Newest Beta Dolby Vision Issue

[ppoulos]

It seems to occur more frequently with the newest Plex for Android 8.8.0.21074-beta.

[sixones]

@fizban11

I turned refresh rate and resolution switching both off and it solved my weird color issue. The only problem I still have is not immediately detecting DV. I have seen HDR10, Normal and DV. I have to start and restart several times to get DV to kick in.

Would you be able to grab the client logs after experiencing this issue? A sample would also be a huge help!

[fizban11]

@sixones: I can reproduce and send the client logs between football games today. What exactly do you mean by “sample”, though?

EDIT: Client Logs.zip (480.6 KB)

NOTE: I could not reproduce normal on any file today, but was able to demonstrate going to HDR10 instead of DV. Of interest, I noted that EVERY TIME HDR10 was chosen instead of DV, the audio reverted to a lossy track instead of HD audio. EVERY TIME DV was correctly chosen, HD audio was also chosen.

Spider-Man Far From Home
2001
Spider-Man Far From Home
Black Panther
Halloween
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Star Trek (2009)

I then tested this with Star Trek (2009) 4K UHD, which does NOT have DV, only HDR10. The first time I played it, the HDR10 badge showed, but lossy audio of “multi-in + dolby surround” was played. When I stopped and played it again, the audio defaulted to ATMOS and HDR10 was displayed.

[kqmaverick]

I would love to test but I have the Nvidia tube which still cant play regular HDR content. The one Dolby Vision file I have crashes the Plex app immediately. Guess I’m still stuck with Plex for Kodi for HDR/Dolby Vision content.

[doctorsirius]

As others already noticed, there is a weird problem with some of the new Dolby Vision files that didn’t happen before. For some reasons files with EAC3 audio track triggers transcoding.

[doctorsirius]

Looks like it only ocurrs the first time you play the file with Plex.

[sixones]

Thanks for all the logs and sample files, what appears to be happening when Dolby Vision fails to be used is that the audio decoder fails to configure, this means we fallback to streaming the video which uses HLS and as such only supports HDR. We are looking into this issue.

I’m still tracking down the problem where refresh rate enabled will inconsistently disable Dolby Vision, this seems unrelated to the issue above.

[Orange_GT3]

@sixones

We are looking into this issue.

Great news!

[quietvoid]

@sixones

I’m still tracking down the problem where refresh rate enabled will inconsistently disable Dolby Vision, this seems unrelated to the issue above.

Not sure if it would help, but this issue happens for me only when the Firestick shows “Adjusting Video Frame Rate…”, black screen, then the Plex loading/spinning into HDR10 instead of Dolby Vision.
This is the case when both Plex and the device’s refresh rate matching are enabled.

When it works (device’s own matching disabled but Plex enabled), it shows “Optimizing for Ultra HD playback…”, and only black screens (switches) after Plex starts loading.

So it seems having both enabled is conflicting somewhere, making the device switch before Plex.

[quietvoid]

I don’t know what you mean, the beta app is available for Firestick (which is an Android device), so this totally fits in this thread which is about the beta app.

[FordGuy61]

@pluxology

the firestick may run Android, but it doesn’t run Android TV.

Yes it does.

Amazon modifies it quite a bit (no Google services, etc), but it is Android TV.

[Larrikin]

@sixones

Thanks for all the logs and sample files, what appears to be happening when Dolby Vision fails to be used is that the audio decoder fails to configure, this means we fallback to streaming the video which uses HLS and as such only supports HDR. We are looking into this issue.

I’m still tracking down the problem where refresh rate enabled will inconsistently disable Dolby Vision, this seems unrelated to the issue above.

And thank you very much for working on this. Greatly appreciate it as its an awesome feature. Is there any chance this will also be added to the Apple TV4K? I have both the shield and Apple TV4K and it would be handy to have on the AppleTV4K too.

[sixones]

After looking through, there appears to be 2 remaining issues with Dolby Vision:

• On the NVIDIA SHIELD, Dolby Vision sometimes fails to play and it will fallback to direct streaming and standard HDR. We are still looking into this, it appears the devices decoder crashes with certain Dolby Vision profiles.
• On the Fire TV 4K with Dolby Vision support, when refresh rate switching is enabled, Dolby Vision can end up falling back to standard HDR.

We’re currently looking into both issues, hopefully I can share a new build soon.

@Larrikin

And thank you very much for working on this. Greatly appreciate it as its an awesome feature. Is there any chance this will also be added to the Apple TV4K? I have both the shield and Apple TV4K and it would be handy to have on the AppleTV4K too.

Will see if I can find out about Apple support, I believe it would depend on when Apple adds Dolby Vision inside of MKV support.

[enigma2k]

I have to add a problem with NVIDIA Shield and the newest Plex Beta:

At first it all worked flawlessly but after some time when I click play I don’t get a picture at all (only blackscreen) and only hear audio.
All the other movies that are not DV are working fine.

Tried already restarting Shield but it did not fix it.

[Orange_GT3]

@enigma2k

when I click play I don’t get a picture at all (only blackscreen) and only hear audio.

This happens to me most of the time. I thought it might have been films that have Atmos/TruHD soundtracks but I’m not 100% sure.

[Orange_GT3]

@pluxology, what television do you have? Does it support DV @60Hz?

[sjpotter]

i’d say the fact that on the Bravia’s it comes out black and white is also an issue (though perhaps not something can be fixed as limitation of a codec provided)

[sixones]

@enigma2k

I have to add a problem with NVIDIA Shield and the newest Plex Beta:

At first it all worked flawlessly but after some time when I click play I don’t get a picture at all (only blackscreen) and only hear audio.
All the other movies that are not DV are working fine.

Tried already restarting Shield but it did not fix it.

@Orange_GT3

This happens to me most of the time. I thought it might have been films that have Atmos/TruHD soundtracks but I’m not 100% sure.

@pluxology

i’ve had zero issues with DV playback on my shield, and most have Atmos/True HD (other are DTS-X)

@sjpotter

i’d say the fact that on the Bravia’s it comes out black and white is also an issue (though perhaps not something can be fixed as limitation of a codec provided)

Would you be able to grab the client logs for me? Steps for grabbing the logs are available here; https://support.plex.tv/articles/201573117-android-android-tv-fire-tv-logs/

[sjpotter]

logging.rar (104.8 KB)

here are the logs, I’ve had issues with true-hd atmos (such as here), where it tries to transcode the atmos and it just dies (and dolby vision turns off), but that seems to be understood above. I think I’ve seen issues with atmos/true-hd on my bravia in other cases as well, so unsure if that’s similiar case here.

[Larrikin]

@sixones

Will see if I can find out about Apple support, I believe it would depend on when Apple adds Dolby Vision inside of MKV support.

Thanks - much appreciated. Another thought back on the Nvidia Shield with Dolby Vision support, when looking at a movie title in plex, it shows the movie 4K HDR regardless of whether it supports Dolby Vision. There is basically no way of knowing until you play the file (or obviously you just know because you know). For Dolby Vision titles, can it be updated to show 4K Dolby Vision?