It’s not just your Sony TV. Roku and Fire TV only have 100Mbit ethernet.
Almost every TV has 100 Ethernet
That seems pretty impressive then 
mine comes no where near that 
Could I ask what you used to test the speed on the TV, an app or the web browser?
It’s an app which I downloaded from the app store called analiti - WiFi Tester & Analyzer.
I have a dual band router… 2.4GHz and 5GHz. My TV is connected to the 5GHz. When it’s connected to the 2.4GHz WiFi, I get lower speeds. That said, I just tested my WiFi connection and today the max I got was 128Mbps.
Thanks for the info, I think i did try that one 
I have a couple of Apple Airport Basestations, 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs and am using 5Ghz.
But I just had a look and for some reason the TV downstairs is connecting the Basestation upstairs… stupid TV 
So I think I might need to go and sort that out…
That’s better, get 230Mbps now it’s connected to the right basestation
haha cool!!!
I think I have the same “problem” :
My brand new Sony TV (XF8505 with android TV 7.0 and hevc capabilites) couldn’t direct stream a 4K HEVC file through the Plex App (transcode to H264 with MPEGTS container)
… But it works with the Plex plugin on Kodi as soon as I activated the option “this player has x265 capabilities”.
So, either the plex app doesn’t recognize the hardware or is missing an option to activate and support it.
Hi - first time poster on this forum
I have similar problems with playback of 4k HDR UHD videos on a Sony TV with AndroidTV. My TV is a Bravia XF90 (aka, XBR-55X900F).
I’m running the latest version of PMS and the up to date Plex app on my TV. My PMS is a NAS box with 2 bonded 1Gbit interfaces - while not powerful enough to transcode video, it is powerful enough to Direct Play, and Direct Streaming a 4k MKV seems to use only 50% of the CPU capability at most.
According to the ‘Activity’ page when playing back a 4k movie, it apparently uses about 105mbps; which should be well within the bandwidth and processing capabilities of the Intel Atom CPU in the NAS and the wifi connection, which a speedtest puts at 175-200mbps.
I’ve tried playing the same video in VLC from the DLNA server provided by Plex and it plays back perfectly… which suggests that the TV is able to play the video and audio format used in the MKV.
I’ve also tried tweaking every setting relating to playback in the Plex app on the TV, but the playback stutters every few minutes and displays the ‘connection not fast enough’ message.
I’m at a loss as to what to do, and extremely annoyed that this is not working after spending £1000 on a new TV!
Is there any way to turn off Direct Streaming in the server? Since I know the TV can play the MKV as it’s doing so over DLNA, perhaps forcing Direct Play as the only option might work? That’s the only thing I can think of to try…
If anyone has any suggestions on what to do, please reply!
Thanks!
4K can be problematic, there is a thread that’s probably worth reading.
Without knowing the details of the 4K file it is difficult to know, as there are so many variables, data rate, audio stream etc
fwiw VLC is probably a more capable player than Exo Player which afaik is what plex uses.
In the settings on the Android app I would turn on Display Information. this will show you a bit more info about what plex is doing, it may be trying to transcode the audio.
did you read the entire thread?
most likely you are trying to play HD audio and your tv doesn’t support it.
Try a different audio stream (ie ac3 5.1 or stereo).
You may also need to disable subtitles if you have them enabled.
Thanks for the reply
I had read that FAQ before posting, and I know that transcoding 4k is not going to be an option (not most importantly because the NAS isn’t powerful enough to do it). But I know things aren’t being transcoded as Plex doesn’t report that - just that it’s Direct Streaming, which it seems powerful enough to do.
The codec info is, as reported by Plex:
Video: HEVC Main 10 HDR
Audtio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
If the VLC player is capable of playing the MKV using the hardware of the TV, shouldn’t the player used by Plex also have that capability? I mean, isn’t the capabilities of the player set by the hardware used to decode the stream?
Checking the Display Information, it says it’s transcoding because “DTS audio is not supported by this device”. I can understand that being an issue and the PMS needing to transcode, but that doesn’t explain the behaviour I’m seeing.
The NAS seems capable of doing the processing necessary to Direct Stream both the audio and video (given the low CPU impact I’m seeing), but it seems to ‘stutter’ in its processing. The issue seems to be that the server isn’t continuing to process the data once some buffer is filled and then there is a delay re-filling the buffer, causing it to stutter.
My reasoning on this is that it will play fine for a few minutes, then stutter. Then another few minutes… stutter. If the NAS wasn’t capable of streaming data at the correct speed, it would be stuttering a lot more than every few minutes.
As I said, it seems like the NAS is pausing its work when some buffer is filled (be it on the TV or on the NAS) and it’s not starting the process again quickly enough. I’ve tried playing around with the buffer sizes in the advanced settings in PMS, but this hasn’t made any difference - there used to be a lot more options to tinker with in PMS, but they seem to have vanished… is there any way to tweak buffer sizes manually?
Hope the extra info helps diagnose the problem!
Thanks for your help - it’s very appreciated
I’ve just checked the specs for the TV on Sony’s website and it seems to suggest that TV supports DTS “surround”.
I’m not sure what the “surround” refers to, as the DTS wikipedia page doesn’t list “surround” as one of the DTS standards. But assuming it’s just a general term for any DTS standard, the playback of the DTS-HD MA track should work OK. Unless I’m wrong about what the “surround” means…
I’ll try to convert the DTS track to AC3 to test if it works, but I’d really prefer a solution that doesn’t involve me transcoding every file.
To me, if I’m correct about the TV supporting DTS, the problem lies with the Plex client not reporting the support accurately to the server, or the server ignoring what it’s being told.
