Apple TV 4K audio sync issues with enhanced player

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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I think most of us here (Apple TV thread) moved to Infuse by now I assume given the lack of complaining in this thread. It is a much better client and has been reliable for the last 12 months.

Plex on Apple TV has major audio sync issues with my bluray rips (frame rate matching on + new player). It is fine for my DVD rips. This has been the case for the last 12 months…

I don’t mind it so much except the lack of communication (and - even more - choices) by Plex. I understand it is hard to let go of a community but if your business goals are changing, it is better to communicate this so we can prepare for it as well.

For now, I am happy with Infuse. I’ll use Plex as a media server until that starts to fall down too. There are other options out there. I have a lifetime plexpass so I am not in a hurry.

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I Have exact same problem with sync issues. Works when i turn off frame rate matching but that will introduce judder.

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I find it really sad that I’ve paid for Plex and they are just not delivering what they promise. If they are stretched too thin to fix all these different platforms then at least have the common decency to come out and say that and then I can just move on and find a different solution. I assume their focus is on things that will generate them revenue, which is fair enough, but just please be honest with your customers. The latest update is a joke. Old player now broken and the audio sync issues seem worse than ever now and currently have no workaround. Time to try Infuse I guess. * sigh *

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So just installed Infuse, paid for Pro version and Wow - it just works!! No audio sync issues, HDR works and it looks nice too. Plex :man_facepalming:t2::man_facepalming:t2::man_facepalming:t2:

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and it looks nice too.

Whoops. You went too far. Infuse looks like trash and navigating a large TV or Movie library is awful. Infuse also hides too much functionality behind long presses and the like.

Give me the Plex interface with the Infuse player and we’ve got heaven.

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Thanks. I guess everyone’s use cases are different and beauty is in the eye of the beholder! :smiley: I do think “Trash” is a little harsh! :rofl:

But the Plex interface is just pointless until they fix the player - I will gladly return if/when they do.

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I agree 100%.

This is just ridiculous. The problem has existed for more than 2 years, the developers are now aware of the problem and… NOTHING. I would understand if we were trying to do something crazy with a really weird setup, but no… we are just trying to watch 4k content on apple tv.

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Appreciate this thread is getting a little stale now but thought I’d just chime in with a little update that might be of use to others.

I mentioned above that I have an 1st Gen ATV 4K, a LG C1 OLED (2021) and a Sonos Beam Gen2 connected via eARC. In spite of calibrating my ATV to multiple output formats, which has fixed all the sync issues in Netflix, iPlayer, Disney+ etc, I continued to see sync issues in Plex so severe that I had to revert to using the old player (which doesn’t seem affected).

The LG has 3 modes for eARC sound output; PCM, Auto and pass-through. When I first connected my Beam I set the output to pass-through in the belief that this would be the most appropriate way to route the source audio to my Beam without any conversion by TV itself. As I’m sure most people here know, using PCM output causes the TV to down-mix all the audio to stereo so that was a no go.

However, last night I tried setting it to Auto and to my astonishment the sync issues immediately disappeared in Plex. Not only that, I had to reset and clear all the previous calibration I’d done on the ATV which was still applying a now unnecessary delay to the audio for all my other streaming apps.

It does seem as though Plex’s new player remains the only decoder to work slightly differently to all the others, seemingly ignoring the ATV’s calibration settings. However, it looks like the LG’s Auto setting takes into account the TV’s own latency or uses some other kind of method to determine the correct audio offset which makes such calibration unnecessary. Using pass-through bypasses this self-correction.

ATV: (tvOS 15.4) Sound Output to Auto + Dolby Atmos. Match framerate & depth.
LG: (3.21.20) eARC, digital output to Auto.
Plex: (8.0 2172) Use old player set to OFF.

Since I’ve done this, the Sonos app confirms that it’s still receiving Dolby Atmos and Dolby Multichannel PCM 5.1 etc from the ATV so the TV doesn’t appear to be transcoding the audio in any way, just passing it through with the correct offset.

Hope this helps anyone with a setup similar to mine. It doesn’t fix the underlying issue with Plex, but it does seem to work around it for LG TVs.

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I have the same setup and made this change to Auto on my CX. It’s definitely better than before…I’ll keep my breath held for now.

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So far, changing the CX to “Auto” sound has fixed the sync issues for me.

Also, I just ordered a Shield Pro to test out “proper” Atmos sound compared to the Apple TV. Never thought this day would come. At least I can see what the trade-off is really like (ugly UI and unstable platform to get synced and full sound).

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Good to hear some people are finding solutions. I don’t use ARC as I connect my ATV directly to my AV Amp, which then connects to the TV. The fact that every other app works perfectly (Netflix, Prime Video, Infuse Pro) without any tweaking is evidence enough for me that the Plex App is the issue.

I came from an Nvidia Shield to the ATV as that wasn’t perfect either. I fell out with it completely when Android TV started forcing crappy adverts into the main UI! My unit also had a habit of refusing to turn on and the remote was flimsy (the back kept falling off mine). Plex itself was generally fine from what I recall. There doesn’t seem to be the perfect solution that just works for 4K / HDR / Atmos / etc. * sigh*.

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Hi Plex team, still no info here?

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I have the same issue on Plex but also on Amazon Prime Video. Both ATV 4K (2021) have sync issues on a LG and a Sony Bravia, all of them connected to HomePods mini and Original HomePods, respectively.

While the issues are not too bad on the Sony, I have switched the scene mode on the LG to GAME and the problem seems to be solved on PLEX and also on APV. Match framerate and depth are ON.

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Update: The UI is ugly and the apps do crash a lot but when it’s working, the sound and video on the Shield Pro is superb. Full Atmos and audio in sync with no magic tricks required.

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I’m another affected user. I haven’t done much investigation, as diabling the new player has “fixed” it for me in most cases without obvious downside. Like a few others in this thread I don’t have an audio output or passthrough device - the problem repros with a 4k AppleTV playing through an LG TV. (I’m posting mostly to get notified on updates to the thread.)

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How has this issue still not been resolved? I just got a new L9G 4K projector and have been going through so much pain to fix this issue. I figured it couldn’t be Plex but that was ruled out the instant I booted up HBO Max and tried other 4K HDR and non HDR content.

Alas… I will try the old player and see if that improves my experience. Its quite disappointing that this has been an issue reported since 2020 and Plex Devs have not fixed it. Guys - Apple TVs are the premiere streaming box for home theaters - FIX IT.

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I’ve switched to shield pro just because of this issue

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Wow…such a long thread. Thanks everybody.

My hope in Plex staff getting this fixed is really low now.

Will try infuse.

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I use Infuse as a Plex client on Apple devices. Proper content playback is more important to me than having the native Plex client UI.

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Yes, youre right.

But since the problem is known for more than over a year I thought this would get a fix.

Really disappointed right now.