AndroidTV/Shield Pro: Music always played as 2 channel PCM

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Server Version#: 4.47.3
Player Version#: 8.11.0.22186

Music always plays as pcm @ 48kHz as reported by my receiver (Yamaha RX-V6A) no matter the source. Also any channels beyond the first two don’t get played back if the music is multi-channel. And no, it’s not being mixed down, it’s just not playing the others. Makes Bohemian Rhapsody suuuuuper weird err, weird-ER (but not in a good way). :wink:

Video audio plays back correctly. If I use DLNA on my receiver the music plays back correctly. (Well, not multichannel, it just doesn’t play those at all).

Other music sources on the Shield play music back correctly (Tidal, Amazon, Qobuz… yes I currently subscribe to all, so I could test out Amazon and Tidal’s atmos, Qobuz is over Chromecast).

Passthrough is set to HDMI.

Here’s a set of logs of me playing several different files in different formats (flac and mka), at different bit depths as well as sample rates. The PlexDash App shows it playing the correct bitrates, but my receiver reports otherwise. I previously had a Roku Ultra that this worked fine for on the same receiver (but I had other problems with it so I returned it).

plex_logs.txt (1.0 MB)

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So, noticed that the last time it mentioned playing from cache, so I cleared the cache on the app, and I replayed a bunch of more stuff and enabled the network logs, so here’s another set of logs for you, and I made sure to play as much of a variety as possible, flac (stereo and 5.1), mp3, mka, and dts.

plex_logs2.txt (1.1 MB)

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After looking through some similar topics I’ve looked through the logs and have learned a bit more about what’s going on:

[HdmiCaps] Capabilties changed (AudioCapabilities[maxChannelCount=8, supportedEncodings=[2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22]]

[HdmiCaps] Capabilties changed (AudioCapabilities[maxChannelCount=8, supportedEncodings=[2]])

I have absolutely no idea why it changes what HDMI capabilities it has whenever it switches to music, but it’s clearly detecting the wrong capabilities.

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I see now that this is clearly because Plex on AndroidTV just doesn’t do passthru for music. Really disappointing.

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And because this apparently works in other threads, tagging some plex employees… I’ve seen all sorts of people talk about music on the AndroidTV app. It’s like the forgotten, abandoned, red-headed step child. But this is just one of several issues I’ve been having with Plex lately and I’m a paid customer for several years, and I’m about to take my business elsewhere. So, I’m this is frowned upon and I’m probably gonna get banned, but I no longer give a ■■■■. Y’all REALLY need some better method of communicating for support.

[mod edit] removed

I was gonna actually go through and tag every plex employee in the site directory. However, I got bored, and given that I’m probably just going to get banned, or posts deleted, or if some plex employees do see this and care, they can forward it on to the right person if I’ve tagged the wrong persons. I mostly started with employees I’ve seen actually get into discussions with customers. Then I grabbed a couple more from the site userlist.. whatever… here are some links to other people with similar or the same problems, because apparently audio is a non-priority to you all.

Not really a bug, but this is something I actually REALLY care about, but more indications that plex music is an afterthought at best these days, particularly on Android TV

Here’s one that I ran into today, for the first time actually, and it’s goddamn annoying, and this one even had two plex employees linked here reply, several months ago.

Here’s some issues that somebody posted with no reply, which I’m sure that if I weren’t doing these replies, I’d end up just like this poor person, ignored, forgotten, lonely…

Actually, here, just enjoy this search I did for “music” with the “android-tv” tag:
https://forums.plex.tv/search?q=music%20order%3Alatest

I hope I don’t get banned, I really don’t want to be. I have been a plex evangelist for a while, but my frustration with all the little bullshit items with plex is starting to boil over.

1 Like
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As you posted. The HDMI capabilities changed because your receiver told us. This is what the Plex app detected when it checked with your receiver for what it supports for music. Keep in mind that support for audio is music form is not the same as support for audio in a video format. So it supports upto 8 channel 16-bit PCM. Android also has some limitations on bitrates and sampling rates. Please provide the XML for the music you are playing that you think is wrong.

Also provide the log from the Shield and PMS. Play just 1 song. Let’s deal with this one at a time.

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logging_plex_soycd.txt (1.1 MB) Plex Media Server Logs_2021-01-15_14-24-06.zip (4.8 MB) logging_plex_soycd.txt (1.1 MB)

Here’s the information for an easy one to start off with. Simple 2 channel FLAC, I believe it’s 96kHz/24bit, playing back as PCM-48kHz.

This is my receiver: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio_visual/av_receivers_amps/rx-v6a/index.html

I have this connected over HDMI.

If there’s some way to get logs from my receiver, I’m unaware of a way to do that, even looking through its web interface.

I’ve heard Emby has no problem with this either. I’m gonna test that out. I guess that might be the real answer at this point.

