Plex on Apple devices are several years behind Infuse.
Spatial Audio, on the fly video-scrubbing, a ready for viewing offline download feature that can be relied on, meanwhile Plex Transcodes HD-audio in a video file to FLAC but apparently has to transcode FLAC music to mp3?
Erring on the side of caution is to NOT install Infuse.
Less pretty for sure but now even that is marginal with recent Infuse updates. But personally I live in a world that a pretty UI is < something that just works.
unfortunately infuse doesn’t “just work” for those of us who use Managed Users. It also loves to lose all of its library data every so often which is fun waiting for it to resync.
In terms of just handling playback, you’re right. But for a number of other reasons (metadata presentation, navigation, library switching, managed users, etc.) Plex is by far my preferred player. I really wish I could stick with just that, but the image doesn’t lie… Infuse (and even the LG’s own Plex app) flawlessly handles media that the Apple TV app pukes all over.
Also having this issue. Unfortunately, this makes the Plex app unusable for HDR content. Just want to corroborate as well as voice my desire for a fix for this ASAP. Would highly prefer to use the Plex app rather than Infuse or another 3rd party solution.
So, I went back and tested a myriad of files/videos with HDR10 and DV, on the latest generation Apple TV 4K (Grey Remote) using Direct Play/Stream (No Transcoding). Here is what I can report:
ALL files have COLOR BANDING no matter if HDR or DOLBY VISION is triggered on my LG C1 OLED. It’s horrific!
Resolution:
I transitioned over to INFUSE!!! THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COLOR BANDING! They play perfectly. Yeah the library is a little wonky because combines all “Movies” and “TV Shows” into single folders, but I can deal with it.
My only complaints with Infuse are that it preserves the collections in the “Movies” and “TV Show” sections, BUT that it combines all movie/TV shows into ONE logical grouping. So Movies, Documentary Movies, Anime Movies, etc. all show in this view, but it does preserve the collections so they appear as a folder and I can dive into them. Same thing happens with TV Shows.
The other complaint, is that if I go into the PLEX specific sub-libraries like “Documentary Movies”, it no longer preserves the collections and instead shows the movies within collections as individual movies, but it does persevere the sort title order (thank goodness).
I wish that it would preserve the collections in each PLEX sub library. That and being able to favorite a PLEX sub library section so it shows on the main menu. Maybe they’ll add these options in the future.
I’ll probably buy the Lifetime Infuse membership because I have no faith that PLEX will solve this in my lifetime LOL.
I’ll keep an eye out on this forum for any updates. If color banding was not happening in PLEX, I would be fine. That that is a HUGE DEALBREAKER!
If anyone discovers that the color banding issue is resolved, please let me know!
The MKV color banding issues on ATV and no true Dolby Vision were driving me nuts, so I bought a Nvidia Shield Pro and everything is PERFECT. EVERYTHING plays with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos regardless of DV Profile number/HDR/HDR10+. It’s glorious and the built in A.I. upscaling is AMAZING. It’s a shame Apple can’t do the same.
I’m now ditching KODI and will use PLEX as my one stop shop media server for both my home theater and mobile/remote needs under one unified library/database. All of this runs via a docker on UNRAID which is the best NAS you can get. PERIOD.
That is not how I understand it. Infuse still COULD NOT play DV on profile 7 MKV files. It still just triggered HDR (Not DV) on ATV. The Shield Pro can do this right now. So it is both a hardware and software issue. DV5 is another story.
We’ll have to find workarounds for HDR banding and 24 fps playback on ATV4K.
Even if it’s been a year, Plex is still a year behind when Elon said they’d release the remote speed fix for defaulting all remote clients to 720p/2Mbps.
Just think about the scope of that issue, which is 3 years old.
Now consider that DV / Atmos and the new ATV4K are less old.
So how many people don’t experience this issue?
I swear if I saw banding I’d have noticed that.
off to check
my guess is it’s a universal problem on apple hardware, just not everyone notices it for a few reasons:
people don’t even know what banding is or that it’s a problem
people misidentify it as a TV, cable, or some other issue
some tvs display it more obviously than others. For example it’s super obvious on my CX, but it’s less pronounced on my epson projector (though still plenty noticeable).
HDR/DV is not universally adopted yet so relatively few people are actually trying to use it in plex.
Yes, I have 4 of the second gen units throughout my house on the last 3 generations of LG OLED from C2, C1, and CX. They all have color banding. I have been using 2 movies in particular to test with, and one of them (2049), other people have also confirmed that it happens to them at the exact same spot.
Test Case 1: Blade Runner 2049 - HDR.
Scene where flying car flies in above the circular solar panel farms. Look at the sky in the top half of the screen. Time Stamp: 02:19 - 02:42. Note: This file is only HDR10 and Not Dolby Vision. This is the case with the movie on iTunes as well.
Test Case 2: 1917 - Dolby Vision
Scene right after the 1917 logo fades that opens to a field, and then the troops sleeping under a tree. Look at the sky in the upper half of the screen. This test is especially noticeable because of the stark transition from pure black to a very bright HDR sky. I am really interested to hear if this particular scene shows up on ATV Gen 1s since people say that model does not have any issues. This is by far the worst and most consistent example I could find on all TVs tested. Time Stamp: 01:00 - 01:26.
Side Note: For any of you who want to do what I did and get a Shield Pro, Amazon is having a crazy deal on them for Prime Day!
Still no resolution? It has been over a year since the OP’s post and no indication that Plex is working on a fix.
I used Infuse for a couple months, but the UI is terrible, so my solution was to search through my library in Plex, hop over to Infuse, and then voice searching for what I had decided to watch in Infuse.
I tried an Nvidia Shield TV Pro, but the 1080P UI makes text and cover art on the Plex app appear blurry, and it makes whole experience of using it the Shield feel extremely budget.
Ended up going back to the AppleTV only to be reminded about how much the banding bugged me, so I watch most of my content on webOS now.
Is there really no such thing as a perfect Plex client?
Twice it was made clear this is a known issue, in post #7
and shortly thereafter Chuck found it funny ppl couldn’t read that far in reply 24.
Why do so many of you troll us? We can all see the awful banding people get in post 17
You’re not trolling us? Okay, how about a sample? Please cut Blade Runner down to 30sec around that scene, the 4K HDR10 Remux, and upload it with a link here for us to use.
They weren’t even talking about banding there though, they were talking about the Dolby Vision color issues. They even linked to the other thread which has nothing to do with this one.
Some plex employees did respond later but the best we’ve gotten is “hmm, it only happens on some displays…”
this has been done multiple times. i personally posted a clip of Despicable Me months ago which was acknowledged by an employee. how many more clips do they need? why can’t they do their own research, the issue is easily reproducible with any x265 HDR content.
Understood, and thank you for the information about the sample. I’ll have another look through the thread for it. As I said, I’m unable to reproduce the banding, but I want to try with the obvious sample. I didn’t see the samples with 20 hits because the links at the 1st post summary only call those icloud.
I read a lot about color problems with ATV4K before I happened along to this thread. From one man’s perspective, there’s been no lack of interest from Plex in making playback great on ATV. It’s a stable target, and the customers enjoy it. I don’t think people realize that Plex runs in the Tortishell.