Is there any way to find out what the client is reporting to the server or what the server thinks is supported by the client?
Cheers
As you can see from the DTS wikipedia page, DTS covers many things.
I am pretty sure your TV does not support DTS-HD MA, so Plex needs to transcode the audio stream in to a stream suitable for ExoPlayer 2, and for DTS-HD MA I think that is quite processor intensive.
I just tried on my TV and see the same sort of stuttering with videos that need the audio transcoding. If I look at my nas (Synology 1815+ with 4 bonded nics) resource monitor I can see periods where the cpu is maxing out while transcoding the audio, which is I guess why it is stuttering
What VLC is doing to the audio stream I don’t know, but I doubt it is outputting the audio as DTS-HD MA.
So to play without stuttering using Plex you would need the convert the audio tracks to something your TV supports (and have external subtile files if you need subtitles)
My solution to playing these (DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD) is a Shield connected to my network via ethernet to a Gbit switch, the Shield connected to an Audio Receiver and that connected to the TV.
That will direct play pretty much anything I have.
(and having just looked in the settings in the android app on my TV, there does not seem to be an option to change direct streaming or direct play)
When you are ripping 4k uhd disks yourself, there are almost always multiple audio streams available, including 5.1 and stereo mixes.
In the plex player you can choose a different audio stream, and if you do so, and it no longer transcodes, then you have identified and solved your problem… ie your tv does not support the HD audio.
Pretty much all smart tvs have this problem. Every person with a smart tv comes here to complain about it, but it is not a plex problem, it is simply that tvs have not been designed to accept the HD audio that comes with 4k blurays.
If you play directly from a 4k bluray player, then the bluray player will either send the compatible audio or you may have to manually switch to a compatible audio to hear anything, or maybe it will convert to pcm which is generally accepted by everything.
In any case, the easiest solution for 4k without transcoding = nvidia shield + atmos receiver + 4k tv.
Thank you both for your replies.
As a test, I put one of the MKVs onto a USB stick to try on the TV.
Using the built in video player on the TV (I believe it’s the standard “Videos” player that comes with AndroidTV?) I can play the MKV just fine, with no stuttering.
This would suggest that the TV does support the audio codec (DTS-HD MA) used in these MKVs. It also suggests that it is a Plex issue and not one with the TV.
The files don’t seem to have multiple audio streams to select within Plex - the only available audio is the DTS-HD MA.
How does Plex determine the capabilities of the TV?
And why might Plex think that the TV doesn’t support DTS-HD MA and has to transcode, when it clearly does support it?
I’m just trying to understand what Plex is doing to choose to transcode, because it’s obviously doing something wrong in this case.
Appreciate the help
You are walking the path that thousands have traveled before and is littered with the bodies of dead threads everywhere about the same thing.
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playing a file locally through the built in video player is not the same as streaming it through plex.
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dts is supposed to have a lossy core for compatiblity purposes, so in theory it should work without conversion. My guess is you still have subtitles enabled.
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unless you ripped them without the other audio streams, every 4k includes multiple audio tracks for different compatiblity reasons, and typically along with different languages and behind the scenes/directors comments.
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plex client communicates with the tv which between the tv and hdmi determine what capabilities are available.
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there are a couple places you can reference to determine what is happening and why;
a) https://app.plex.tv/desktop# > status > this will show your streams and will tell you what is being direct played or transcoded and how much bandwidth is being used
b) https://app.plex.tv/desktop# > settings > console > this is the log file you can monitor some of the messages while starting a movie and it can tell you why plex has decided to transcode. (try filter “MDE:” without the quotes)
c) https://app.plex.tv/desktop# > settings > troubleshooting > download logs > you can download a zip of the logs to read through in a text program of your choice.
heres another similar thread @ LG C9 eARC no DTS HD MA audio pass through
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At the risk of turning this into another body… 
I don’t understand where the difference lies between the local video player having to decode the DTS-HA MA audio track, and the Plex client having to decode the DTS-HA MA audio track?
If Plex was just direct playing the file, with the DTS track, surely the decoding in the TV is the same?
I’m not using subtitles on the client. But the file does have subtitle tracks according to ffmpeg. Does this affect the ability to direct play files? If so, I can use ffmpeg to remove those tracks…
The files were ripped with only 1 audio stream, that being the DTS-HD MA track, according to ffmpeg. I didn’t rip the files, so didn’t have any control over what is included.
I’ll check out the references you gave to see what is going on and let you know
Thanks again - this thread is proving quite interesting, at least to me!
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in many cases, 3rd party apps do not get the same access to device hardware that built-in apps get (ostensibly for security).
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plex is a thin client, it does not do any decoding or processing on its own, it relies on the server to send content that is compatible with the device the client is playing on. This is how plex client can be pre-loaded and/or work across many different devices with an infinite difference in performance.
where as other ‘thick’ players, can do more processing/decoding directly. Like perhaps the builtin player, or vlc, or kodi, all can handle more formats because they have built in programming to decode more things.
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if the subtitles are not enabled on the client, then the subtitles in the file don’t affect anything.
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well, suffice to say if you did not rip it yourself, you are at the mercy of whoever did, and are obviously not going to get much support here for any content of mysterious origin.
@Andrew_Tang can you play 1080p content OK? I’ve got the KD65X7500F and it will not play local 1080p contet (tried Kodi and Emby as well as Plex) without major pauses. It can play 4K content from Youtube and Netflix no problem which is great, but I purchased this TV to use with Plex. Using an external Anrdoid TV box works no problem on the same network connection.
Hi. I have no issues playing 1080p videos. 1080p Direct plays and no transcoding required.
