Thank you, that is interesting and could certainly be what’s causing my problem. I’ll look into this ASAP.
I’m still seeing issues with some files on a 2022 Apple TV using the new player, on 8.15. The old player works without issues. I just sent a sample file to @DaveBinM that drops frames during playing with the new player, although I expect they have all of the sample files they need to reproduce the issue.
I just want to make it clear that the issues are not resolved for the newest AppleTVs.
I am on version 8.14. I’ve had Plex for about a week, got my server running. Hosting a direct play 4K blu-ray and it’s stuttering, unwatchable on the latest 2022 4K Apple TV. Gigabit ethernet connection, nothing over wifi. Other, more intensive files are playing beautifully and my server is an M2 Mac.
Temporary fix is going into the playback settings within the ATV player, while the episode is playing, and choosing “Convert Automatically”. This changes my dashboard as follows:
4K (HEVC Main 10) (hw)
4K (H264)—Transcode (hw)
So, it’s stuttering under direct play, but when the TV forces it to convert, it plays smoothly. I have to go into each episode and manually make this change, which is not ideal.
I’ll still take any more samples of videos that people have that stutter, just in case they’re different issues.
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I had the exact same issues as you on my 1st gen 4K Apple TV, but 8.15 fixed it for me. Have you tried updating and re-testing with the same files? I had a 100% success rate with movies that stuttered in 8.14, 8.13, etc. Not a scientific test, I know, but it’s all I could throw at it.
I am not sure how to do it that for you, but I can confirm that a free trial of the “Infuse” app has the same video file running correctly. I also forced a manual update to 8.15, which did not solve the issue.
You can create a sample file per the instructions in the link.
I have problems as well, Apple TV 4k 2022 (3rd gen)
Everything is up to date
Direct Play Disabled
Auto Quality Disabled
Old Player Enabled (for subtitles color in HDR)
Most stuff plays fine, but several recent movies have an issue where the load icon appears and then just black screen and progress bar stuck at 00:04/00:05 and nothing happens further.
Just for comparison, the three movies with red square have this problem, the one with green does not…
What could be the issue ?
I remember some of these were fine prior to some recent updates of Plex app.
This issue does NOT affect iOS Plex app, everything works fine there, with same app settings.
Can I get sample file for each of the problem files, please? It’s very hard to guess based on a Media Info screenshot. We also generally prefer users use our own Media Info XML
Here you go, sample.zip - AnonFiles
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Here’s an example of a file that plays fine in the Old Player (with Direct Stream) but is basically unplayable in the New Player (Direct Play)
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Okay. I’ve reviewed these, and I have a few comments and questions.
-
Why did you disable Direct Play? This is not something we would recommend, except in very specific circumstances (like debugging an issue). I would recommend turning it back on.
-
That first video (test001.mkv) is very odd, and has a frame rate of 23.81fps, which I’ve never seen before. There’s definitely something odd in here about this clip
All three play perfectly fine in the enhanced player, and what we can do with the old player is very limited, as it’s Apple’s AVPlayer, where we cannot change its behaviour. All of these videos either need to be remuxed or transcoded to play in AVPlayer, and for some reason, AVPlayer doesn’t like what it’s been given. While we can look into this, what’s the issue with subtitle colours in HDR?
I think it would make sense that Plex server should be serving it in a way that AVplayer would be able to play it, I remember this was not an issue few updates ago.
Of course AVplayer can play it if I let it be converted but that screws up HDR so it’s not a solution.
If you can, please look in to it.
I think I began disabling direct play for compatibility reasons, with direct play some of my files simply failed to play in AVplayer, while with Direct Play disabled Plex server was repackaging every file and it played well since.
As for why I am using AVplayer - it’s because:
- most movies are stuttering very badly with enhanced player (this is not a new issue but rather goes back for more than a year, always suggested solution was using AVplayer which worked perfectly)
- I use OLED TV with maxed out brightness
therefore every single movie is pain to watch with enhanced player simply because enhanced player does literally nothing with subtitles, the problems are:
a.) subtitles size is too big
b.) subtitles color is white and it’s brightness is at max like a sun burning my retinas
For me the enhanced player is simply unusable right now, even though it plays everything the problem is how it plays everything…
AVplayer changes subtitles style, they are smaller, color is grey during HDR content and it has partly transparent background, it’s just awesome
Running 8.15 Player on:
2nd gen (2021) 4k ATV
(2) 1st gen (2017) 4k ATV
Both experience the same issues describing below. All of my media is in MKV.
Enhanced Player (mpv)
UHD HDR Blu-ray Rip/Remux (40-70Mbps 10bit HEVC)
- Stuttering is constant, but not overwhelmingly choppy.
