OMG I thought I was the only one facing this. I have tried around SO many different settings but as soon as I play the movie via Plex versus directly through my laptop -there is a night and day difference in audio output.
LoL i’ve tried casting via phone, via chromecast via browser via directly plex media player and all yield the same results haha
I legit thought I broke something somewhere. I’d be playing 4k movie and audio quality is 3gp level.
audio sucks. please address the problem
I am pretty sure the Plex developers just don’t GAF at this point. It’s been 8 months and not a single comment.
Can’t believe I bought a lifetime xD
Wow I thought I was the only one with this problem…always get a jump scare when I switch to Netflix with the audio almost at MAX to compensate for Plex’s low audio. fyi I’m getting this issue with Plex on the new Chromecast with Google TV
Throwing my hat into the ring to say Plex audio is very low compared to other media. Unchecking Normalize Multi-channel Audio in Plex Web Player setting helps but there is nothing that adjusts this setting within Plex Android Apps.
Having similar problems.
Playing a TV show volume levels:
Verified across a few different files. It seems my computer natively plays the file audio properly, but it goes muted on Plex Web and severely muted on Plex Roku
BUMP, this need be fixed ASAP!
Using Plex app on windows, having the same issue. Somehow Dolby Atmos/Windows Sonic (Spatial Sound) fixed it for me.
Apparently the way you get employees to acknowledge issues around here is to mention them, saw this in another thread.
[mod edit] - removed
Bump. Why are such core issues like these ignored while so much dev labor is poured into fluff BS? Come on guys…
That’s also a good way to get yourself silenced/banned. Please don’t randomly ping people.
If you want to get something fixed, please provide exact details, logs, and even a sample of the file where you experience this. Personally, I haven’t noticed any low volumes. I don’t have a surround system so it could be related to that, but that’s why we need details.
Using Plex on a Samsung TV with a Samsung soundbar. The audio is horrible. I’ve tried numerous things and none of them seem to work. If I play the videos in VLC, they work totally fine. Even using the Plex app on my phone, I don’t seem to have any issues there. But on the TV? The only way I can hear any sort of dialogue is if I crank up the soundbar to about 80-90%, but then everything else is far too loud. Like I can hear someone speaking, but then the explosion right after the dialogue is enough to blow out an eardrum.
Not sure what other details are required, but I’ve always had this issue. I’m genuinely thinking about getting another app because the movies are almost unwatchable because of the volume.
How about logs?
That really sounds more like you’re not getting center channel. This happens to me on one of my Android TV boxes. Box doesn’t query hdmi correctly causing Plex to think a stereo television has 5.1 capability. So Plex sends 5.1 PCM. The stereo television only plays the front left and right channel. So you can’t hear the dialog because it’s mostly on the front center channel. To hear the dialog, the decoded 5.1 PCM needs to be downmixed to stereo.
The only solution I’ve found is to choose a quality that has a lower bitrate than the bitrate of your video. This will force a transcode and the downmix will occur on the server. Obviously, you will get lower video quality but you can hear the audio.
I’d been very interested in hearing if this helps solve your problem. Good Luck.
I have a detailed post on this issue for plex, explaining the need for a setting to force stereo output so that the downmix occurs on the client without affecting video quality.
Do you have a post with logs for this? Sounds to me like your TV is reporting that it supports 5.1 channels so that’s what PMS is using. The TV is then responsible for downmixing to stereo, but is failing to do so properly. If your TV has an audio setting to disable 5.1 channel support, then PMS will see it only supports 2 channel and will do the transcode to stereo.
Absolutely is the box. I have another generic android box that works perfectly with the same stereo television and the same receiver. This is a known issue with the X96H android box. I’ve seen posts from quite a few people where you (not you literally) tell them to change settings that they don’t have. Given that the reported symptoms are exactly the same as mine, it really sounds like the same problem.
This was the purpose of my separate post on the matter. It’s appears that people having trouble working around their hardware problems that are not going to change and Plex doesn’t have anyway to force stereo output other than to select absurdly low quality settings to force a transcode – which gives us sound we can hear but a really crappy picture.
Other players provide ways to force stereo output. Plex sort of does if you’re willing to accept 240p picture quality. Just would be better if we could force the downmix on the client where it should occur so that picture quality is not affected.
Look, my post was summarily dismissed and I constantly feel disrespected after attempting to help. I do all the testing and express the conclusions as clearly as I can and it just doesn’t matter.
When I researched my box, it appears that there are quite a few generic android TV boxes that just return a generic 5.1 capability rather than querying the EDID of the connected display. It appears that the makers of the firmware just didn’t know what they were doing. So it’s problem that we can’t do anything about. Again, the box can still play the sound in stereo in other software. But in plex, we have to accept a really crappy picture in order to get sound downmixed to stereo by forcing a transcode on the server. Boxes without the firmware glitch just direct play the video and downmix on the client without affecting the video. Again, Plex’s call whether to help customers with this type of hardware/firmware problem. A simple on/off setting in the plex Android app settings to force stereo output is all that is necessary.
That’s what I was thinking for awhile too, but I’ve tried messing with my TV’s settings to no avail. It is true though–a lot of the movies I’m playing are 5.1 and my soundbar is only 2.1. So I was assuming it was something where the soundbar was trying to mimic the 5.1 and having to play the dialogue and other sounds through the same speaker.
I will mess with my TV’s settings again and see if I can fix it. I don’t know if this changes anything, but I don’t use HDMI–I use an optical cable. Appreciate the advice.
Did you try reducing quality settings in PLEX to force a transcode? If that “solves” it, at least we probably know that the TV was probably getting 5.1 PCM and playing left/right channels. I know selecting lower quality is not really a solution. But it might be a temporary workaround that allows you to hear the audio properly.
