Apple TV HD (A1625) won't play h.265 mkv - do I need to upgrade?

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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1

Server Version#: 1.32.5.7349 (Synology DS218)
Player Version#: 8.23.1 (6601)

Hi everyone, my Apple TV refuses to play h.265 mkv files - they just don’t stream whether I enable Direct Play, the old video player, old audio player etc. The videos play fine on

Plex web app on MacBook Pro (2020), Intel
Plex iOS app on iPhone 12

Is this a limitation of the old A8 chip which the iPhone with the A14 doesn’t have? If I bought a new Apple TV 4K, should these videos play fine? After searching the forums I found that the A8 should support software h.265 decoding but I’m not sure if that is compatible with Plex. I am tempted to buy a new Apple TV if I can throw money at the problem and make it go away…

Video information: MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265) (hevc), 1280 x 720, 50fps

2

Most of the HEVC (H.265) you’ll find is 4K.

I would indeed upgrade. I have the 1st Gen Apple TV 4K and even it’s getting a bit dated at this point.

3

I have an Apple TV HD that will happily play H.265/HEVC in MKV at moderate bitrates.

I just re-tested a couple of 1280x720 and 1920x1080 sample files. A 10mbps file plays fine, a 40mbps file doesn’t. Playback is a bit clunky for the first few seconds, but then it smooths out and works great.

Do you get an error when attempting playback? Do other files play back well on that system? Can you share the media XML info for one of the problem files, or a sample file?

I certainly prefer the newer Apple TV 4K, but it’s also worth understanding if there’s also a problem with those files specifically.

4

Thanks for your help - here’s the xml file with the file details redacted. Can’t share a sample file unfortunately.

I don’t see any error message: the video player opens on the Apple TV but the video doesn’t start. I’ve had issues with HEVC videos before and I usually just create an optimised version via the Plex server, but it’s not a great long term solution (especially when the Synology CPU is weak and it takes hours to transcode!)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Media id="25254" duration="4509040" bitrate="1445" width="1280" height="720" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="hevc" videoResolution="720" container="mkv" audioProfile="lc" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="25291" key="/library/parts/25291/1691990927/file.mkv" duration="4509040" file="/volume1/Photon/foo.mkv" size="817360039" audioProfile="lc" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="6" requiredBandwidths="3374,2594,1726,1618,1618,1618,1618,1618" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="49736" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="1316" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="720" codedWidth="1280" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="50.000" height="720" level="120" profile="main" refFrames="1" requiredBandwidths="3246,2466,1598,1490,1490,1490,1490,1490" width="1280" displayTitle="720p (HEVC Main)" extendedDisplayTitle="720p (HEVC Main)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="49737" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="128" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" requiredBandwidths="129,129,129,129,129,129,129,129" samplingRate="48000" title="Stereo" displayTitle="English (AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Stereo (English AAC)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="49738" streamType="3" codec="ass" index="2" bitrate="0" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" displayTitle="Unknown (ASS)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (ASS)">
</Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
...
<Attributes id="10374" version="4" />
</Marker>
<Extras size="0">
</Extras>
<Related>
</Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
5

Are you attempting to play this with subtitles enabled?

6

Yes, I think so! The video is in English but there are some hard to hear moments that use automatic subtitles. I wouldn’t have considered they would affect playback in such a way.

7

If they are .ASS subtitles, the Apple TV app doesn’t have great support for that format. It may require the Plex Media Server to transcode and burn the subtitle text into the video stream.

If you have the option, another subtitle format (SRT) may not require transcoding. I know some clients (Shield, maybe?) are better at .ASS subtitles but I don’t think anything is 100% perfect, especially for fancy .ASS formatting that things like anime use.

8

That might be the solution - I am away from home and can’t check PMS right now but the videos didn’t come with subtitles and so it’s probably pulling from Opensubtitles. I also had issues with Andor on H265 and that definitely used subtitles.

Thanks so much for your help, saves me buying a new Apple TV!

9

The new ones are way faster!

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