I have tried using Live TV and DVR playback with the latest Shield, FireStick 4k, Chrome Web, and Apple TV clients. They all have serious issues but vary depending on the client.
The Shield - audio and video will many times get out of sync until you back up and play again when using ‘skip intro’ or ‘skip ad’. Often just ‘spins’ after hitting skip ad. Sometimes will not play anything from Plex - just get the ‘spins’ no matter what I try to play. I have to restart the Shield to and then it goes back to it’s usual troubles.
The FireStick 4k clients will just close the app if I try to play something live that is being recorded and the ‘skip ad’ is nearly unusable because when I click ‘skip ad’ it ‘spins’ until I start over again.
The Chrome browser is pretty close to the FireStick in troubles.
Apple TV client seems to work better with the ‘skip’ functions but it will often ‘skip’ to the next episode in the middle of the current episode without me even touching the remote.
All the clients seem to do fine as long as you just hit play on anything and let it run. Except for playing something live that is being recorded anyway. The trouble comes up when you start FFD or RWD or skipping ads or intros.
Not sure what the trouble is - I suppose it could be with the server but because it is different depending on the client maybe not? I’ve read through a lot of posts here with similar issues but really no answers to improve playback unless I missed something somewhere.
I don’t have Roku - I suppose I could try that but the Shield and my FireStick 4k are pretty quick and otherwise behave nicely until I run the plex apps on them. The Apple TV is older and slower. Don’t really want to switch to Roku but would it if makes it work… I think…
I use Roku for Live TV and rarely have issues. I understand the Android client is complete garbage for Live TV as I haven’t used it for over one year because of that.
Live TV on the Android client on the Firestick 4k starts in a paused state too and when switching back to the guide it will also pause. It’s complete trash. Disgusting app.
Thanks for the quick replies - I’ll give the Roku a shot for one TV. I don’t think I’ll get the TrueHD / Atmos with anything other than the Shield right? I’ll have to look into that but still give Roku a shot.
Pretty sad that the app for the $200 shield is so bad. It works great for everything else. Even the FireStick 4k works great except for the plex app…
I’d also look at your server and network infrastructure. Without knowing your setup better I’d guess the lag, lip sync and spins you describe could point to stuff outside of the clients.
Checked your plex dashboard when you see issues and I wonder if stuff is being transcoded. Are your clients wired or wireless? How good is the signal if wireless.
Until Plex releases the new muxer for Android clients there is no real reason to diagnose anything on that platform. We are all wasting our time until then.
Playback (including fast forward and rewind) via Plex on nvidia shield on Android TV works perfectly for me on my setup. Always has … I’ve issues with their UI but playback has always been prefect.
well the OP is largely talking about DVR playback using Live TV and DVR within the Plex App is my understanding. Not android Live Channels or any other live tv apps.
I have however seen so many posts here blaming the clients. Every now and again it’s nothing to do with the clients and it’s either the server not good enough for the content being transcoded or network bandwidth problems. They should never be overlooked and should at least be investigated to rule it out as being a possible cause.
That may be true for stored media playback but not for Live TV. Live TV doesn’t take much bandwidth and all the clients except very old Firesticks support interlaced content thus requiring no transcode.
It’s the Plex app specifically the Android one.
It’s sad really when the very limited Roku device works better than the supposed flagship Android devices. It’s hilariously broken.
Well again almost all issues the OP discussed had to do with video play back not live tv. But I too like @anon5074910 have no issues with live tv or DVR in the plex app running on the shield. all works as expected. Obviously occasionally something doesn’t work right and i back out and go back to it but not often and definitely not often enough for me to care.
Plex picks up less channels for me than some other apps but that is the only thing i have noticed.
Are we for real here. He’s specifically talking about Live TV and recorded Live TV playback.
Playback of recorded Live TV is exactly like playing Live TV verbatim. There is no difference.
