DVR recording playback of SD in 4:3 aspect ration instead of 16:9

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

I’ve seen a number of posts about this, but no definitive answer.

I’ve made a number of recording of Freeview UK, which record as:

Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9

However, playing any of these videos I get 4:3 aspect ratio. This only happens on Shield TV. On all android pads/phones and any windows PCs I have these videos play as 16:9.

Plex has it as the following:

Video Resolution 576p
Width 720
Height 576
Aspect Ratio 1.78

I’ve seen some posts saying that it’s fixed in update shield update 6, but I have 6.2 and the problem persists. I’ve tried Kodi as well, but when I open plex in Kodi it just opens the native plex app on shield with the same issues.

HD recordings play fine in 16:9:

Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Plex info:

Video Resolution 1080p
Width 1920
Height 1080
Aspect Ratio 1.78

Can anyone help?

2

Is this the Shield server? do you know if the recordings are being transcoded during playback?

3

is it possible to get full XML for one of the videos this is happening to

4

Is this the Shield server? No I have an i3 Intel NUC machine on the network acting as the PMS

do you know if the recordings are being transcoded during playback? I’ve tried both transcoding and original and both have the same result.

is it possible to get full XML for one of the videos this is happening to:

I posted just an example, all my SD recordings do this (hundreds of files)

Here is the full XML of one such video:

<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="6" librarySectionTitle="Kids TV Shows" librarySectionUUID="3ddbf069-2229-4f79-85ef-a578418f4820" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1518720878">
<Video ratingKey="40366" key="/library/metadata/40366" parentRatingKey="40258" grandparentRatingKey="40257" guid="com.gracenote.onconnect://episode/EP026460270018" librarySectionTitle="Kids TV Shows" librarySectionID="6" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/6" type="episode" title="Dot, Unplugged" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/40257" parentKey="/library/metadata/40258" grandparentTitle="Dot" parentTitle="Season 1" contentRating="TV-Y" summary="Dot and her family face a big change in their life when they decide to avoid technology." index="11" parentIndex="1" year="2016" thumb="/library/metadata/40366/thumb/1519136523" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/40257/thumb/1519098993" duration="1192439" originallyAvailableAt="2016-11-10" addedAt="1519135201" updatedAt="1519136523">
<Media videoResolution="576" id="56360" duration="1192439" bitrate="1567" width="720" height="576" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="PAL" optimizedForStreaming="1" audioProfile="lc" has64bitOffsets="0" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="62187" key="/library/parts/62187/1519136455/file.mp4" duration="1192439" file="G:\Amazon Drive\Plex\Kids TV Shows\Dot (2016)\Season 01\Dot (2016) - S01E11 - Dot Unplugged.mp4" size="233633826" audioProfile="lc" container="mp4" has64bitOffsets="0" optimizedForStreaming="1" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="63751" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="1401" anamorphic="1" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt470bg" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="smpte170m" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="25.015" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="576" level="30" pixelAspectRatio="64:45" profile="high" refFrames="3" streamIdentifier="1" width="720"/>
<Stream id="63752" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="166" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Extras size="0"></Extras>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
5

Here is another I optimised for TV (made no difference)

    <MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="7" librarySectionTitle="Documentary TV" librarySectionUUID="e5f31edb-a17d-4f37-be8c-607a7dadbc85" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1518720878">
    <Video ratingKey="38919" key="/library/metadata/38919" parentRatingKey="38917" grandparentRatingKey="38916" guid="local://38919" librarySectionTitle="Documentary TV" librarySectionID="7" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/7" type="episode" title="2018-01-14" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/38916" parentKey="/library/metadata/38917" grandparentTitle="David Attenborough's Living Lights" parentTitle="Season 2018" summary="" parentIndex="2018" year="2018" thumb="/library/metadata/38919/thumb/1518924325" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/38916/thumb/1519098993" duration="2656004" originallyAvailableAt="2018-01-14" addedAt="1515948179" updatedAt="1518924325">
    <Media videoResolution="576" id="52057" duration="2656004" bitrate="1221" width="538" height="572" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="PAL" optimizedForStreaming="0" audioProfile="lc" has64bitOffsets="1" videoProfile="high" title="Original">
    <Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="57847" key="/library/parts/57847/1516047315/file.mp4" duration="2656004" file="G:\Amazon Drive\Plex\Documentary TV\David Attenborough's Living Lights (2016)\Season 2018\David Attenborough's Living Lights (2016) - 2018-01-14 00 00 00 - Episode 01-14.mp4" size="405382110" audioProfile="lc" container="mp4" has64bitOffsets="1" indexes="sd" optimizedForStreaming="0" videoProfile="high">
    <Stream id="54564" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="1057" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt470bg" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="smpte170m" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="24.999" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="572" level="30" profile="high" refFrames="3" streamIdentifier="1" width="538"/>
    <Stream id="54565" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="164" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2"/>
    </Part>
    </Media>
    <Media videoResolution="576" id="55936" duration="2656004" bitrate="1223" width="538" height="572" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="PAL" optimizedForStreaming="1" proxyType="42" audioProfile="lc" has64bitOffsets="0" target="Optimized for TV" targetTagID="2" videoProfile="high" title="Optimized for TV">
    <Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="61742" key="/library/parts/61742/1518895086/file.mp4" duration="2656004" file="G:\Amazon Drive\Plex\Documentary TV\David Attenborough's Living Lights (2016)\Season 2018\Plex Versions\Optimized for TV\David Attenborough's Living Lights\2018-01-14.mp4" size="405958446" audioProfile="lc" container="mp4" has64bitOffsets="0" indexes="sd" optimizedForStreaming="1" videoProfile="high">
    <Stream id="62833" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="1057" anamorphic="1" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt470bg" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="smpte170m" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="24.999" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="572" level="30" pixelAspectRatio="32:17" profile="high" refFrames="3" streamIdentifier="1" width="538"/>
    <Stream id="62834" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="166" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2"/>
    </Part>
    </Media>
    <Extras size="0"></Extras>
    </Video>
    </MediaContainer>
6

Just FYI I use MCEBuddy to convert to MP4. The original format container is TS. I then use Avidemux to manually cut the adds out, since paid version of comskip usually cuts too much or not enough.

I have both commercial removal and trascoding disabled for the DVR. The only post processing is MCEBuddy converting it to MP4 so it’s faster to then manually remove commercials.

Then again all these files play fine on everything except shield (including Amazon Fire TV 1st gen I replaced with shield).

7

Thanks. We think it has to do with it being PAL and Anamorphic. We are looking into it. Thanks for report and xml info

8

I have this problem on all devices now since they upgraded to ExoPlayer v2… If I cast to the shield it plays properly using a different player.

Any word on when this will be fixed? Or how I can revert to a previous version of Plex player?

9

i have the same problem when playing SD recorded content on a Samsung smart TV. has there been any update on this?

10

Just did a bit more testing, used avidemux to convert and old SD MP4 video to MKV and now it plays proper aspect ratio.

Doing that stripped some file metadata (frame width), maybe there is something in the mp4 container that is confusing ExoPlayer v2.