[Bug] Forces transcode on Shield TV, but not on Apple TV

Plex Players Player Betas
1

Tried to watch a movie this morning, but it kept wanting to play it as transcode, despite it being the same kind of 1080p x264 mkv file I always watch. The only difference I can find is that it does have a muxed PGS subtitle track, but even when I try to watch it with a sidecar SRT file, it still wants to transcode.

Playing the same video on my Apple TV goes immediately into Direct Stream, not transcode, which is absolutely fine.

PMS log included, Shield TV network logging started at 08:55 CET

Media file XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionTitle="2. Movies" librarySectionUUID="3689c53a-36a1-4d93-8e25-f83a8b56225f" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1472224920">
<Video ratingKey="5" key="/library/metadata/5" guid="com.plexapp.agents.imdb://tt1853728?lang=en" librarySectionID="1" studio="The Weinstein Company" type="movie" title="Django Unchained" contentRating="R" summary="A slave-turned-bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from the brutal Calvin Candie, a Mississippi plantation owner." rating="7.2" viewCount="1" lastViewedAt="1406301296" year="2012" tagline="Life, liberty and the pursuit of vengeance." thumb="/library/metadata/5/thumb/1472280061" art="/library/metadata/5/art/1472280061" duration="9922913" originallyAvailableAt="2012-12-25" addedAt="1406299908" updatedAt="1472280061" chapterSource="media">
<Media videoResolution="1080" id="5" duration="9922913" bitrate="15959" width="1920" height="800" aspectRatio="2.35" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="ac3" videoCodec="h264" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="5" key="/library/parts/5/1364841903/file.mkv" duration="9922913" file="/Alexandria/Movies/Django Unchained (2012) 1080p Blu-ray DD5.1 x264-Krispy.mkv" size="19794503142" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="1" requiredBandwidths="30663,27458,22626,20309,19576,18951,17286,16636" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="36" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="800" level="41" pixelFormat="yuv420p" profile="high" refFrames="5" requiredBandwidths="29990,26818,21948,19614,18921,18296,16611,16016" title="1080p Blu-ray x264 (Weinstein Company/Anchor Bay)" width="1920" />
<Stream id="37" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="ac3" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="640" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" requiredBandwidths="640,640,640,640,640,640,640,640" samplingRate="48000" title="AC3 5.1" />
<Stream id="38" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="2" language="English" languageCode="eng" requiredBandwidths="45,45,45,45,45,45,45,45" />
<Stream id="387994" key="/library/streams/387994" streamType="3" selected="1" codec="srt" format="srt" />
</Part>
</Media>
<Genre id="28" tag="Drama" count="73" />
<Genre id="622" tag="Western" count="5" />
<Director id="25490" tag="Quentin Tarantino" count="4" />
<Writer id="25491" tag="Quentin Tarantino" count="4" />
<Producer id="25512" tag="Reginald Hudlin" />
<Producer id="25513" tag="Pilar Savone" count="2" />
<Producer id="25514" tag="Stacey Sher" />
<Country id="70" tag="USA" count="113" />
[...]
<Extras size="0">
</Extras>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
2

Not trying to be difficult but might need client logs as well.

Ignore me didn’t read properly.

3

I’m a lifetime Plex Pass member, I’ve been a loyal Plex user for going on a decade now, and I joined the beta program specifically to help you find and fix bugs… Is it too much to ask that a bug report, wherein I unprompted provided all the logs and information I can, is met with at the very least the acknowledgement that it has been read by someone? That someone even cares at all?

I really, truly, honestly don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I’m not, but I’m actually starting to wonder why I even bother… It would be one thing if you at least had some real bug tracker where all you had to do was attach a status to it and I’d know you’d received the bug report, but when you don’t have that, when you refer us to a regular discussion forum, you kind of need to let people know they’re not just dumping their own personal effort into /dev/null.

If you have read this and are aware of and/or working on this issue, my apologies, but how was I supposed to know?

4

Hey Nathaniel,

I’m sorry no one responded directly, let me try to review what i’m seeing from your logs…

  • You have a sidecar (SRT) subtitle that’s selected
  • The Android client is deciding not to Direct Play the file. I don’t know why, because I would need to see the Android client logs rather than the servers to determine that. At a guess, probably you don’t have Passthrough enabled or your SHIELD is not connected to something that supports passthrough
  • The Android client is asking the server to burn the subtitle inside, rather than having it muxed into the transcoded video stream.

This is actually not technically a bug, but a known limitation in the way that we handle subtitles when the client needs to transcode. At the moment, Android only supports subtitles being sent outside of HLS (we use MKV for the subtitle only stream). The problem with doing this when the video or audio is being transcoded, is that their timestamps can be off and therefore lead to the subtitles being out of sync. The solution, which we have identified and will hopefully schedule soon, is to send the subtitle inside the HLS stream which is similar to what our Apple TV client does. It requires some further changes to the Android video player we use, but we are aware that it’s causing pain to a number of users.

Thanks for your patience
Ian

5

Hello @IanDBird

Any updates on this issue yet?