Latest Exoplayer?

Can plex please update the Exoplayer in the android app… Seems were still using v2.10.3 which is 6 months old.

Is there a specific reason? We don’t use exoplayer as-is. We use a custom version with our own enhancements so we don’t always need the upstream changes. We can also pick specific fixes if there is something significant and useful.

One reason is that new exoplayer supports features like support for dvb subtitles In live tv that plex currently lacks.

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Hmm. I thought the app already supported that. I’ll have to check.

The new Exoplayer also seems to support dual-layer DV mp4s what would add a lot to the current app.

Someone of the (Plex) devs told me once that dual-layer DV would not be supported as it is related to original blurays etc… I just did not get it what he was talking about since MP4s certainly are not blurays.
Please don’t get me wrong but I was a bit confused about this statement

Here is the statement:

Thank you for checking. dvb subtitles are used In 4 out of 5 top channels In my country and widely used In northern Europe and UK also. So its not minor thing and there is millions of potential users that benefits this if you can add support of direct play dvb subtitles. Please let me know if you need sample files or any other assist.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it will play the audio. Who ever uses the player would still need to get the license from Dolby.

Not sure if I got you right, does it mean that every player that should support DV must be licensed? Currently Plex can play DV profile 5 (sometimes called single-layer DV), but not profile 7 (sometimes called dual-layer DV). So I do not get the difference.
I can play all my single-layer DV rips in Plex without any problems. Also DTS-HD-MA works fine… only Dolby TrueHD/Atmos currently does not work together with DV…
But that’s not my point… why is single layer supported but not dual-layer?

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. A player has 2 choices, 1 - decode and playback the audio or 2 - use passthrough to send the audio to another device. I haven’t looked at the exoplayer code to see which of these options that support is available for. If 1, then yes, that specific codec must be licensed. For 2, the device itself must be able to support that specific codec for passthrough. Some codecs require a license even for passthrough. I don’t know the specifics which is why I said just saying that something is supported doesn’t mean it will just work.

Confirmed that Plex does not support dvb subtitles, but it is being worked on. We don’t need to update exoplayer for that.

When plex upgraded to the new exoplayer many months/year ago… It was the best thing to ever happen to the Android Apps… Everything was direct playing… It was nice.

I don’t want the to go back to those days. Please keep it updated as much as possible…

That had nothing to do with keeping exoplayer updated. The current exoplayer 2 allows the devs to add their own special features which is what’s being done. Exo1 didn’t allow that. Plex will continue to add to their implementations to Exo2, even if the underlying base isn’t updated.

seems to be some confusing things in this thread.

there are;

  • dolby Vision - single layer ‘streaming’ dolby vision (plex on shield 2019 already plays this?) appletv 4k ?
  • dolby Vision - dual layer ‘4k bluray remux’ dolby vision (plex on shield 2019 does not currently support this)

  • dolby digital/atmos - this is the STREAMING atmos you get from netflix etc
  • dolby truehd/atmos - this is the HD/lossless audio stream

I don’t know why chuck closed that thread, the OP has nothing to do with plex reading the DISKS, but reading the EXTRACTED content which is exactly what chuck is proposing we should be doing.

This is great news! Thank you!

Maybe it will fix the Vobsub issue that has been ongoing for the past year?

Thank you! That was exactly what I wanted to say and I found it very disappointing that the original topic was closed for no reasonable reason.
I will open a new one later this day and refer to the closed one… I certainly do not want to disturb the current topic with non-on-topic stuff.
However…in short to answer your questions:

Yes, plex plays this perfectly when you use mp4 rips with profile 5 ('single-layer) DV (made by DVDFab).

Both work, but not TrueHD/Atmos in a MP4 container (there is a great debate on some other forums relating to that).
What you call ‘Streaming atmos’ is usually EAC3/DD+ with atmos meta-data. This would work in a MP4 container but in case of UHD rips atmos always comes along with TrueHD. So you would have to extract the atmos meta data from the TrueHD stream and convert it into a lossy stream like DD+/EAC3 what supports atmos metadata.
However, for this step, you will need to have the licensed Dolby software. I currently have a conversation with @KCX on that topic… but there is currently no solution.

However, let’s stop talking about DV. I will open another topic later and we should make my suggestion clear for dual-layer Dolby Vision in MP4s

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Ideally we should be requesting dual layer DV in any containers, or at least mkv.

But that may well be outside scope of plex.

If I have misunderstood, I apologize.

Entire post redacted due to inaccuracies.

This fix related to issues with ASS/SSA would be nice. SSA/ASS subtitles - Overlapping start/end times and position tag is not handled by szaboa · Pull Request #6595 · google/ExoPlayer · GitHub
Plex in general handles ASS/SSA very poorly. It should not require a transcode on the Shield.

I’m not positive but I believe that fix only helps if you use Exo2 as-is, which Plex doesn’t. That would support ASS/SSA subs, but then the extra things that Plex has added wouldn’t work.