Apologies if this duplicates other posts. I’m trying to understand the current situation with DV playback support on iOS. Specifically, this is about being able to play the DV profile 8.4 videos that are captured by iPhones.
From what I can tell today, this isn’t yet supported. When I try to play an example video, PMS transcodes it. The source file is HEVC Main 10 4K60 DV8.4 + AAC 2.0 (MOV container), which PMS transcodes to h.264 4K + OPUS. The playback test is on an iPhone 13 Pro Max (iOS 15.6.1), the same phone that shot the video.
So what I’d like to understand is:
Is this the currently expected behaviour?
What needs to change for this to playback correctly?
Does the MOV container affect whether or not the video will playback?
In the past I’ve altered XML profiles to help improve device compatibility, would that help here? I’m guessing not, if the app is using Plex’s own video engine, but I thought I’d ask anyway.
I’ve seen lengthy discussion of DV support on Apple TV 4K. Do the two apps share a codebase such that efforts to support profile 8.4 on one would also benefit the other?
I expect this is something that will work eventually, so I’m not trying to push for timelines. But any help you could offer to understand the situation as it is today would be gratefully received.
Have you by any chance tried changing the player to the old player as it uses Apples native player I believe.
Settings> Advanced> Enable old player.
I have no idea if it will make a difference but worth a try.
Failing that, though not a solution, but more an indication of if the file should play is to install infuse. 99p for a month to trial.
It plays pretty much everything on Apple devices in the way it’s intended. They also offer great support and if you still see issues you will get a thorough response direct from a dev.
As a disclaimer, I’m not an advertisement for Infuse as I use both Plex and Infuse in pretty much equal measure.
Thanks for the suggestion! I hadn’t thought to try the old player.
I can confirm that the DV videos I have on the server all playback correctly when using the old player.
So I assume that points towards support needing to be added into the new player.
Until then - have Plex signalled when they’re likely to retire the old player? I’m happy to use it until then, but obviously it might not be that far away!
I haven’t actually seen anything regarding plans for the old player being removed. Playback wise the new player is probably better, however feature wise it’s still crippled by what progress is made in MPV (the new player).
Spatial audio is massive for me and only works in the old player and as far as I’m aware there is no progress being made with Spatial Audio in MPV. Meanwhile though Spatial Audio works in the old player it still insists on converting the container and often transcodes the audio.
It’s why I now mostly link Infuse into my PMS and use it as a client…especially for movies.
Hopefully they won’t remove the old player at least until the new player has feature parity but it’s Plex…so who knows.