And even if you don’t have troubles with your Shield in the limited ways you use it does not discredit any of the issues OP is having. I attest to his frustrations so simply stating you have no problems doesn’t help OP in any way.
Sorry for the confusion. It is either actual live TV from my HDHomeRun Quatro tuner or previously recorded programs from that HDHomeRun Quator tuner that gives the trouble.
I’m always willing to troubleshoot anything and everything but in this case the only audio/video sync issues happen with the Shield - not with any of the others. The Shield is wired (gigabit Ethernet) as is the computer with the Chrome browser and the Apple TV. The 4k FireTV Sticks are wireless but only about 18 feet from the wifi router. Connecting with wifi 6. My laptop running speed test standing in the same spot gets about 400mbs down and 17mbs up using the same wifi 6 connection.
Sounds like I do need to give the Roku a shot for regular old TV watching anyway. I’d still need the Shield to get TrueHD/DTS playback for movies etc.
Stinks that I have to chose between decent OTA/OTA Playback and the highest sound quality. Especially when the Shield works so well with everything else!
I have not dug into how it is handled or not handled so I guess I may have misunderstanding. If you record a show it is saved to where ever you are storing TV recordings. So playback of “stored media” being different than play back of stored Live TV DVR recordings (also stored media, saved in the same place for me at least as my other stored media) didn’t make sense to me.
Also, i hadn’t looked at transcoding for live tv because I haven’t ever cared but after looking at it now i am transcoding both the video and audio when viewing from web client using chrome. And Plex’s faq specifically state that transcoding will be required for live tv so not sure why you state that none is occurring except for very old clients.
The point in stating that it is working on my set up and others is to state that there may be something else that is causing the problem as opposed to the plex app just being garbage and trash and unusable as you state.
When I view live TV or playback recorded TV it isn’t transcoded on the FireSticks or on the Shield - I don’t remember on the Chrome or Apple TV but I can check.
I think difference between other file playback and what I record is not where they are stored but what their format is and also that I have Plex set to mark the commercials so I can skip them. The trouble seems directly related to skipping intros, skipping ads and playing back a recording that is currently recording.
Playback of movies, including 4k movies with TrueHD sound, seems to work fine on the Shield (no-transcoding) and on the FireSticks (transcoding of both audio and video). I don’t use the Chrome Browser playback or the Apple TV much but they also seem to behave until I use the skip features or start playback of a currently recording program.
I don’t suspect a network performance issue because the 4k TrueHD movies playback without any trouble.
If you’re using a Windows box as your Plex Server, then there are alternatives to Plex that might work a lot better for you for Live TV (Emby, Jellyfin, NextPVR, Kodi). After almost a year, some of the most offensive Plex problems on Firetv for Live TV were finally addressed. But, still, my experience with Plex over the past 3 years is that it is broke more than it’s working and significant problems stay outstanding for months and months.
If you’re looking to enjoy watching media rather than being frustrated trying to watch media, you really should look at something else. I still have Plex but haven’t used it day to day for quite a while now. I have a Windows box as my media server with FireTV/Android/Windows clients. I just don’t have all the random problems that I had with Plex.
“…Shield - audio and video will many times get out of sync until you back up and play again when using ‘skip intro’ or ‘skip ad’.”
This drives me absolutely crazy as well. I’d say 60-70% of the time my audio gets out of sync when I skip forward. I’ve gotten used to hitting forward then back to fix the issue, but when you pay for a media player like this you expect it to just work. Everything I play is direct play as well. My $25 Firestick doesn’t do it, but I have other issues with it (not displaying HDR correctly).
Anyways, I just came to say I really hope this issue gets fixed soon.
I’ll second this. I use Plex for all my library content. None of the others really compares to the polish of Plex when it comes to library content. When it comes to OTA TV & DVR, I use Jellyfin. It costs virtually nothing in computer resources to have the Jellyfin server running side-by-side, and while you have to switch to a different app, you don’t have to switch to a different device.