Note, on Plex plugin for Kodi this works fine. I tested with multiple files last night, including multi-channel music in both FLAC and mka files. It just is a whole other clusterfuck of a user experience, that’s probably a Kodi thing though.

EDIT, UPDATE: Also, there have been SEVERAL places where people are reporting the same with music always playing back at 48kHz PCM on the ShieldTV. People have been reporting this for quite a while. I linked to a few, there have been a few more since yesterday.

I don’t care at this point if I get banned, or ignored, or silenced… there’s no good way to get in contact with a developer without tagging them here. Logs don’t help or matter as was implied on another several month’s old thread that never got a reply from a single developer until I pinged people.

Note: I’m a also developer and I get that fixing bugs and tech debt is boring. And you only have so much time to fix ■■■■, add new features, and then there’s resources… and you’d obviously rather be developing new features. I would too. But if my employer let customer or user bug reports/etc go unacknowledged or without updates for as long as some of the issues around here have been, I’d be out of a job because we’d lose all our customers. And believe me, you’re going to start losing customers. And that really sucks because I used to love Plex. I’m glad now that I decided to go monthly instead of lifetime. Or maybe not, I might have paid for more than a lifetime sub by this point. But either way, I can leave and take my revenue stream with me, unlike the many people who have purchased a lifetime subscription.

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That’s an easy one. Android AOSP does not support 24-bit audio, only 8 and 16. Plex relies on the hardware and OS so your file won’t work as-is. Other apps provide their own decoders to get around this limitation.

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direct pass through or ‘bit perfect playback’ has long been a weakness of various plex clients music/audio capabilities.

if that is a deal breaker for you, that is understandable.

everyone is free to make the best choice for themselves and vote with their pocketbook.

there has been various discussions in the forums about this, but whether or not this behavior or functionality can or will change, and is not something that plex typically announces until they are ready to do so.

plex isn’t perfect, but it does do a pretty good job at most things for most people.

if you can find a better solution for your own personal use case, whether it be kodi, or vlc or emby or even roon, there is no harm in taking the time and effort to do so.

you may find though, with all those products, that each has their own pros and cons, and could very well end up with the same or other complaints/issues on those respective forums etc.

the main thing here is to try and keep it civil, even when (or especially when) you are extremely frustrated.

and yes, believe me, I know that can sometimes be difficult.

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So it is then safe to assume that the Nvidia Shield TV Pro will never actually be the ultimate Plex client!

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only if bit perfect, high resolution, multi-channel audio is your objective.

otherwise, it can work great for everyone else with normal stereo mp3/flac/etc.

and I’d argue not everyone cares or even understands the various sampling and bit rates.

and even those who do, would be hard pressed to reliably ABX even in the most perfect of listening environments.

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Seriously ? So that’s where you draw the line?

What if that line was further to one side, meaning … “only if bit perfect TrueHD Atmos multi channel audio…”

Again, kinda odd place to draw the line, especially if the line was drawn at… “not everyone cares or even understands the difference between AC3 and TrueHD”

Currently I am having to maintain 2 clients in order to service my needs… The Shield for 4K HDR Dolby Vision, and PMP for Hi-Res audio. I dunno about you, but I’m not sure I consider that acceptable!

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Plex didn’t draw the line. It’s an Android limitation.

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you can get bit perfect truehd atmos through plex and shield, by way of mkv and the video player.

I have atmos rips of beatles and REM from the bluray remasters.

As far as I am aware, there are no other sources for any truehd/atmos audio only content.

As far as any line, that is entirely up to the user to draw.

While I have some hirez audio content, its not something that I personally can tell the difference on (beyond mastering and surround effects).

If you want bit perfect audio, then currently shield/plex is not for you, sorry?

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Indeed, but Plex have been touting the Shield as the ultimate client, when in fact its not.

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It still is. There is nothing better that will run Plex.

Edit - to be clear, Plex has never said the NVidia Shield is the ultimate client. It has been recommended for having the widest range of codec support, but there are still limitations.

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While I am certainly a fan, and recommend the shield highly, I don’t speak for plex, and as far as I am aware, plex the company, has not touted any hardware device as ‘ultimate’.

If you have evidence to the contrary, please share, I am surely interested.

and whatever nvidia claims, https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/ isn’t coming from plex.

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How can it be if it cannot do what PMP can, which is play Hi-Res FLAC correctly.

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Well @anon18523487 and @TeknoJunky… After my big fat Kebab, I’m gonna go looking for quotes on the multitude of times that Plex have indeed touted it as the ultimate.

But for now… nom nom nom nom!!! lol

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1, ultimate does not mean or imply perfect, or perfect for everyone or every situation
2, anything in any forum is going to be presented as that users personal opinion
3, even if plex the company had public marketing material that declared shield as the ‘ultimate’ plex client, there is nothing to disprove that because of whatever audio limitations there are