Force EAC3 --> AC3 transcoding to Nvidia Shield TV client?

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

I’ve been trying to find a solution on how to do this with profiles but I’m not sure if it’s possible. I have a plex server locally in my home network and one of my clients is an Nvidia Shield TV. It is connected to my LG TV via HDMI and my LG TV is passing audio to my receiver via HDMI ARC. Only problem is that the LG TV does NOT support passing through EAC3 audio to my receiver.

I want to FORCE my Plex Server to automatically transcode ANY EAC3 audio to AC3 audio so it can play back properly on my NVIDIA SHIELD TV. Please, any help would be appreciated on how I can force this to take place.

2

Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

3

I have created the following profile for just my SHIELD Android TV but am not able to get this to work appropriately. Can anyone help? My Plex Server is a FreeBSD based (FreeNAS Jail) server. I put the profile in a folder named “Profiles” in the Plex Media Server folder and nothing seems to happen. Doesn’t look like it reads my settings at all.

4 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="SHIELD Android TV">
  <Identification>
    <Header name="User-Agent" substring="SHIELD Android TV" />
  </Identification>
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="ac3" context="static" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" id="StereoMusicTranscodeProfile" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264,mpeg4" audioCodec="aac" />
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264,mpeg4" audioCodec="aac,ac3,mp3,pcm" subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass"/>
    <VideoProfile container="asf" codec="wmv3,wmv3,vc1" audioCodec="wmav2,wmav2,wmapro,wmavoice,pcm"
subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass"/>
    <VideoProfile container="avi" codec="h264,msmpeg4v3,mpeg4,mjpeg" audioCodec="mp3,ac3,dca,pcm"
subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass"/>
    <VideoProfile container="mkv" codec="h264,mpeg4,mjpeg,mpeg2video,vc1,hevc"
audioCodec="mp2,mp3,ac3,dca,aac,pcm,vorbis" subtitleCodec="srt,smi,ssa,ass,subrip"/>
    <VideoProfile container="mpeg" codec="h264,mpeg1video,mpeg2video" audioCodec="mp2,mp3,ac3,aac,pcm"
subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass"/>
    <VideoProfile container="flv" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,ac3,mp3,pcm" subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass"/>
    <VideoProfile container="mpegts" codec="h264,mpeg2video,vc1" audioCodec="mp2,mp3,ac3,dca,pcm"
subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass"/>
    <VideoProfile container="wtv" codec="mpeg2video" audioCodec="ac3,aac,pcm"/>
    <VideoProfile container="3gpp" codec="h264,mpeg4" audioCodec="aac,he-aac"/>
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <MusicProfile container="ogg" codec="vorbis" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg,gif,bmp,png" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <ContainerProfiles>
    <VideoContainer name="mp4">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="part.optimizedForStreaming" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoContainer>
  </ContainerProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
        <NotMatch name="video.anamorphic" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="video.profile" list="baseline|main|high" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>
5

Have you tried turning off passthrough in the app on sheild?

Why are you using ARC? Does your receiver not support CEC? I would go through receiver then to tv so receiver handles sound directly and just sends video to screen

6

My receiver does not support 4k HDR passthrough…so I’d have to swap cables when/if I playback 4K HDR content, which is often.

7

Anyone have ideas on whether this can be accomplished?

8

Were you ever able to get this to work? I am having the same difficulty. My receiver doesn’t handle EAC3, but Plex/Shield doesn’t seem to realize that, and as a result I’m only getting 2 channel audio, instead of a transcode to AC3.

I’ve tried adjusting the Shield and Plex client options, but none of those seem to get a transcode to work. It’s not a connectivity issue though, videos with native AC3 streams are streamed fine and kick my receiver into multichannel playback fine.