I further tested with my 2nd set being Samsung 4K HDR10. With HDR 10 bit enabled on HDMI1 where Shield is connected it works fine by transcoding audio only when needed. Once I disable HDR on HDMI on the TV it starts to transcode video like my other SDR set.
Now the question is why is it transcoding and not using HDR->SDR tone mapping on the Shield TV?
If I disable video transcoding and/or tone mapping on the server side settings (while SDR TV or HDR TV with HDR disabled), it completely refuses to play. Says āCanāt play itemā or similar. So there is no way as I see it to force it to just send the video and let Shield either pass through as HDR (when TV supports it) or tone map it client side (when TV doesnāt support is / is SDR only).
Kodi player seems to be able to do this together with the server (official plex addon). For some reason it seems that if with plex shield client SDR display is detected together with HDR10 material it is disabling direct play without further ado and not letting client decide whether to do tone mapping server side or client sideā¦
I donāt think its a Shield problem. Something is going on with the Plex app and the exoplayer. I have been having this issue for a while now. The videos I have had a issue with, I set them up on a Emby server and Jellyfin. They all direct play just fine on my Shield. They use direct play just fine in previous versions on the Plex app on Shield.
Sorry, I missed that in your earlier post. AFAIK, the Shield can only do tonemapping from 4K to 4K. I donāt think it can do 4K HDR to 1080p SDR, but I could be wrong. I canāt find any documentation on this.
Attached are logs from 4K HDR set with HDR disabled on HDMI where shield is connected. If I enable it, video works without transcoding.
From the logs it seems to me that client would like to receive video without transcoding (directStream: true) but server says that there is no remuxable profile and direct play is disabledā¦ Also with this set AC3 should be supported but is also transcoded for some reason.
@anon18523487 . XMLinfo attached. There shouldnāt be anything special on that file. The problem is the same on all of my HDR10 UHD rips that I have tried.
@doctacarta hopefully @anon18523487 is able to go through your logs. To me it seems that in your case also client sees that it is able to directStream but transcode is āforcedā nonetheless. Hopefully we can at least identify where the problem lies.
Also I would think that this is something that would be easy to reproduce by Plex. You just need nVidia shield, HDR10 UHD rip and any display where HDR can be disabled or is unexisting (SDR).
For background information, that might give further insight, I tested today with two other streaming platforms (client+server combinations) being Jellyfin and Emby. Test was conducted with the same UHD 4k RIP and devices that were used in my Plex tests above that donāt work without transcoding.
Works without transcode
1080p SDR display with TrueHD Atmos Audio
1080p SDR display with DTS-HD MA audio
1080p SDR display with AC3 audio
tests 1-3 with SRT subtitles
tests 1-3 with PGS subtitles
tests 1-5 with 4k SDR Display
tests 1-5 with 4k HDR10 display
tests 1-5 with 4k Dolby Vision display with AV receiver supporting passthrough of all tested audio formats
Doesnāt work / transcodes:
Couldnāt find combination that causes transcoding to take place
So clearly it is proven that the devices are capable with current software/firmware versions. In case I can provide any further information please let me know.
New information to share. I noticed that neither of my āproblematicā displays reported correctly their supported audio codecs to nVidia shield. I added manually AC3 and DTS to supported list of audio codecs in nVidia shield advanced audio settings.
Now HDR10 files that have AC3, DTS or DTS-HD MA with DTS core tracks direct play correctly and shield is doing HDR10 ā SDR tone mapping. If I try to play file with TrueHD audio that needs transcoding (no AC3 core) the video is transcoded. This video transcoding only happens with HDR file + SDR display combination.
So now the question is that why is video transcoded when audio is not supported (subs donāt make a difference) and only when HDR10->SDR tone mapping is needed?
So I had the same issue as you. I just found this out a second ago. Reset your shield and everything will start working. I am guessing with all of my troubleshooting, installing and uninstalling this past year caused some issues.
I personally find it hard to believe that I could have the same problem on two different shield devices (2015 & 2017 generations) and that it would be resolved by resetting the devices. Also donāt want to start from scratch if it can be by any means avoided. Would need to setup lot of kodi plugins from scratch etc.
Would you be willing to give reset solution a chance?
