9th Gen iPad (iOS) + updated PMS = No 4k (DV or HDR)?

Plex Players Mobile Devices
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I am running my PMS in a TrueNAS container. I am attempting to stream my media on my local internet to a 9th Generation iPad running the latest iOS.

What I am experiencing is that all of my 4k media (w/ DV or HDR10, or HDR10+), the colours are washed out and dull. I have confirmed that the video that is being sent is “Direct Stream”; however, the audio (TrueHD) is being transcoded.

I am wondering what I can do to get my iPad to properly display my media. Again… nothing is being transcoded, as far as I can tell.

EDIT:

I think I may have the same issue as here: Plex iOS for iPad doesn’t play HDR content correctly, but the web app or 3rd party players do

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I suppose there’s no answers to this? It seems like a massive issue. I’ve been a Plex user for the better part of the last decade, but this is going to push me to an alternative unless there’s some solution - and preferably a solution that doesn’t involve switching to a fee-app.

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Yeah this issue is so odd and I think should be easy to fix for Plex team.

The solution was to fall back to the old player which is not really a solution.

This is a problem on 10th Gen base iPad as well. HDR videos like DV 8 or HDR10 look washed out.

if you transcode it to SDR with tone mapping, then it looks fine.

Other players like VLC or Infuse direct play HDR files just fine. I think the Plex app is just misconfigured for these bas 9th and 10th gen iPads.

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if anyone has access to 9th or 10th gen iPad and has access to the new Plex app experience, can you reproduce this issue? I want to test it but Beta is full in TestFlight so I cannot do it.

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I have EXACTLY the same issue on my 8th gen iPad. My iPad is NOT HDR video capable in Plex but Plex thinks they are for some reason.

Your tip of using the old player fixed it though. It now transcodes it to SDR as it does not think it can do HDR and looks great now, no washed out colours and raised blacks nonsense.

Caveat: I had to force the player quality to max out at 1080p 20 Mbps. If I left it at Maximum or Auto my Plex server would try and fail to transcode 4k HDR to 4K SDR since it thinks the iPad can do 4k resolution and my NAS has no chance of doing this transcode! Now it transcodes to 1080p SDR and looks perfect!

This is actually even more of an issue since a new beta feature drop in the Plex server: Hardware transcoding to HEVC which I have enabled. So in the new player that thinks the iPad can do HDR but it can’t, my fancy new setting actually transcodes it to 1080p x265 HDR even if I force it to transcode to 1080p in the settings - there is no choice for HDR/SDR only resolution and bitrate. It still thinks it needs to send HDR and of course its washed out even transcoded. Selecting the old player and it does not do this, correctly telling the server this device can’t do HDR and so its transcoded to SDR.

Surely this is just Plex fixing this given ALL the NON pro iPads have this same issue. Does the Plex lab REALLY not have a single 8th, 9th or 10th gen NON Pro iPad? You can get them pretty cheap on the Apple Refurb page.

Edit: I took a look at the specs page for the 8th, 9th and 10th gen iPads (NON Pro):

8th Gen - No mention of being able to play HDR10 video
9th Gen - Video Playback, Supported formats include HEVC and H.264, Supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 content
10th Gen - Video Playback, Supported formats include HEVC and H.264, Supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 content

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It seems like the most recent update to the iOS app has fixed this?

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