I’ve searched the forums numerous times and there are a dozen or more threads on this topic, some going back as far as 2009! Yet the only solution is to manually change the order of tracks to appease Plex. All other programs do not have a problem with multiple audio tracks of the same language (MPC-HC, VLC, etc). Plex needs to respect the tagging of the default track or at least Plex client coding could choose the track by language, then the track with the most channels. Or have a setting in either server or client (more preferable) to choose the default (stereo or 5.1, etc)
In order for mp4 files to be compatible with iTunes (at least to sync to iPhone), the first track must be AAC 2.0. I have thousands of MP4s that I created using Handbrake that have (2) English tracks, first is AAC 2.0, second is AC3 5.1. Some clients (Roku I believe is one) correctly play the 5.1 track by default. Most others players play the first track listed by default (AAC 2.0 in my case). There needs to be a setting to playback the 5.1 by default.
There are batch program options for changing the audio track order in MKV files, but I can’t find one for MP4. That being said, changing the order of the audio tracks breaks the files for syncing in iTunes as explained above.
Any help/suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks
BP
Yep…I’m in the same boat. I’ve brought this up a couple of times previously.
As I posted elsewhere today, I just figured out (yes, after 3yrs) that you can have multiple locations (drives) for Plex libraries. Previously, I had set up “Main” Movies and TV Show Libraries and “TiVo” Movies and TV Shows Libraries for my TiVo KMTTG rips, as I like to keep them physically separated on different RAID drives. When adding files to Plex, I just went in and manually changed the audio (where appropriate) to AC3…one by one. Not too bad when adding a few files at a time. I also should mention that I exclusively use MP4 containers, and my encodes with Handbrake use an Apple TV 3 based custom tweaked preset. Which means 100% of my files are MP4 h.264 video w/AAC + AC3 audio tracks.
Today when I merged the “TiVo” libraries into my Main Movies and TV Shows, all of the previous “TiVo” files went back to AAC audio. The only way I know of to “Fix” this for my Media Room AppleTV 4 viewing is to now manually go back thru 1000+ files via details view and change it. (Or just make sure to select it for each viewing from the ATV4…which is also a major pain on the Plex app on ATV4…Plex needs to fix this so it is much simpler/easier.).
It seems to me that Plex could fix this pretty easily by just implementing a “Prefer AC3 Audio if available” function on the server side…either via Library, User, or Device.
I’ll also submit the argument that this MP4 container format (h.264 + AAC + AC3 DD5.1) is probably the most auspicious Plex use case for media libraries… Obviously, this is “Apple’s” format for mp4 containers…so any files acquired via iTunes will follow this format. Secondly, I’m willing to bet that MANY Handbrake users who don’t use MKV are using one of the Apple presets (either “as is” or custom tweaked)…which means Handbrake encodes are using the AAC + AC3 audio format as well. All of that being said, I don’t understand why Plex has still not addressed this issue. Who wants to go back and re-encode or reset their mp4 files? Especially when doing so would break backwards compatible interoperability with Apple devices, since older devices sometimes need AAC? Why not just have Plex take care of this automatically so that devices that can support AC3 get AC3, and devices that can’t support AC3 get AAC or PCM or whatever it is they can support? For instance, I could swear that back in the “hacked” AppleTV 3 days Plex actually automatically supported AC3 for Apple TV 3? Am I mis-remembering this? What happened to that feature for Apple TV 4?
If anybody has any ideas on why this seems to be so difficult, I’m all ears…
Sincerely,
BG
