Automatically Set Preferred/Default Audio For Videos (audio format/codec) // mod: option to override

[leelynds]

I’m desparate to understand why auto selection of the “best” audio track is possible in some devices but not all.

Continuing a conversation from this thread:

Alternative to Plex

When DP, the Plex app tells the video player 1 of 2 things. 1 - When you don’t manually select an audio track, “here’s a file, do what you want”. 2 - When you do specify a track, “here’s a file, play this video track and this audio track”. On the Roku, when it receives 1, it can override these and decide “I’ll play this audio instead since that is what my setting tells me to do”. Exoplayer in Android doesn’t have that override so when it gets 1, it always chooses the first compatible audio…

So my question are:

If the Roku and PMP apps are capable of making an intelligent decision based on the capabilities of the device and the equipment it is connected to, when the options for pass-through, codecs, etc have been made, why can’t the Android device do the same thing?

Apparently, auto-bitrate adjustment, hardware acceleration, or incorrectly choosing an alternate audio such as “Director’s Comments” are important decisions that the Android would have to consider, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem with the Roku or PMP.

Why would those factors have a higher priority on some devices, but not others?