Just no.
A handful of people who know how to implement Metal API on Apple devices?
Infuse struck lucky then if they have two or three of them.
Are you referring to Dave? A really nice guy, but If you are, he did NOT specialise in Apple devices.
Regardless, whoever you were referring to then let’s not rewrite history. Plex on Apple devices has been a shambles for several years and not since a recent round of lay offs. The need for Metal API was evident for the same time period.
What I understand Dave was not a Apple Developer but a previewer or tester of Plex releases.
Exactly.
Plex currently is not good as a modern media player. Its strength is in the media server and media management and music with PlexAMP. They have not put in the development time or seem like they care about being a great media player for many years now. And that shows pretty much across every platform. Some Plex apps perform better than others, but they all have weird playback issues.
When Infuse adds profile support and possibly music support, Plex on ATV may as well be removed from the store and discontinued because it will be pointless to use it when Infuse is far superior a media player.
Maybe by 2025 (and I’m being generous) we will see improvement with the ATV app. However I would not be shocked if by 2025 it’s still not able to play our media files properly.
Probably let go due to their video player being able to play their ad supported/money making content.
I doubt they will want to pay the wage someone with that expertise would attract.
ChannelsDVR uses metal on Apple devices right?
It’s all they care about, that and creeping and outing what you are watching to others without consent.
It’s all public information. Go look up who has been working on Metal integration on GitHub for the last few years. Look up who was maintaining plex’s transcoder and contributing code back into ffmpeg.
To say all that’s required is integrating Metal API is incredibly naive lol. Plex’s player already uses a Metal shader for playback.
Channels does use Metal as well, as does the HDHomeRun app. We’ve open-sourced a lot of our work, including an OTA deinterlacer we developed in Metal and integrated into ffmpeg:
Forgive my ignorance but who is “we”?
We = Fancy Bits LLC, makers of Channels DVR. See my bio.
I was the original author of the iOS/tvOS audio and video drivers which Plex used for their enhanced player.
Ah damn fairly recently too…
Using Channels DVR for my personal use and plex for family(don’t want them to interfere with my sync states).
Waiting for one to meet all my needs…but with plex not even having an employee to improve video playback on Apple devices, I think Channels might win that race!
If you haven’t check out Channels DVR, do yourself a favour.
I should have twigged!! I’ve used Channels on many occasions when I had a tuner. The playback local library files side of it was in its infancy. Might have to take another look at it!
Main problem for me and why I prefer Plex is that not every room has an Apple TV so can’t run Infuse.
Just commenting to say I have this issue too, waiting to get a paid license until it’s sorted out
FWIW it really does seem like a pretty simple solution to a ton of these problems has been suggested in another thread and I hope it gets looked at, commented on, and applied accordingly.
Making your server work to transcode/remux the files makes the experience worst because you are going to experience transcoding in a lot of cases.
I’m not sure you actually clicked through to the linked thread in order to read it? I get it, but also - the above isn’t actually what’s being suggested, and what is being suggested has some solid reasoning behind it.
That is not a solution which is demonstrated by competent media player software such as infuse
Well, part of why I’m linking to it is because it seems more than clear the solution you and others (and myself) have been frustratedly waiting years for, is not going to be coming, but a solution that works for Apple TV users about 90-95% of the way, without needing Plex to become Infuse first (which is basically what people have been asking for)
i did and with a ■■■■ ton of experience with media files this is not a solution, its a workaround that already exists. the argument that HBO, netflix etc use it is not a real one in this case, plex is meant for personal media, not streaming media. that player restricts what personal media compatability which is not something plex has EVER advertised (but who knows now with the amount of houdinis they have pulled, a quick google now says plex is a streaming media company).
again, this is not a solution, its a workaround that already exists. Plex, when you play profile 5 DV file, will auto switch to the old player.
I support the enthusiasm of wanting to come up with workarounds and call them solutions because the people we gave our money to are telling us to go fly a kite, but this is a bandaid on a gash that is the size of a cannon ball.
I’m gonna start by saying I’m not against mpv or other powerful playback libraries for advanced users like yourself.
Whether this is a workaround or a solution is a bit too philosophical. It solves my issues so I’m sharing it with whoever’s interested. I love Plex albeit like most a bit frustrated.
My point is for those whose use cases can be covered by the native player, the native player should be the default option. At least until the other options mature enough. It won’t be easy or quick because Apple is very restrictive.
My media is mostly h264/265 and aac/ac3 with occasional Dolby Vision and Atmos. I have AirPods Pro and HomePods. For my use case, AVPlayer works much better.
Out of genuine curiosity, what proportion of your personal media (as an advanced user like you said) uses codecs that aren’t supported by AVPlayer? What kind of media files do you have?
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For everyone here, if you wanna try a practical demonstration of my suggestion try this:
1- Download Subler (free, open-source on macOS): https://subler.org/
2- Drag an mkv file (with compatible codecs) into it and it’ll remux (ie lossless copy) the media streams inside to an mp4. It’ll add the required tags for native Dolby Vision and Atmos, and convert subtitles to tx3g. It literally takes 5-10 seconds for a 3h movie. Also has bonus option to download metadata/art from iTunes.
3- Place the output files on your Plex server and see just how good “direct play” with AVPlayer is.
Is there any reason why Direct Play provides a better experience than Direct Streaming? I mean, if the Plex Server remuxes the mkv to mp4 on the fly, then everything should be the same, shouldn’t it?
The difference is probably marginal to be fair.
Although I think it’s probably better to be done client-side, my suggestion is not server vs client side.
It’s more “native vs 3rd-party player”.
I’ll be more than happy if they continue to use server-side remuxing but I want them to improve it so that they can make better use of AVPlayer.
For example, when remuxing, it wouldn’t hurt to add the required dec3 atom and FourCC bytes on the fly to the streams (like Subler does) so that Dolby Vision and Atmos work natively with AVPlayer…
This has been the only way to get Atmos and Spatial Audio working properly with my AirPods (and HomePods which I use as home theatre). Otherwise, it just plays “multichannel” ignoring the Atmos metadata.
Again, just thinking outloud. I’ve been coding for macOS and iOS since 2011 but never media related stuff though so… pinch of salt and all…
PS. This would also help LG users since WebOS doesn’t support MKV Dolby Vision.
What you are doing is a workaround. If you have coding and programming experience like you mention you should know the difference. Pretty cut and dry. If you are doing something extra to make your media work with one app as advertised compared to others were it just works, that’s a workaround.
Most of it because anything with subtitles gets transcoding. Making my media and using your method to make it “compatible” isnt a solution because Plex rather plays it with horrible lag (because the Plex player can’t handle 4k video properly or higher bit rate 1080p). Also can’t play any profile 8 DV files, regardless of CM version of the file.
My IPTV app is made by one guy and has a better more efficient media player built into then Plex, uses metal, plays 4k Dolby vision without breaking a sweat but meanwhile Plex has us breaking a sweat trying to get our personal media to work their crappy player.
2k plus movies with more then half of them in 4K and 400 shows. Doing your workaround isn’t a feasible solution for almost anyone unfortunately and is not the experience that we paid for.
