Those of you testing that find issues should probably post logs and a sample, or send them directly to sixones:
Did some quick testing on my Shield 2017 with x264 (not hi10p obviously) and x265 videos with external and internal ASS subs and most were looking good. Did have an issue with one file which didnāt display the subs at all when direct played with the (external) subs selected. It displays normally with Kodi and the subs are fine in Plex if burned in. Same results on my OnePlus 7T phone. If I merge the subs into the file, as I did when creating a second sample, it seems to work normally on both devices. So kind of an edge case, but probably worth looking into.
@sixones Iāll DM you my log and a link to the files.
Thatās classic āthis player is trying to play back Hi10P as 8-bit H264ā ā at least thatās how it used to appear back in the day when those fansubs first started appearing and people were still using old versions of VLC.
Edit: Hereās a test video (16 ref frames, no subtitles) if you want to try it and compare to a PC player.
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yeah thatād be it, i just looked at the mediainfo when i got up.
ive had this exact same issue, running the beta on a pixel 6. seems to happen on a variety of subs, but most often ive seen it on sub rips from crunchyroll.
In case anyoneās curious, I tried this last night on my Fire Stick 4K with a couple files and it didnāt work at all. Video and audio were fine, I just got no subtitles at all. But Dash claimed the ASS subs were playing. I was using HEVC files so the video wouldnāt cause any problems.
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Will be dependant on the subtitles in question, weāve found a bug where slower devices wonāt decode in time when used with complex ASS events. Working at it at the moment, will also fix the issue where subtitles disappear part way through.
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That is out of spec for a 480p video. Iām not surprised that has rendering issues.
Same here
Alright, very wellā¦
S;G 06-Urd.zip (26.4 MB)
This is made from some of the few Hi10P files I have that will direct play properly on the Fire Stick 4K (except I had to transcode the audio tracks since you canāt split FLAC). The video is original at least.
Codec H264
Bitrate 5004 kbps
Language ę„ę¬čŖ
Bit Depth 10
Chroma Location left
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Primaries bt709
Color Range tv
Color Space bt709
Color Trc bt709
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
Height 1080
Level 5.0
Profile high 10
Ref Frames 6
Scan Type progressive
Width 1920
I also took the portion of the subtitle script from the original file and retimed it for the sample. So it includes styled subs, but itās just plain dialog ā so no special effects.
6 Ref Frames is still a bit out of spec but should be ok. I can reproduce with your file.
@sixones Does the new feature support custom fonts? Thatās what this file has.
Iām also able to reproduce with other files I have. Looks like thereās still a bug with the Fire devices.
Hereās the latest build that will fix subtitles disappearing during playback or seeking, as well as improving the performance slightly for some devices.
Current Known issues:
- Subtitles are not visible on FireTV devices due to an OpenGL incompatibility.
- Complex ASS events cause the video and audio to freeze when they are rendered.
- Seeking can sometimes not render certain subtitles.
Download:
That video is Level 4 - so 16 ref frames is spec-compliant.
At L5 13 ref frames would be allowed.
The higher Levels specify increasing amounts of Decoded Picture Buffer memory and thus permit a ton of reference frames.
Simple calculator: Online calculator: H264 Maximum References Frames
The Wikipedia AVC article has a table with allowed ref frames for different levels and resolutions, and it discusses the DPB calculation: Advanced Video Coding - Wikipedia
Iām not saying itās reasonable to expect any set-top box to decode AVC Hi10P or Hi444PP, or such high Levels. Many modern AVC hardware decoders are HiP and L4.1 or L4.2 - because of Blu-ray and HDTV. (But some of the Fire devices are surprisingly capable!)
Iām almost convinced the Anime crowd is amused by the use of exotic encodings that require a PC for playback. Iām surprised they havenāt moved to VVC or something with waifu in the name yet. 
sorry but this new build didnāt improve anything on the Nvidia Shield :
- one video is still playing without subtitles while Dash and Varys claim the ASS subs are direct playing
- one video previously transcoding with the ASS subs is now making the app crash and relaunch
Here are the logs :
logs nvidia shield.zip (326.0 KB)
No improvement on Firestick 4K.
- Video still playing without subtitles, and Plex dashboard says it is direct streaming.
- App crashes when I try to play a video that has two subtitles (the first one for signs and songs, and the second one for dialogue). To be precise, The app crashes only when the first subtitle(signs and songs) is selected.
Firestick 4K Log.txt (4.7 MB)
FireTV devices are still unsupported in the latest build due to OpenGL configuration issues.
Would you be able to share the video that makes the app crash when the song subtitles are in use? Will have a look, they still wouldnt render on a FireTV device but the app shouldnt crash.
Would you be able to share the video that makes the app crash with me?
Here it is.
Thanks, Iāve grabbed that, will take a look!
