Apple TV low frame rate with 1080p HDR content on new player

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.26.2.5797
Player Version#: 8.4 (2807)

When playing 1080p HDR content on Apple TV Plex app and using the new player, the frame rate is very very low. Switching to the old player restores proper playback. Same issue is not present on Nvidia Shield Plex app or even on iPhone Plex app. Specific to Apple TV app and it’s been present for a while, just recently think I narrowed it down to 1080p HDR content.

Here is sample:

  • Bitrate 6204 kbps

  • Width 1920

  • Height 1080

  • Aspect Ratio 1.78

  • Video Resolution 1080p

  • Container MKV

  • Video Frame Rate 24p

  • Video Profile main 10

  • Codec HEVC

  • Bitrate 5435 kbps

  • Bit Depth 10

  • Chroma Location topleft

  • Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0

  • Coded Height 1080

  • Coded Width 1920

  • Color Primaries bt2020

  • Color Range tv

  • Color Space bt2020nc

  • Color Trc smpte2084

  • Frame Rate 23.976 fps

  • Height 1080

  • Level 4.0

  • Profile main 10

  • Ref Frames 1

  • Width 1920

  • Display Title 1080p HDR10 (HEVC Main 10)

  • Extended Display Title 1080p HDR10 (HEVC Main 10)

  • Codec EAC3

  • Channels 6

  • Bitrate 768 kbps

  • Language English

  • Language Tag en

  • Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

  • Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

  • Display Title English (EAC3 5.1)

  • Extended Display Title English (EAC3 5.1)

2

Can you share the media xml info for that file, and/or PM me a link to the file itself?

3

Thanks for the PM’d file.

I see the problem you’re describing. Stutter city!

That file works if Direct Play is disabled. In that case Plex remuxes the streams on the fly into a new container. That seems like the quickest, easiest solution.

It also works if the raw streams are extracted and then muxed into a new container.

I’m confident that there’s something wrong with the file. I suspect it’s this issue - a discrepancy between the order of the packets, the timestamps they do have, and the timestamps they SHOULD have.

Muxing x265 encoded MP4 video file results in massive frame loss (#2777) · Issues · Moritz Bunkus / MKVToolNix · GitLab

Quick file fix (minus subtitles):

mkvextract original.mkv tracks 0:video.h265 1:audio.ac3
mkvmerge -o new.mkv video.h265 audio.ac3
4

I get what you’re saying and appreciate the advice. The easier fix has been to just play it with the old player or on the Nvidia shield instead of the Apple TV. Plays fine everywhere else except for the Apple TV/new player combination

5

Disabling Allow Direct Play or enabling Use Old Video Player should be a similar amount of steps, the settings are adjacent. :slight_smile:

Forcing the old video player will trigger a transcode of this file. If your server is fast enough to do that, and you don’t notice any quality issues, great!

I believe that disabling Allow Direct Play and disabling Use Old Video Player will allow this file to Direct Stream with no transcoding or loss of quality.

Playback on other devices might be using Direct Stream already, or those other devices might ignore the timestamps in the container and decode the streams differently.

I think the stuttering here is technically correct with a broken file, although it’s obviously not what anybody would ever want.

6

Confirmed it’s DirectPlay on Nvidia Shield and iPhone and works just fine there :slight_smile:

I think the Apple TV new player is just having trouble with it. I guess other platforms are just better at handling a messy MKV or Plex has a bug somewhere on Apple TV only.

7

Hi @KnightRdr23!

Thank you for this post!

I am having same problem here. I think is something related to app on ATV4.
Plex upgrade recently and for me is running much better. Did not fix the problem but is much better.

Let´s wait for next upgrade…

Take care!
Braz.

8

Just had this happen with a 4K HDR file too. Plays fine on other platforms and with old player on Apple TV, skipping frame rate when using the standard player

9

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