- Audio codecs don’t seem to impact (TrueHD → FLAC or DTS-MA)
- Forcing transcoding to 4k H264 removes stutter
- Tested on at least 10 movies with same experience
UHD SDR Blu-ray Remux (~40Mbps 10bit HEVC)
- Smooth playback for ~3-5 minutes then becomes extremely choppy and audio is out-of-sync
- Forcing transcoding to 4k H264 removes stutter
Other random content I’ve tested is a mixed bag. Some lower bitrate HDR/SDR content seems to play without issue, while others will experience one of the two above.
Playback on AVPlayer via Direct Stream is flawless on all of the above. Audio is always transcoded to AAC, but video remains intact plays completely smooth.
I have a couple of sample files, but being they’re high bitrate and you sometimes need multiple minutes to experience the issue. They’re each 2GB+ in size.
Can you give me a sample file for each of these?
Just sent you a DM with links. Thanks.
It doesn’t actually have a frame rate of 23.81. I think this means Plex is determining Frame Rate incorrectly.
MKV doesn’t store frame rate in the container. For MKV it’s not accurate to look at the DefaultDuration element or even a few frames. (Every MKV is assumed to be variable frame rate. All frames carry timing. It’s an interesting trade-off vs. MP4 and other containers.)
Info from an MKV expert: Wrong frame rate displayed · Wiki · Moritz Bunkus / MKVToolNix · GitLab
This file’s overall average frame rate is actually 23.976.
Whatever tool created test001.mkv was operating with millisecond precision. Millisecond precision used to be common with MKV tools. To achieve the 23.976 average FPS, individual frames alternate between 41ms (210 frames with that duration) and 42ms (510 frames), such that the average will be correct.
For MKV, the DefaultDuration element stored in the container is just the “most common” frame duration. It’s the mode, not the average. For this file that was 42 ms.
But DefaultDuration of 42ms doesn’t mean that the file is 1000/42ms == 23.81 fps - that’s not the definition of DefaultDuration.
If Plex is showing 23.81, I think Plex is calculating FPS incorrectly. It’s either taking DefaultDuration from the MKV, or looking at a few frames.
(I don’t know if this is relevant to the reported playback problems. It might be, if Plex uses the detected FPS for playback. It also might not be used at all - could be a red herring on that file.)
2 Likes
Another day, another stuttering issue on new content … and that’s still with the 1st gen ATV … despite all the fixes supposedly made.
Like in my previous sample, heavy stuttering on this time a 1080p x265 HDR10 EAC3 5.1 media file.
I don’t have time to bring another sample right now so here’s the XML media file information instead:
XML
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionTitle="Séries TV" librarySectionUUID="[...]" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1675110293">
<Video ratingKey="17872" key="/library/metadata/17872" parentRatingKey="17871" grandparentRatingKey="14086" guid="plex://episode/63c13910b576d963cc390ca6" parentGuid="plex://season/63c1390db576d963cc390ca1" grandparentGuid="plex://show/5d9c091aef619b0020483f8d" type="episode" title="A New Dawn" titleSort="New Dawn" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/14086" parentKey="/library/metadata/17871" librarySectionTitle="Séries TV" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/1" grandparentTitle="Formula 1: Drive to Survive" parentTitle="Season 5" contentRating="TV-MA" summary="As the season begins in Bahrain, Ferrari hopes new cars will finally propel them to the top, and Haas makes a risky bet on a last-minute driver switch." index="1" parentIndex="5" skipCount="1" year="2023" thumb="/library/metadata/17872/thumb/1677367144" art="/library/metadata/14086/art/1677367144" parentThumb="/library/metadata/17871/thumb/1677304480" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/14086/thumb/1677367144" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/14086/art/1677367144" grandparentTheme="/library/metadata/14086/theme/1677367144" duration="2918432" originallyAvailableAt="2023-02-24" addedAt="1677304479" updatedAt="1677367144">
<Media id="28737" duration="2918432" bitrate="9737" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="eac3" videoCodec="hevc" videoResolution="1080" container="mkv" videoProfile="main 10">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="46727" key="/library/parts/46727/1677267811/file.mkv" duration="2918432" file="[...]/Formula 1 - Drive to Survive (2019)/S05/Formula 1 - Drive to Survive (2019) - S05E01 - A New Dawn - WEBRip-1080p h265.HDR10 EAC3.Atmos-5.1.mkv" size="3553389971" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="6" requiredBandwidths="17878,15936,13925,12453,11658,11658,11658,11658" videoProfile="main 10">
<Stream id="164970" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="8329" bitDepth="10" chromaLocation="topleft" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1080" codedWidth="1920" colorPrimaries="bt2020" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt2020nc" colorTrc="smpte2084" frameRate="50.000" height="1080" level="123" profile="main 10" refFrames="1" requiredBandwidths="16468,14528,12516,11045,10280,10280,10280,10280" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p HDR10 (HEVC Main 10)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080p HDR10 (HEVC Main 10)"></Stream>
<Stream id="164971" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="eac3" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="768" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" requiredBandwidths="767,767,767,767,767,767,767,767" samplingRate="48000" title="anglais [VO]" displayTitle="English (EAC3 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="anglais [VO] (English EAC3 5.1)"></Stream>
