Not Working for Set top android boxes.. ie Zoomtak, T8

[rdawgemfl]

Server Version#: Current
Player Version#: Current

I’ve been a long user of Plex Server, I purchased the lifetime membership when it was $75 years ago, I also purchased the EMBY server as well as sort of a backup.

Over the past two years I don’t know what you guys are doing, but The server has progressively gotten worse. Don’t get me wrong I like the added features, the look of the UI is great… but for me it’s like having a Rolls Royce that is mint on the outside, then you open the hood and it’s rusted and the engine is falling apart, I apologize if being to harsh but let me explain.

When I first purchased Plex any media I put on the box worked and the quality was always excellent, I could do MKV’s, MP4’s, AC3, Dolby Digital, DTS… and it worked seamlessly… Now everytime an update comes out I loose some bit of functionality. First a about a year or so ago none of my DTS streams would transcode any longer on my devices, I had to covert all of my video to AC3. Then more updates came and my video would not go beyond 2mbit so now the video isn’t that clear, Don’t get me wrong on my phone I can still get good video, and my audio transcodes… but when I’m at home on my android boxes it doesn’t work.

Now with this new update none of my ac3 streams are transcoding, only my aac audio works, none of my dts streams work…

Please understand I’m not new to changing settings, I’ve turned on and off direct streams, under debug, I’ve set the setting on the box from the lowest to the highest transcoding levels I’ve disabled and enabled automatically adjust, I’ve done every possible thing that I’ve learned over the past two years to get the video to transcode… I only get the error the the transcoder crashed while trying to play the video, or the plex software crashes and I have to restart the application.

But on the the other hand My EMBY server is now the server of choice, which frustrates me because the UI is not the best to me, but all of my videos transcode, my Dolby 5.1 my 7.1, my DTS all works flawless and in hi definition… I don’t know what your team is doing but can you please go back to making things under the hood just as great as the outside.

[anon18523487]

You’ll need to recreate one of these issues you are having then provide logs from the app and PMS so we can see what is going on.

To provide some background, the Plex apps have gotten smarter. Previously, the older app would not support many codecs so lots of things would get transcoded. Over the years, the app has gotten better at supporting more codecs. However, I’ve found that these generic Android boxes have not kept up. They often report wrongly what they support or don’t support. The app relies on this information from the box to decide whether to transcode or not. When these devices report the wrong info, things break.

It’s one of those situations where your stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ignore the box and transcode everything, or believe the box and hope that it’s not lying and the codec works.