Server Version#: 1.20.5.3600
Player Version#: 8.9.2.21619 (613cb8fd)
Hello all,
I’ve been researching this problem and came upon a few threads where users have described the similar problem I still seem to be having. I’ve recently purchased the latest Chromecast with Android TV (2020) and in the advanced settings of the device I have disabled Surround Sound, as I have stereo bookshelf speakers via Optical Out
I have also gone into Plex settings and disabled passthrough to not use HDMI/Optical.
I believe the problem may lie in the fact that I am Direct Play/Streaming my sources so the audio doesn’t transcode, which is why it doesn’t Downmix to stereo from AC3 5.1. All my dialogue is very low volume but music and effects are extremely loud. Audio boost doesn’t seem to do anything to affect this as well.
I am using Jellyfin as an alternative and noticed that it downmixes properly, which is why I created this thread to see if there was a workaround.
Can I force a workaround to downmix all audio to Stereo for a specific user maybe?
Referencing this older post, can we confirm this is true that Plex only does “Software Decoding” and not downmixing? If so that would basically mean it’s not possible.
I have the same issue. I found that playing 5.1 audio on a stereo system sounds odd when playing through the Plex app on Android TV. Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure why they can’t implement downmixing, as when I play the exact same content through Plex on Kodi, the downmixing works perfectly and the audio sounds great. Obviously I’m not a developer though so there may be some sort of underlying reason.
The comment from Plex about not being able to downmix is simply not accurate. I direct play HEVC videos with AC3 5.1 all the time. My HK1Max does not have a AC3 decoder built in. So the Plex software Android decoder is used. When connected to my AV receiver, Plex decodes the AC3 and sends the resulting 5.1 PCM to the receiver, just as it should. When connected to a regular stereo TV, the AC3 is decoded by plex, downmixed and stereo PCM is sent to the TV. In both cases, the video is directly played – no downmixing or transcoding is taking place on the server. I could never get passthrough to work with my receiver but I was ok with that since I was still getting the 5.1 sound on my AV receiver.
On the other hand, I also have a X96H android box that has the downmix problem reported in this chain. The box always reports to Plex that 5.1 PCM is supported over HDMI, even when connected to a stereo TV. So Plex dutifully, decodes the 5.1 AC3 and sends the resulting 5.1 PCM to the TV. The problem is that the TV will only play the left and right channel and we can’t hear the dialogue on the center channel.
Plex, we really need a fix for this. Almost any other player allows the user to specify that they want stereo output – i.e. force a downmix. You need to do that too. The world is not always perfect and your software needs to work in the real world when things are not perfect.
Currently, the only solution I have is to lower quality on the player to force a transcode. Of course, this transcodes both the video and the audio. Sometimes, I have to choose 240p as the video resolution. So, yeah, I can hear the sound now but have a completely crappy picture. This is not a solution. And there is an obvious solution – On the player, there should be a global setting to specify that only stereo output is desired. Videos with 5.1 AC3 could still be direct played correctly (just as it does for my HK1Max described above).
Plex you know I’m right here and you need to do this. Could someone please respond and give an indication that you understand the problem here. It’s a recurring problem that many have had and you never help us.
The problem can be “solved” by changing the bitrate/quality to something less than the bitrate of the video being played. This will force a transcode and you will get stereo from the server. Of course, the video quality will be lousy – I often had to lower quality to 240p. So this is not a reasonably solution.
It’s clear that Plex doesn’t care about this – or about user issues, in general. I’ve been using Jellyfin exclusively for almost 2 weeks now. The android apps (mobile and TV) have a global setting that allows you to force downmix to stereo. So problem solved for me.
Jellyfin is not for everyone (fewer clients supported) and if you need Live TV/DVR, you’ll probably need to find another solution (they only support HDHomeRun). I use NextPVR and it’s been far more reliable and flexible for me than Plex has ever been.
I will say though that Jellyfin is being more tolerant of an imperfect world. Plex just wants our hardware to be perfect according to its expectations and simply won’t consider options that would let us around those problems.
