Movies recorded with Plex DVR from HD Homerun don't always stream to AppleTV/iOS app

General Discussions Plex Features
1

I’ve recorded several dozen movies from various channels (mostly HBO). The movies play properly in the web player, but when I try to play them on the iOS app or AppleTV app, about half the time I get audio only.

If I “create optimized version” of the movie, it will stream to AppleTV with no problems. Any ideas?

My setup:
Plex (version 1.10.1.4602) running on Centos 7
AppleTV/iOS are both on most recent versions
HDHomeRun PRIME 1325FD0B with CableCARD + Tuning Adapter

ffprobe on one of the files shows:
ffprobe version 3.4.1-static https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/ Copyright © 2007-2017 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 6.4.0 (Debian 6.4.0-10) 20171112
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-static --disable-debug --disable-ffplay --disable-indev=sndio --disable-outdev=sndio --cc=gcc-6 --enable-fontconfig --enable-frei0r --enable-gnutls --enable-gray --enable-libfribidi --enable-libass --enable-libvmaf --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librubberband --enable-librtmp --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libvorbis --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvpx --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzimg
libavutil 55. 78.100 / 55. 78.100
libavcodec 57.107.100 / 57.107.100
libavformat 57. 83.100 / 57. 83.100
libavdevice 57. 10.100 / 57. 10.100
libavfilter 6.107.100 / 6.107.100
libswscale 4. 8.100 / 4. 8.100
libswresample 2. 9.100 / 2. 9.100
libpostproc 54. 7.100 / 54. 7.100
[h264 @ 0x461f800] mmco: unref short failure
[h264 @ 0x461f800] reference picture missing during reorder
[h264 @ 0x461f800] Missing reference picture, default is 65340
[h264 @ 0x461f800] mmco: unref short failure
[h264 @ 0x461f800] Increasing reorder buffer to 2
[h264 @ 0x461f800] mmco: unref short failure
Input #0, mpegts, from ‘The Evil Dead (1981).ts’:
Duration: 01:27:56.25, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 7832 kb/s
Program 1
Metadata:
service_name : Service01
service_provider: FFmpeg
Stream #0:0[0x100]: Video: h264 (High) ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p(tv, bt709, top first), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], Closed Captions, 29.97 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc
Stream #0:10x101: Audio: ac3 ([129][0][0][0] / 0x0081), 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 384 kb/s
Stream #0:20x102: Audio: ac3 ([129][0][0][0] / 0x0081), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 192 kb/s

2

So the video codec is h264 which the Apple TV should be able to handle. Have you tried remuxing the ts file to MP4 or MKV? Perhaps the Apple TV just doesn’t like the ts container. Don’t have a newer Apple TV that can run Plex so can’t test myself.

3

i tried converting the video to both mp4 and mkv… neither worked on my iPhone (audio only), so pretty sure it won’t work on AppleTV either.

4

That is odd. I remux recordings to MP4 as part of my post processing with mcebuddy. The internal video codec is still mpeg2 since nothing here is broadcast OTA in h264. I have no problems playing anything on my iPhone 8 Plus. I also manually transcode all recordings later to HEVC/h265 for permanent storage and have no problems playing those on my iPhone either.

5

The recording are done with cablecard/hdhomerun… and they work with the Plex web player. It also plays on my Kindle Fire HDX, so it has to be something with the iOS app that’s broken/not working.

6

Have you looked at any of the settings in the app on your iPhone?

7

there really aren’t that many settings in ios/apple tv app… just quality… which I assume leaving at “recommended” for home network is the preferred setting.

Looking at which files play and which ones don’t, all the ones that don’t work show an error from ffprobe:
[h264 @ 0x53a7820] mmco: unref short failure

I see that same error message in the Plex Server log.

8

I see in your ffmpeg that both of your audio formats are AC3. I know apple loves AAC and not so much on AC3. I tried to find an official Apple article but didnt but did find others having issues with AC3.

9

Found this on some third party site for the iPhone 7/7 Plus:
Video formats: H.264 video up to 4K, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.2 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
Audio formats: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV

It says to transcode AC3 to something above.

10

The problem is likely that the video is from an interlaced channel. Apple iOS/tvOS devices can’t decode interlaced video. When you transcode it, it’s removing the interlacing.