Hi,
If the same file plays correctly in the old player, doesn’t that mean the new player has a bug in this regard?
Just to add another instance of the issue, I am having the same issue on the same hardware with the newest Plex client and server (as of this post).
Love Plex and hope the team can find what bug got introduced in the client code to cause this and fix it.
An update to this issue.
I had this issue on MiBox S which ran Android 8.
However, today I installed the Android 9 update which just got released and the 4k HDR playback now seems to work with the new player.
However I noticed this when playing back X265 HEVC 4k HDR files.
In old player the playback info shows Video: Direct Play but in the new player it says Video: Copy (HEVC). Any idea what the difference is? Is the new player trans coding HEVC?
Copy would indicate the video stream is not being touched, but something else is. Either the audio or the file container. It’s possible your device on 8 was trying to DP something that it really couldn’t, but with 9, it knows correctly now and is making the change.
Thanks.
So as things stand right now, for me the 4k HDR playback problem on new player is resolved after Mi Box S Android 9.0 update.
Hello,
And for those who are in Android 8 with the xiaomi mi box 3?
How do we do it?
I expected an answer like that …
I’m sorry but I don’t see why I should change boxes …
Android 8 is not yet obsolete … It is not up to me to do what is necessary but to PLEX to provide an application that works! I paid my Plex Pass, I believe I have the right to a service that keeps the road! It’s up to PLEX to solve this problem with the new player and the xiaomi version 3 boxes. It works very well with the old player (ExoPlayer 2 I think): so no hardware problems! Why wouldn’t it be the same with the new player ???
The old player didn’t support some of the fancier audio formats, so more transcodes would happen. The new one is better and trying to direct play something that your device says it supports. The app sends your device the audio and the device itself fails. The fix would be block these codecs from specific brand boxes, which would negatively impact those where this issue doesn’t happen.
We are looking at ways to get around this.
Just found this thread after struggling with my Sony TV for the past month (Android TV 8.0.0). I could not play any HDR content, 4K SDR worked fine. Disabled the new player and now everything is working again. Big sigh… been using Plex for 7 years now but getting so tired of dealing with basic playback problems. Seems like they never stop introducing bugs into the most important part of the whole product.
I used Kodi while experiencing this problem, and although the UI is not as fancy, the experience is so much smoother and playback always works. I think I’m done with the native Plex client.
the new versions follow each other and still no resolution to this problem … please, correct this bug once and for all !!!
Hi, I found a workaround for this issue.
I am running plex server off a synology 918+ nas unit, latest update. On wifi, all my devices at home play everything without issues except one - a lenovo andoid tablet. it played everything other than 4k, no issues but as soon as i threw 4k content at it, i got the same message as you.
The workaround is to limit that device’s player’s playback quality in the settings menu to something less than original quality. Once i did that everything played just fine.
Workarounds are great, but hopefully plex will address this issue in an update soon.
Hi,
I tried your workaround but unfortunately it doesn’t change anything …
I changed the level, I went from maximum to 20Mb and now, Plex tells me that the video exceeds the authorized bitrate while he shows me a bitrate for the film at 5.6Mb …
If I reset as much as possible, I have a message that tells me: direct reading impossible, transcoding necessary …
All my films are in AC3 640kb, either 1080p or 4k.
As a reminder, there is no problem with films that are not in HDR.
PLEX, please fix this!
As far as I know Plex can’t do 10 bit video. To get direct play 4k video you have to create the mp4 with 8 bit video. Anything else and it tries to transcode to 1080p. Now when I play the 4k video through Plex the HDR logo appears on my screen but I don’t know how you get full HDR out of 8 bit video.
Why do I say Plex can only do 8 bit video?
Strange I remember that I’ve directly played some HDR10 contents on my Samsung TV, I will check this.
Anyway in the page you linked is stated this:
Tip! : This article is about our Smart TV app. It does not apply to the Plex app running on Android TV, Fire TV, Roku TV, or similar.
Hello,
PLEX has no problem reading 4K HDR in 10 bits.
With the old player, it works perfectly. But with the new player, no 4K HDR …
1 Like
That’s good to know. Please post the link to the direct play requirements that states this.
Please post whatever links you have that prove this.
That’s not how this works. You can either back up your claims or you can’t. The word of a stranger literally means nothing. For all I know you fell into the same trap I did.
