Can the app fallback to DirectStream if they can’t be DirectPlayed?
not that I am aware
It seems like a limitation of Plex itself since Infuse doesn’t have any trouble playing these types of videos. Can support be added to Plex for it? I’m sure this is affecting a lot of people.
No because as previously mentioned we don’t have a license to do anything with DV profile 5. All others have a fall back in the file to HDR 10 so we can do something with it profile 5 does not.
Plex can direct stream some DV P5 in MKV to Apple TV 4K. (This has been improved in the last few months.)
Is the Apple TV itself set to a 4K Dolby Vision mode?
@Volts:
Is the Apple TV itself set to a 4K Dolby Vision mode?
As far as I’m aware, AppleTV 4k automatically switches depending on the source content as long as you’ve set it up to do so. I have that enabled (see About 4K, HDR, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision on your Apple TV 4K - Apple Support).
I can play other Dolby Vision/HDR10 videos just fine if they are in mp4 format, so I don’t think this is a problem.
@BigWheel does the Dolby license agreement depend on the file type of the source? I still don’t understand why Plex has this problem and Infuse does not. Infuse plays Dolby Vision videos in mkv format via a configured Plex source just fine, so the issue seems to be on the actual player itself not on the server side.
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I mention explicitly setting it to a 4K DV mode for a few reasons -
- To confirm presence of a 4K TV (the content mentioned above is 4K)
- To confirm presence of a DV TV
- Because there’s still a Plex quirk/bug/limitation - the Plex app switches the TV into HDR10 mode, instead of DV mode. This ends up looking good (the Apple TV has really good tone mapping) but without dynamic brightness.
If the Apple TV is in a fixed 4K DV mode, “real” DV works.
Try setting the ATV to fixed 4K DV 60 mode, and disable all of the Match options temporarily.
@Volts How are you setting your ATV 4k to a 4K DV mode explicitly? From what I could find, it looks like you have to set “Format” to “4K HDR,” Chroma" to “4:2:2,” and “Match Content,” “Match Dynamic Range” to “Off,” and “Match Frame Rate” to “Off,” (the latter two just to confirm 4k videos.
Is that right? My TV can remain in this mode and play other 4k videos, but in Plex h265 (hevc) with mkv containers inside Plex won’t play.
There is an option called 4k Dolby vision. If you don’t see the 4K Dolby Vision option in the format menu it is likely because your TV does not support Dolby Vision. You can maybe turn off HDR to SDR transcoding on server if that is the issue.
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Ok I learned something new today. You’d think that a 4k TV purchased in 2020 could play anything but apparently all Samsung TVs don’t support 4K Dolby Vision, only HDR10/HDR10+ (see You’ll Never Get Dolby Vision on Samsung TVs. Here's Why - AndroidTVNews). I removed all of my Dolby Vision content and found new sources that are HDR10/HDR10+ and now the videos play on Plex but they are a little choppy. I’m not sure if that’s due to network congestion on my network though. Is there something that I can do to increase buffering in ATV?
On a side note, I’m really curious what Infuse does to play these DV videos. Is there some sort of an alternate stream a DV video provides in case the player can’t play DV videos? Can all DV videos be played in HDR10/HDR10+? If so, if Plex detects a DV video but can’t play DV, can it fall back to HDR10/HDR10+ if it doesn’t already do this?
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This was a very helpful post for me 
So the apple tv is taking the dv file and tone mapping it to hdr10? this is a native ability the apple tv has?
I have profile 7 files that just play dolby vision no issue it seems…i wonder why they would do that
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