I don’t have one, but I am thinking no… I’m pretty sure it does not support the HD audio codecs (ie truehd/dts-hd-ma) that the shield does.
it may play 4k+ AC3/dolby digital sufficiently, but so can roku/firestick/appletv etc
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This post probably needs some updating now that Plex supports DV on any device that can accept DV in an MKV container.
Also is the Shield (tube version) vs Shield Pro still a thing these days? Anecdotally, I’ve been streaming 4k UHD rips on a non-Pro with HDR (and now DV) with no issue. 2001 and Lawrence of Arabia have particular high bitrates, Atmos (currently running against a 9.2.4 and 5.2.4 configs), DV, and long play times, and I’ve never run into an issue; I’d consider that a pretty high water mark for testing.
the tube is the shield with the problem, it has less ram, 2 gig vs 3 gig on the pro.
I have both tube and 2017 pro, and the tube still chokes on various 4k remuxes, for me, /shrug
I don’t have a dolby vision tv, maybe when the 2021 models start coming out next year.
there is already other existing dolby vision threads, both older ones with deep technical discussions and newer ones about the recent updates allowing plex DV to work.
All I can say about DV on plex, is that it is still in a work in progress, there are several different profiles for dolby vision (ie streaming DV and DV from 4k bluray), and not all devices are compatible with every flavor, and even on the shield there are still bugs to work out.
When I refer to the Shield, I’m referring to the tube; edited to reflect that. Again, is this still a thing? The last I heard it wasn’t a RAM capacity thing and more a memory leak issue.
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All I can say about DV on plex, is that it is still in a work in progress, there are several different profiles for dolby vision (ie streaming DV and DV from 4k bluray), and not all devices are compatible with every flavor, and even on the shield there are still bugs to work out.
I mean so are half of Plex’s features, and DV is already officially supported in the mainline releases. I believe the topic should really be amended to reflect the current state since the statement that Dolby Vision is not supported is no longer accurate, especially with so many other threads linking to this one. Since the feature left the beta releases and all the weird workarounds with MP4 containers and entered mainline a few weeks ago I haven’t seen any issues with it – are there? The MKV DV spec is straightforward (it’s just another video stream with fallback to HDR10) to implement and the Plex devs seem to have integrated it without any issue.
Must be similar age, as from the UK and recognise those movies coming out.
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Ok I fixed the dolby vision comment, I had forgotten it was even there, because this thread was not about dolby vision at all.
I do not have any information or list of what devices support what DV profiles, nor does plex seem to want to state what specific devices support what profiles.
Fair enough, it’s just a thread that’s linked all over the place, and people inevitably tie DV in with 4k.
Currently the only device that will support profile 7 (the base MKV DV profile) properly is the Shield. I’m pretty sure the Apple TV will never support it.
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Agreed on the current ATVs. They explicitly specify Profile 5.
Convince me that DV Profile 5 is materially different from HDR10, and that it has any benefits over HDR10? Convince me that it’s anything but get-on-the-Dolby-train marketing!
The big advantages of Dolby Vision are dynamic metadata, the possibility of greater bit-depth, and the ability to master to higher peak brightness, right?
None of which exist in DV profile 5 …
A while since I have been on here because real life takes over.
What I would try to convince everyone who is using a Shield and telling us how DV is the mutts nuts
It sucks… That’s why Nvidia and Dolby are heavily investigating why it sucks so much. Nothing at all to do with Plex.
To be clear, when you see that Dolby Vision logo on your TV, what you are seeing is a logo telling you, you are seeing Dolby Vision. and nothing more. The colours are screwed as confirmed by anyone who matters.
Q: how can I determine exactly why plex is transcoding?
I followed the directions but I see nothing in the console while the video is playing on my Nvidia Shield TV. I am viewing the console from laptop. I have debug enabled but see nothing in the console viewer. I am trying to understand why this particular video transcodes while similar videos do not. Could someone help? Thanks!
Pull the Plex Media Server log files and look in Plex Media Server.log (wraps to .1.log…5.log).
Look for the MDE: and TPU: messages.
It may also help to look at the client log from the Shield. Look for lines with Media Decision Engine.
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Thank you for a great guide! Can you please clarify: For reliable 4k playback, in addition to needing GB ethernet between the PMS and the Plex client, do I also need a gigabit ethernet connection between PMS and where-ever the media content lives?
For example, I have a Nvidia Shield Pro. Right now, I have a USB hard drive physically plugged into it with my 4k content. But, it’s a big hassle getting new content onto this hard drive. It would be a lot easier if I could put the USB hard drive on my Mac Mini, since it’s my bit torrent box, then share it on the network, and point PMS to this shared folder. But now instead of PMS accessing the content via a direct USB3 connection, it’s accessing the content via my network, and all the various overhead of SMB, Android ↔ Mac OS, etc. Does this connection also have to be gigabit ethernet? Or could I get away with, for example, 5G wifi. I suspect I know the answer to this, though maybe I am in for a surprise and PMS has some super fancy buffering / caching mechanism that would allow this to work.
There is no special buffering.
The simple answer is only you can say. No else has your particular content, hardware and network.
Try it and see.
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Everything should be gigabit and hard wired. You should be able to easily transfer file to the drive that is connected to the shield over a network connection. You can enable this feature under device preferences/storage. This will start a SMB server that I assume you can also access with the Mac. On a Windows machine you would just use the file manager and go to \Shield_IP_address.
Also if you are doing torrent downloads, if your torrent download application is not speed limited it will eat up all your bandwidth very fast which will cause you to have playback issues.
What client is this a screenshot of that gives you so much info on the screen? My Roku Ultra (2017) doesn’t give me all that.
That’s from Tautulli.
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I saw the Roku emblem and thought perhaps it was a new client.
Thanks!
I’m so confused about this so thought I ask here.
I’m getting buffering on some 4K HDR playbacks:
PMS installed on old i5-2410M laptop.
I have been able to play 2160p.WEB-DL.x265.10bit.HDR10plus.DDP5.1 files easily on my Sony Android XF9005 Plex App. Also HDR.2160p.WEB.h265 works great.
Yesterday tried to play 2160p.WEBRip.x265.10bit.HDR.HLG.DTS-HD.MA.5.1 and it’s buffering all the time so can’t be played. With or without subtitles.
I’ve tried to choose files which work, but both are HDR and X265, why one of these work?
The TV Lan port is only 100mbit, so I use the wifi as it’s WIFI AC and is faster. Router is about 5m away from TV.
The movie you are having problems with has DTS-HD audio, while the others that play OK have Dolby Digital audio (at least the first one appears to; the second one doesn’t say in the title, so you’d have to use MediaInfo to check). If your TV doesn’t support DTS-HD audio, Plex is transcoding it to something the TV does support (look at the Plex server dashboard to verify). If that’s happening, the low-power machine on which your Plex server is running probably can’t keep up with the transcoding, resulting in buffering. Suggest you see of there is an alternate audio track in the problematic movie that doesn’t require transcoding (oftentimes there will be an AC3 track, which is Dolby Digital).
HLG is different than HDR10+, perhaps your tv doesn’t like that kind of hdr, or the file is otherwise not compatible.
and yes, also watch the plex server dashboard to see if the server is having to transcode the video and/or the audio.
http://en.jmgo.com/enblog/blog/differences-between-the-hdr10-dolby-vision-and-hlg
