Bring Back Option to Force Direct Play on Android Plex App

Feature Suggestions
1

So I’ve been chasing around an issue for a couple of days trying to get 4K playback working correctly. Here is my setup for reference.

Plex Server
Windows Server 2012R2 Virtual Machine
8GB RAM
12 vCPU of Intel Xeon X5650 @ 2.66GHz
.VHDX for this VM is on a RAID1 pair of SSDs

Media Server
Western Digital Sentinel NAS
Windows Server Storage 2008
(Plex Server accesses the media stored here via SMB share)

Plex Client
NVIDIA SHIELD
Plex App (v5.6.1.505 or v7.11.3.9220)

Display
Sony Bravia - XBR55X900F

All hardware is Gigabit Ethernet connected. NVIDIA SHIELD is connected to a Cisco Meraki MS220-8P switch behind entertainment center. That switch is fed by an HP 2920-24G PoE+ switch that the servers are connected to.

As you can see, hardware and connection speed should not be an issue.

I’ve been fighting playback on a couple of Pixar movies. Incredibles 2 and Coco. The files are both HEVC 4K 10bit for video and have both TRUEHD and AC3 for audio.

Now when running the latest version (v7.11.3.9220) of the Plex App, I get audio playback but no video on the TV. The Plex server was transcoding. I will run the update again and test to see what transcoding is happening. If I ran the older version (v5.6.1.505) of the app (after uninstalling updates on the app) I had the option to force direct play and the movie plays fine.

It appears that my Plex Server instance (v1.14.1.5488) doesn’t know that it can play back these movies without transcoding. And when it does transcode, it’s not doing something correctly. I would also get a server performance error playing back Dark Knight in 4K on Plex App v7.11.3.9220. Going back to the older version and forcing direct play mitigated this. How my VM would get a performance error is beyond me.

I get the idea behind Plex Server is to provide a platform that can serve media to devices of all different types of capabilities by deciding what needs to be transcoded and how. But unless that decision making is perfect (which it isn’t) there is reason and purpose to provide the option of forcing direct play on the Client/App side.

Please put the option to force directly play on the client side back.

2

In Plex client settings on Shield, set Display Information = On.

During playback, pull up on-screen controls (tap bottom of ring on remote, pause video, etc). The Information Overlay will be displayed in upper left corner of screen. It will show if movie is direct playing / direct streaming / transcoding. If transcoding it will provide a reason.

The Info Overlay can help with troubleshooting. The messages are more informative than what is displayed in Status -> Now Playing via Plex Web.

Use the AC3 audio track when watching the movies. According to Sony website, the TV does not support TrueHD audio. Selecting AC3 will eliminate audio transcoding & make it easier to troubleshoot video issues.

Turn off subtitles, at least temporarily, if enabled. They’re known troublemakers in Plex. The Shield handles PGS & SRT subtitles w/o issue, but still best to turn them off for initial troubleshooting.

3

Thanks for the info on Display Information and being able to find more troubleshooting info. I’ll check what I see there when I flip the Plex Client App back to current version.

It still doesn’t add up that the Shield can play HEVC and AC3 natively that the Plex Server would want to perform any transcoding. Unless it is written to take TRUEHD codec and transcode it, rather than use the natively supported AC3 in this case. We’ll know more when I see what transcode work is happening with the updated app.

Regardless, there are many of us that would like the Force Direct option to return to the client. If the software can’t always make the right decision on its own, then there is reason to have an option for the user to edit settings. That is provided that I haven’t edited another setting that I shouldn’t have.

4

Plex defaults to the first audio track in the file (or first match for preferred language if configured in PMS Settings → Languages).

You can select an alternate track on the pre-play screen before streaming the movie. I believe Plex remembers this choice so you do not have to select the alternate track every time you play the movie.

5

That makes sense. I can see both the TRUEHD and the AC3 audio streams in the pre-play selection.

Here’s some more info:

v5.6.1.505 - Direct Play set to Forced, TRUEHD selected for audio - No Transcoding
v5.6.1.505 - Direct Play set to Forced, AC3 selected for audio - No Transcoding
v5.6.1.505 - Direct Play set to Auto, TRUEHD selected for audio - Video is not transcoded, Audio is TRUEHD to AAC
v5.6.1.505 - Direct Play set to Auto, AC3 selected for audio - Video is not transcoded, audio is AC3 to AAC

That tells us that when have we v5.6.1.505 set to “Auto” for direct play, the Plex Server decides to transcode even though it is apparently not needed. If the Plex Server’s transcode decision logic is incorrectly making these selections, then there absolutely should be a setting to override.

I am wondering if the Plex Server is accurately reporting it’s transcode duties. AAC is supported on Shield as is Dolby TrueHD in pass-through, but AC3 is not on the list. But I saw no transcoding indicated when set to Forced direct play with either audio stream. I did look both on the Plex Server status and Overlay Info as you suggested.

I’m attempting to run the app update again and run through these tests and see what transcoding is happening and when. Very interested in seeing the results.

6

Updated the app to v7.11.3.9220. Remember with this version, we can no longer force direct play.

Now when I’m playing back:

Audio Stream: TRUEHD
Video is direct stream
Audio is TRUEHD to EAC3
No video is displayed on the TV

Audio Stream: AC3
Video and Audio is Direct Play
No issues

It appears with the newest version of the Plex App on my Shield, the Plex Server decides to transcode TRUEHD to EAC3 and consequently breaks video display.

Maybe it’s a bug with this app version.

Fordguy61, thank you for suggesting the info overlay, that will certainly come in handy when troubleshooting future issues. I would still like the option in the client app to Force Direct Play and I know there are many others that would as well by reading these forums.