<Stream id="164972" streamType="2" default="1" codec="eac3" index="2" channels="6" bitrate="640" language="French" languageTag="fr" languageCode="fra" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" requiredBandwidths="640,640,640,640,640,640,640,640" samplingRate="48000" title="français" displayTitle="French (EAC3 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="français (EAC3 5.1)"></Stream>
<Stream id="164973" streamType="3" default="1" codec="srt" index="3" bitrate="0" language="French" languageTag="fr" languageCode="fra" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" title="français" displayTitle="French (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="français (SRT)"></Stream>
<Stream id="164974" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="4" bitrate="0" language="French" languageTag="fr" languageCode="fra" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" title="French [ForcedNarrative]" displayTitle="French (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="French [ForcedNarrative] (French SRT)"></Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
<Guid id="imdb://tt20116514"/>
<Guid id="tvdb://9556503"/>
<Marker final="1" id="18131" type="credits" startTimeOffset="2716588" endTimeOffset="2918432">
<Attributes id="18131" version="4"/>
</Marker>
<Extras size="0"></Extras>
<Related></Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
I say this in the most sincere manner, I seriously think it’s time to make an exhaustive table of what’s been changed internally since 8.12, what’s been done in each release to adress this and what’s still being investigated as of right now !
All I see in the last weeks/months is various samples brought by people as requested and while each new release fixes playback for these samples, it ultimately does not adress the core of the issue that still appears (and I can only speak for 2017 Gen 1 ATV that I have, it doesn’t seem like newer model even beneficiate from these fixes).
Either your team is not being honest with us as to what’s been changed/broken or it simply broke the playback without any clue on how to fix it, if it’s not whitelisting some kind of media content we’re providing in this thread. I’m starting to regret getting a Plex pass …
Honesty and transparency appreciated. Thank you !
2 Likes
I don’t know how much more honest I can be than already saying that we’re looking into the issues with these files. There is not going to be some of list of changes publicly made available, beyond what’s in the release notes. I’m doing the bulk of my testing of files on the 2017 Apple TV 4K, and for some of them, there are things we need to adjust because there’s something unusual or not to spec in the files (not terribly uncommon when files are falling off the back of a truck), or there’s a bug in the player somewhere. I’m not sure exactly what you think the “core” of the issue is, but we know what the specific issue was with 8.12, and that’s been addressed. We’re now looking at broader playback performance, and that does include files that stutter. Sometimes we find that these files not only stutter on Apple TV, but also in stock mpv too. I have no reason at all to not be honest, and if there are things I can’t share, I say so.
6 Likes
My entire post is nothing personal and I’m sorry if it sounds to be aimed at you personally. I’m sincerely glad you are still reading comments here to provide feedback to your team, I just wish it was a more transparent exhange given the scale of the issue. I’m simply addressing to you as being the Plex official around here. I’m sure there are guidelines on what can be said publicly or not but I surely don’t feel like asking to reveal industrial secrets anyway.
There is not going to be some of list of changes publicly made available, beyond what’s in the release notes.
This is precisely what I found disturbing and what I mean by lack of transparency. After 3 updates over 3+ months, stuttering issues still seems to appear randomly (in the absence of further information available to me) and I would appreciate to have detailed feedback of what’s been adressed in order perhaps to avoid falling in the same issue again and again.
But now I see you dropped the “likely make a table of the changes” from one of your previous answer so I at least know now for sure I’ll never get any more information. Thank you (Plex team) for the honesty.
I’m not sure exactly what you think the “core” of the issue is, but we know what the specific issue was with 8.12, and that’s been addressed
I don’t know the root cause of the issue, hence why I ask more information about it but it’s been now stated there won’t be any. Now it’s clear, I’ll stop asking for it …
In the absence of further information, all I see is from all the files I have/had stutters since 8.12 (and that I already had beforehand), these were playing smoothly without stutters before 8.12. I’m glad it’s been fixed but the stuttering issue still persists “randomly” since then.
Your last answer implies the remaining cause(s) of the stutters remains a mystery … that’s sad to read but I understand. Sadly I can’t bother to provide on my free time an infinite number of samples each time I see stutters for a media, maybe other people here will be able to.
Lack of honesty was perhaps a bad choice of word, but the lack of transparency, if deliberate, does not help. I just wanted to know more about the issue as a way to help me circumvent it. I really like having my Plex library but if I can’t consume it with peace of mind, that’s not a good solution for me anymore. My mistake was maybe to put too much hopes in the product, or rather in the way its development is managed. I’ll learn from my mistake.
Ultimately, I’m simply extremely disapointed, that’s all. Time to leave then I guess.
Peace.
