Apple TV 4K - Stuttering on the Lowest Quality Videos

Server Version#: 1.42.2.10156
Player Version#:8.45

This is a please to the developers: Please stop “fixing” the UI and fix the player. I can’t even watch MASH episodes with h264 mkv and Stereo sound without stuttering on the “New Player”

It being single threaded and unable to play a low res tv show that ended in the 1980’s is unacceptable.

Infact, all the shows it’s struggled with in the last few days have been like that, A Muppet Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

It’s embarassing, I have a killer setup (HPE DL380 Gen10, AFA zfs z1 volume for the DB, 128GB of RAM, a quadro p2200, 10Gb twinax and gigabit hardline all the way to the client) and a “premium” player that is buffering due to a single threaded job of constantly updating the progress poster. Maybe move that to server side, or do it after the show is exited.

I use plex because it’s easy, but when I’m trying to work and the two year old absolutely has to have his “Shaggy burr” I don’t need him screaming because his show keeps stuttering.

I’ve spent three days working on this and your engineering team needs to refocus priorities.

Oh and I run TWO life time plex passes, have implemented them for my dads own and make others buy them to support you all when I share my library.

The least you could do is make the apple tv player work. At all.

I have an ATV 4K (1st gen) and a E5-2690v4 with a P2200 Ubuntu 24.04.

I get DirectPlay

The P2200 can transcode this without issue
The first question is what are your Quality settings in the app?
The second question is are you using MTU 1500 for your LAN?
Are you using 5 Ghz WiFi or wired ?

I have:

  • Quality suggestions: OFF
  • Local Quality: Maximum
  • Remote Quality: Maximum
  • Allow Direct Play: ON
  • Allow Direct Stream: ON
  • Max H.264 level: 5.2

The ATV is wired to the LAN.

This is petty content for even that old plex app. Nobody else is complaining about that kind of content.

You need to look deep into your settings and configs. Maybe do some factory resets. I wouldn’t even know how to break h264 content that badly.