With the release of iOS 14 and the new AirPods Pro firmware that has enabled spatial audio, can we expect Plex to work with this feature? Apple says that the feature is compatible with Dolby encoded audio but it doesn’t seem to work with the Plex iOS player yet. Perhaps because Plex uses a custom player and not the native iOS one?
I was able to get it to work on NPlayer…but only in PiP mode.
I’d love to see the compatibility added as well.
Hope Plex will support spatial audio soon
I have it working with my iPhone 11 Pro Max in the app. You have to use Dolby AC3 tracks on video files only, and make sure the server is not converting them before streaming to you - a foolproof way to do this is to create a Version with “original quality” selected. I’ve got 5.1 and 7.1 Dolby tracks working.
Music files seem to not work at all.
I can confirm this works as per the above.
@Nebula or @pibroch1138 - can I trouble you for the “Media Info” from a content file you got spatial audio on? I have tried on a few files that I know have AC3 5.1 or 7.1 audio, and I cannot get spatial audio on either my iPad or my iPhone. Both are iOS 14, and of course, I was using AirPods Pro when I tested. I get the spatial audio from the AppleTV app on the devices, so I’m fairly sure it is something to do with the Plex App or the content I’m using. Also, what player setting are you using in the app?
Thanks!
Same here… couldn’t get it to work with Dolby AC3 tracks selected for iPhone iOS 14. Only when I put the video in PIP, then spatial kicks in.
This would be awesome! I can’t get it to work on my side for now, no matter the audio format.
Me neither, no luck on the iPhone other than the Apple TV app and Disney app. I guess more will come on board soon enough. I hope they add it to Apple TV boxes, than it would be a killer app for me.
Me also - no luck in full screen mode with spatial audio on Plex app 7.5.1
(spatial audio works fine in picture-in-picture mode, and with Apple TV app and Vudu app)
My content has an 5.1 AC3 track: the playback settings are
Audio Stream > AC3
Quality > Original (3 Mbps, 1080p HD)
Works for me in safari. No subtitle support.
Also works in plex app by doing the following:
Create optimized version (either TV or original). Needs to have AC3 for support.
Use old video player
Disable subtitles.
Verify original quality is being played.
Toggle audio streams if necessary (switch from the AAC audio stream and back to the AC3 one.
It should work. The spatial audio icon will also animate.
Biggest downside for me is lack of subtitle support because it needs to “transcode” the file.
I’ve played around with it some more, and managed to get one movie working, while multiple others do not work. I have used the server dashboard to check what is being played to the iPhone, and it looked like there was some unnecessary transcoding from EAC3 to AAC going on, but I re-encoded the file as AC3. I verified after that that the client was playing it as Direct Stream or Direct Play, but still the spatial audio did not work. My gut tells me that there’s more than just “it must be AC-3 5.1 or 7.1” here.
Has anyone else had any experience making spatial audio work with the iOS Plex app?
Spatial Audio works with “Use Old Player” enabled in the iOS app’s advanced settings. Vote for the feature here for it to be included in the primary player: Support for Apple Spatial Audio
Airpods pro spatial audio support STEPS
For more information go to control centre in your network settings.
I have gone through the steps numerous times, and tried both the Old Player and the new one. I verified that the file has AC3 5.1 audio - in fact I transcoded a few versions of some files that only have AC3 5.1 tracks. I verified with the server dashboard that it was direct stream for the audio, and still no spatial audio. It’s the weirdest thing. I don’t doubt that it works - I saw it work myself one time with Plex. I just wish it was more consistent.
I see the same behavior.
It only works for me
When you go to Control Center, if you toggle on/off Spacial Audio, it will say:
“Spatial audio turned on. This content does not support spatial audio.”
vs
“Spatial audio turned on for Movies and TV Shows”
Switched to old player and my video refused to play even after creating original quality version.
Added iOS profile suggested here and now old player can play video and i get spatial audio even without creating original quality version!
@dmitry_matora_gmail_com - adding the profile seems to have caused it to work for me on a lot of movies. Thanks!
Unsurprisingly, after all, with the profile suggestion, it works even on videos I had HandBrake convert from DTS 5.1 or DTS 7.1 to AC3 5.1 or AC3 7.1. DTS by itself does not work, though.
