I’m running the PLEX server on an iMac 2.7GHz Intel Core i5 with the newest version of El Capitan. It’s serving a 2nd gen PS3. So far I have only 4 files that play correctly. They are MP4 AAC movies. Anything with either AC3 or DTS reverses the Center and Right channels. I’ve been experimenting for almost a week. I do not want to convert all my files to AAC because I’m a recording engineer and AAC is a lousy alternative to DTS or Dolby Digital. I did however try to encode a bunch of movies with multiple audio streams. PLEX identifies them as AAC, but still won’t play them correctly. It seems as if this may have something to do with how the different formats arrange their audio tracks. L/R/C vs. L/C/R. An answer would be great, but if not, can you tell me where I might find a list of PLEX compatible devices that do support DTS and Dolby Digital? Will the new Apple TV will ever support this media? PLEX would solve a bunch of problems for me, but not if I have to convert all my movies and TV shows to AAC. I can send you .XML examples, but honestly, it is every file with Dolby Digital or DTS surround of any flavour. Plus of course there is the added problem that MP4 doesn’t support more than 2ch DTS. Thanks for your help.
Just out of curiosity I checked half a dozen MP4 AAC Stereo Files and even THEY are reversing the Center and Right channels. I’ve tested these formats on a Gen1 PS3 as well and the same problems exist.
To add to the confusion, I installed PLEX on an Asus Transformer Prime. It will play most files including AC3 and DTS, and when I listen to the tablet with headphones, it seems to play correctly. However, when I use Airplay to send it to my G3 Apple TV, everything seems reversed including the few AAC files that play correctly on the PS3. On top of this, I took the same AAC file that plays incorrectly out of my speakers and listened with headphones. Again, in stereo it seems to sound fine. Please note that until I started experimenting with PLEX, I never once had this problem (and as I said, I’m a recording engineer) so I’m sure everything is set up and configured correctly. I was beginning to wonder if maybe it’s my receiver that’s the problem, but I have all the same issues in my living room, which has a different brand of amplifier and a different version of PS3. I’m even considering at this point trying to insert some kind of analog switch that will allow me to change the audio outputs of the Center and Right speakers, but at this point I can’t be confident that there aren’t also problems with the surround outputs. I’m also really curious as to why other people aren’t experiencing this. it’s not like my set-up is in any way unique.
I’m having the same issue, and am a live sound engineer, so I too know my system is setup right and have reproduced the issue on another friend’s ps3 (this is how I determined that his audio setup had Left and Right swapped lol) I’ve yet to experiment out of laziness though, but it has become quite a hindrance especially with movies with large dynamic ranges. At one point while I was still getting audio, my audio receiver (connected via optical spdif) was still decoding and outputting sound, however its display said “no data” an issue I’ve seen in the past with broken audio streams from intermittent signal loss from terrestrial digital broadcast television. The one channel sounds good and consistent, but its only one channel, and sometimes the center channel seems to output what sounds like a mix of the remaining channels, resulting in a muddy low sound, as if the waveforms were mixed out one channel and canceling each other out in some places.
Server is running the latest plexpass version on Win 7 x64, I should note the machine its running on has a sound card that is capable of decoding and encoding DTS, and Dolby Digital, I don’t believe Plex Server uses hardware acceleration for audio streams, but if it could that would probably help out. Same goes for transcoding, it could probably benefit from being able to tap into the GPU vs just burning up the CPU.
