Why has the latest Android version started transcoding interlaced content on Amazon Fire TV 4K when the hardware supports deinterlacing and has been direct playing it without issues.? The older Fire TV Stick (non 4K) does not support interlacing, and this change should only apply to those devices. I have both devices and am willing to test.
This a welcome change for regular Fire TV Stick devices, but is unnecessary for the newer 4K devices.
I am also having the same issue since my app upgraded to version 7.28 this week, where interlaced content (older DVDs at 480i) that previously worked as a direct play without issue on my FireTV 4K, now attempts to transcode the video portion of the file (there are also apparently other issues with this as playback as the transcode attempt kicks back an error and never actually plays the file, though I have not had time to troubleshoot this yet)
Currently have FireTV Stick 4K running latest updated. Fire OS 6.2.6.8, Fire TV Home Version 6210051.1.
Plex App Version 7.28.0.15501.
I have also noticed that the upgraded app does not recognize the correct H264 maximum level and sets the (recommended) level to 1.0 default where previously the (recommended) level was 5.2.
I’m not sure if this is related to the above issue or not.
Verified that rolling my app version back to 7.27.1.15203 resolved both of the issues I was having above without any other adjustments to my setup. Goes back to playing interlaced videos without issue on my FireTV Stick 4K.
Happy to trial other ideas or setting variants if anyone has suggestions.
Thanks!
Same problem for me on my 4k stick
My SD (.ts/mpeg2) files are now all been forced to transcode with a message it is an unsupported format, most of these will be interlaced
Prior to the update they all Direct Played
The above topics are for issues with HD on UK Freeview, not a general issue with interlaced content
Transcoding interlaced content to progressive is listed in the changelog, so it seems like it was a conscious change. The regular Fire TV Stick does not de-interlace so this is a good change for these devices, but it is unnecessary for the Fire TV Stick 4K.
Another issue that was affecting playback for me on 7.28 was the Advanced->Automatically Switch Resolutions option. When this was on I would get errors playing anything other than 1080 content(when my tv resolution is set to 1080). Turning it off resolved the issue. This might be the cause of some of the other issues people are having playing lower resolution content.
Btw, are these forums the preferred way to file bug reports?
Unless i am misreading it, the changelog only mentions force transcoding of interlaced content for live TV, this seems to have the affect on all interlaced content now been transcoded (only a change for the 4k devices also, which could play these back directly)
looking at other threads, this seems to be as a result of UK Freeview HD channels not playing properly on the 4K devices, so not sure why the issue around this wasnt resolved instead of forcing all interlaced to be transcoded
@mkurpiewski Yes, these forums are the preferred way to report bugs (or only way), report them and hope for the best
I tested the above development build, for me everything seems to be back to normal with it
I tried playing a few interlaced episodes and they all Direct Played instead of transcoding
I am not sure if our change helps you - because we restricted the original fix to be now just for live tv but your issue is with live tv where the tuner does its own transcoding
