problem with the latest player versions, both Beta and official…
I’m attaching 2 logs, one from the older version and another from the new one. Starting of video is towards the end. The most interesting part is that in the old version it literally says it doesn’t need to download a codec and just plays fine. The newest version says codec is needed, tries to download, fails and then Transcodes.
Wish I had tried this before I started from scratch, I am still fixing metadata
Hope this helps!
Thanks. I was not totally clear about the Shield. It can decode AC3 but it cannot downmix multi-channel AC3 to stereo if your TV doesn’t support multi-channel AC3. If your TV doesn’t support multi-channel AC3, then PMS will transcode to something else, but you are right that with the latest version of the app, it should decode locally to multi-channel PCM. If your TV doesn’t support multi-channel PCM, then PMS will have to transcode to get it into stereo. I’ll review your logs to see what the difference is.
@“MovieFan.Plex”
Issue still happening as of 6.17. Did logs give some clue about what’s going on? Thanks.
The trouble downloading the codec still appeared in your previous log. I’ll need to see a log from 6.17 to see if the same error appears. Can you provide me the entire log package from the emailing your log to yourself method? I’d like to check a few other things.
@“MovieFan.Plex” , as far as I know I can’t use the emailing logs to myself method in Android TV. This is mentioned in the documentation linked in your signature. Any other idea?
Oh sorry. Forgot this was on the Shield. Just provide the log from 6.17, anyway you can get them.
Here are the logs for version 6.17 of the plex player. Let me know if I can do something else.
Ok, no error this time. It did download the AC3 codec. I see something I didn’t notice before. Are you using a USB audio device? I need to double check, but in this case, we can’t decode directly on the Shield since the Shield isn’t doing the audio processing. Your USB device reports it doesn’t support AC3, so PMS is transcoding to 5.1 AAC, which it does report as supporting. This all looks normal now.
I am using indeed a USB Audio device. The device does not support AC3 indeed. I just use it to be able to connect the SHIELD to external speakers via Line out. I still don’t get though why did older versions of the Plex Player process the AC3? I have been using this USB device since I bought the Shield…
This is easy to test though, so I unplugged the device and just let the TV get the Audio via HDMI. Still Transcoding. However, even if the USB device does not seem to be the cause, this made me go into the menus of the Shield. There is an advance setting in the ‘Display and Audio’ called ‘Surround Sound’ , for some reason this was set to ‘Never’… I changed it to ‘Auto’ and what do you know… AC3 videos now Direct play both via HDMI or USB device… I don’t remember ever touching this setting (maybe I did when the player was generating errors in the Log just to try?) and I can’t also understand why older versions work even if the setting was wrong (maybe older versions don’t honor/recognize this setting?).
In any case, this seems to be solved, thanks very much for your patience.
