Just to be clear this issue happens on (various) Sony Bravia, at least with Android TV, and it is visible also in VLC, Archos and even Amazon Video (just check Jean Claude). Kodi v18 is fine, but I think Kodi v17 (or up to Kodi v17.4, not sure anymore) had the issue as well. Sony’s Video is just fine.
Anyway, I can’t be bothered much by it anymore because I bought an Apple TV 4K, switched to Infuse, and all my local streaming issues are gone! No more transcoding for starting (and never a grey bar).
Sony’s video app does not understand Dolby Atmos. Last time I looked, there is no way to report a bug in Plex. Is there any kind of bug report tool now?
Bump for this, watched a full movie with the grey bars (again) last night. Would love to see this fixed on Sony. Also have an LG that has no issues with the colors.
I have the exact same issue (gray bars). I tried using Kodi and i had a completely different issue. No gray bars on Kodi, however, the movie was very very very dark and looked very poor.
Does anyone have any solution to this (e.g., not using plex but using something else).
I decided to give Kodi with Plex plugin a try yesterday and had no issues playing HDR content, the grey bars are gone! Just make sure you go into the Plex plugin settings and check off “Enable x265”, otherwise you aren’t getting HDR and the playback is very washed out. I do wish this would just get fixed in the actual Plex app though…
@mherm88 said:
I decided to give Kodi with Plex plugin a try yesterday and had no issues playing HDR content, the grey bars are gone! Just make sure you go into the Plex plugin settings and check off “Enable x265”, otherwise you aren’t getting HDR and the playback is very washed out. I do wish this would just get fixed in the actual Plex app though…
All i get on plex for kodi is playback failed whether its 1080p SDR or 2160p HDR.
There is a known problem with it, don’t know how you have it working.
From what i remember it is ANY .mkv file that wont play.
Another thing ive noticed with this plex problem is that
x265 files have the grey bars
h265 files have black bars
although mediainfo says the h265 files have a aspect ratio of 16:9 but the films have black bars so therefor are 21:9.
maybe the black bars are burned in as part of the file on h265 ?
the x265 files in mediainfo say they are 21:9 and when played in plex on my xe9305 have grey bars.
very strange. hopefully an easy fix for some1 at plex.
*** edited because i wrote x264 & h264 instead of x265 & h265. DOH !!
@mherm88 said:
I decided to give Kodi with Plex plugin a try yesterday and had no issues playing HDR content, the grey bars are gone! Just make sure you go into the Plex plugin settings and check off “Enable x265”, otherwise you aren’t getting HDR and the playback is very washed out. I do wish this would just get fixed in the actual Plex app though…
All i get on plex for kodi is playback failed whether its 1080p SDR or 2160p HDR.
There is a known problem with it, don’t know how you have it working.
From what i remember it is ANY .mkv file that wont play.
Is yours mp4 or something ?
I’m only using MKVs. My TV is the XBR-65X850C, the update version it was on began with PKG3 and when I would check for updates on the TV, it told me there was no update available. On Sony’s site I found that PKG5.313.0160NAB was released on 1/16/18 so I went ahead and did the update to that version via USB. It was after that update that I tried Kodi and all 4K videos work fine in it (Plex still has grey bars even with that update).
@mherm88 said:
I decided to give Kodi with Plex plugin a try yesterday and had no issues playing HDR content, the grey bars are gone! Just make sure you go into the Plex plugin settings and check off “Enable x265”, otherwise you aren’t getting HDR and the playback is very washed out. I do wish this would just get fixed in the actual Plex app though…
All i get on plex for kodi is playback failed whether its 1080p SDR or 2160p HDR.
There is a known problem with it, don’t know how you have it working.
From what i remember it is ANY .mkv file that wont play.
Is yours mp4 or something ?
I’m only using MKVs. My TV is the XBR-65X850C, the update version it was on began with PKG3 and when I would check for updates on the TV, it told me there was no update available. On Sony’s site I found that PKG5.313.0160NAB was released on 1/16/18 so I went ahead and did the update to that version via USB. It was after that update that I tried Kodi and all 4K videos work fine in it (Plex still has grey bars even with that update).
oh ok im in the uk and have the xe9305 ( x930e )
i am already on the latest firmware for my tv i have checked the sony uk site.
shame i can’t install the us firmware and get dolby vision.
anyway on my tv atleast plex for kodi is not working.
i have no clue
are there plex admins that have a look in here? where can we officaly report a “bug”?
it would be very interesting what we can do… as we know that this problem have all latest Sony TV owners, there must be a big number of people with this…lots of them maybe just don´t know because of not using HDR content so far…
Sony x9305e shows grey bars on HDR content in Plex (but also VLC) - This pretty much ruins watching HDR - So distracting! Anyone came up with a solution yet?
@odedgr said:
Sony x9305e shows grey bars on HDR content in Plex (but also VLC) - This pretty much ruins watching HDR - So distracting! Anyone came up with a solution yet?
@odedgr said:
Sony x9305e shows grey bars on HDR content in Plex (but also VLC) - This pretty much ruins watching HDR - So distracting! Anyone came up with a solution yet?
I manually upgraded the TV using the most recent firmware from Sony’s site and then switched to Kodi for all 4K/HDR content. That solved it for me but apparently that method is hit or miss.
I’ve had better success with 4K/HDR using the XPlay app on my LG WebOS TV and it looks like there is an Android TV version as well but I haven’t used it on my Sony so I can speak to its abilities on a Sony: xplay.itkey.ru/
thank you, i will test this the next days… another question: where have you installed your plex serves? mine is on freenas, so maybe this could be the issue also?
Sadly this issue is on the Sony hardware that’s built into the TV, we are still waiting for a response from Sony but on there forums they have repeatedly said it won’t be fixed. Based on all the reports from many different apps (including Plex) it seems the issue is random, you might be able to get the correct colours if you keep retrying to play.
The only known work around is to use another device that supports HDR, like the SHIELD.
@sixones said:
Sadly this issue is on the Sony hardware that’s built into the TV, we are still waiting for a response from Sony but on there forums they have repeatedly said it won’t be fixed. Based on all the reports from many different apps (including Plex) it seems the issue is random, you might be able to get the correct colours if you keep retrying to play.
The only known work around is to use another device that supports HDR, like the SHIELD.
@sixtones : thank you very much for your research! This is really sad news and shows again Sonys prolems with HDR Content. The same with Dolby Vision etc. Do you have a link where to find the discussion about this problem?
And why is Netflix working well with HDR, but Plex not?
