Server Version#: 1.21.1.3830
Player Version#: Version 7.11
Server and player are both updated to latest stable versions as listed above. The server runs Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS and the iPhone is on iOS 14.3.
I tried to stream a HEVC video with Opus audio on my iPhone via LAN. In case it makes any difference I have a Plex Pass.
The server said it was transcoding the audio to MP3 but the video did not play on my phone at all. I got an error message at the bottom in an orange banner that said “Something went wrong playing your media. Please try again.”
I quit the Plex app on my phone and opened it again but had the same issue.
The same video plays 100% fine on my Apple TV, where the audio just gets transcoded to AC3 and it plays as it should. I tried it within Chrome and it also worked fine with the video being transcoded to H264 and audio transcoded to AAC.
Although I’m slightly curious about Plex transcoding Opus to various formats depending on which device I’m using, and wondering why it can’t just direct play given that iOS and Chrome both have native Opus support and it’s a FOSS format supported by ffmpeg, my primary concern is why video with Opus audio cannot play at all on my iPhone even when it is transcoded by the server.
I am 100% sure the issue is Opus related as the video file has multiple audio tracks. I switched to an audio track with a different format and suddenly it was able to direct play to the iPhone without problem.
I was especially surprised by this given that Plexamp transcodes audio to Opus for playback itself… given its efficiency this is a smart decision when using Plexamp over mobile data but it has me baffled at the lack of Opus support elsewhere within Plex.
Streaming videos without Opus works 100% fine even if it’s high bitrate 4K HDR content to my TV so it’s not a network issue for certain.
