Hi,
I am new to PLEX and new to Raspberry Pi.
I’ve managed to get PLEX Media Player running on the pi.
Stereo FLAC files play fine through HDMI to my multimedia amp and sound good, but when I play a multichannel FLAC, it seems it’s being transcoded to stereo.
Can anyone please give me a steer on how to troubleshoot?
MMAmp is a Cambridge Audio 751Rv2.
4GB R-Pi 4 with 4GB Ram
Thanks
Dennis
Did you configure the Audio output?
Particularly changing the type to ‘HDMI’ and then setting the number of channels underneath.
Hi,
If you mean did I set the R-Pi audio out to use HDMI, the answer is yes.
If you mean something else, then can you give a little more detail please?
As mentioned Stereo FLAC files play fine through the HDMI.
Just the MC ones do not register as MC on the MMAmp and they sound exactly like the stereo version of the same song, which leads me to think they’re being converted to stereo.
FWIW if I plug a USB stick with the same FLAC file directly into the MMAmp, it plays it fine in MC.
Thanks
Dennis
In Plex:
Settings - Audio - Device Type
what is set there? Basic/Optical/HDMI
Hi Dennis,
Was thinking about having a go at getting PMP working on a R-Pi 4 but assumed the “community build” wouldn’t work and was put off by the extra dependencies needed to get LibreElec 9.2 working. Can I just ask, what did you do
If you’re just using the web browser interface then I don’t think you can get multichannel through that route (happy to be corrected) which is what all the fuss around HTPC’s and PMP was all about recently.
Kevin
Ahhh…that might explain it…I’m just using the pi as a kiosk and connecting via web interface.
I guess my options now become…
A) use the pi as a second PLEX server, or instead of the Win10 PC I’m currently using, or
B) build a proper PMP with the pi
Can you please recommend a build guide for either/both please?
Thanks
Dennis
I ran through an install guide for PLEX Server for R-Pi 4 and it looks like it’s all installed ok. It needs a web browser for the server interaction, so I take it, that either I’ve not done something I need to, or, because it’s a web interface it’ll only play MC files as Stereo?
(Ie it won’t play MC FLAC as MC)
BTW it will play stereo fine. And, yes, I am using HDMI port.
I assume, if the above is correct, that what I need to play MC FLAC as MC, I need a proper PLEX MEDIA PLAYER.
Can someone either correct or confirm my thinking please?
Cheers
Correct.
I’m sorry I missed you mentioning the RasPi4. LibreElec doesn’t currently support this hardware in a stable manner, so that ‘PMP embedded’ was never updated to a newer version of LibreElec.
Since it was decided that PMP will only be kept running as-it is, currently I am not 100% sure that it will ever be ported to a newer version of LibreElec.
I can only recommend you to experiment with Kodi and either PlexKodiConnect or the “Plex for Kodi” AddOn.
(although it might very well be that Plex4Kodi doesn’t support MC music. It was a long time ago that I tested this.)
Right now, multi-channel music with a multi-format support is only possible with either the Windows or the Mac version of PMP, with the audio interface properly configured to ‘surround’.
I have successfully direct-played MC flac, dts, and ac3 with PMP.
DSD is not supported (it’s converted to ‘lossy’ stereo), nor is MLP (but this can be converted without loss to flac, prior to adding it).
… and of course for completeness PMP community build on PiB and PiB+ also supports 5 channel multichannel inc DD and DTS passthru. I do hope the hackers will have a go at getting LibreElec 9.2 working but the original Community build required Plex staff support ie it looks complicated.
What would be better would be a PMP client for Linux - compilable for Raspbian.
{sigh}
Ok, thanks for the replies and the info guys.
Seems like I’ll now need to find something else for my pi to do.
I was looking at the AppleTV but;
A) price
B) it limits the resolution so I would not get full benefit of my 24bit/96kHz or 24bit/192kHz files
I might have to look around for a cheap (!) NUC and load Win10 and PMP.
Cheers
Dennis
Ok, just so I’m clear and don’t waste too much time (or money).
Can you confirm to me that if I plug my Win10 PC running PLEX Media Server into my HDMI port, it’ll play my multichannel FLAC as multichannel?
Do I need to be running PMP on this box in order to do what I want, or will the Web interface on the Win10 PMS send the file without converting to stereo?
Many thanks
Dennis
I have actually not tested high-res music over HDMI. I used a regular external sound interface.
And yes, you need to install PMP additionally to PMS.
Thanks again for the info.
Alas I’ve just discovered my current Win10 PC I’m using for PLEX Server does not, in fact have an HDMI port.
However, I’ve just managed to acquire an Intel NUC that does have an HDMI 1.4b port so I will load up Win10 + PMP and give it a whirl over the weekend.
Cheers and thanks for the help.
Ok, I ran up WIN10 on the NUC, installed Plex Media Player connected to my MMAmp and lo-and-behold, MULTICHANNEL AUDIO!!!
Far out!
What a journey.
Thanks for your help @OttoKerner and @kevin_marchant, it was very much appreciated.
dmonds
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