@danjames92 said:
I’m confused at why people convert to flac when they could just leave the DTS-HD MA / LPCM / TrueHD track as is and it would work perfectly.
I’m sure they can fix it though.
I know 5.1 .flac works fine cause I tried it.
I don’t use FLAC for DTS-HD MA and TrueHD tracks, but originally did for LPCM tracks before I knew about the Shield’s deficiency in this case. LPCM tracks are pretty large when still uncompressed, and I didn’t have as much storage back then (or anything that could play any audio format losslessly). So I figured I might as well compress them to save some space, while keeping the lossless. Once I got my Shield and tested things out, I switched to ripping LPCM raw. Someday I’ll go back and either re-rip or decode and remux my FLAC movies. I’ve already done a few of my more popular movies that are that way. But this thread got me excited for a bit that I wouldn’t need to.
I’d be happy to get you a sample when I’m home and remember to do so. And sorry for the slow response… notifications and unreads are useless in this forum when a single thread (the hardware transcoding one) dominate them and it only shows you new individual messages, not unread threads.
WRT Shield TV and FLAC in MKV container, Plex transcodes the audio to either AAC or MP3 and passes it to an AVR as PCM.
Details:
Downloaded the DTS Paint Symphony demo video. Using Handbrake, converted audio to FLAC. Generated four audio tracks: 16 bit stereo, 16 bit 5.1, 24 bit stereo, 24 bit 5.1. Using MKVToolNix, muxed the FLAC audio back into the original file, keeping original audio & video tracks. PMS XML file attached.
Setup:
Shield TV Pro 2017 (Plex client 5.10.1.264) – HDMI --> Denon X4300H – HDMI --> Samsung F7100 TV
Playing the resulting video via Shield TV client, the original DTS-HD audio is bitstreamed to the AVR w/o issue. Plex shows Direct Play. Denon OSD shows “DTS-HD MASTR” for audio source, as does front panel display.
For all FLAC audio tracks, the Plex Client on-screen overlay says transcode reason is FLAC is not supported in an MKV container. Video is direct play.
For all FLAC audio tracks, the Denon OSD says the input is PCM. It does not provide bitrate or depth.
PMS 1.7.1.3856 / Shield TV Pro (2017)
FLAC stereo (16 or 24 bit): Plex Status shows transcode to AAC. Denon displays “stereo”
FLAC 5.1 (16 or 24 bit): Plex Status shows transcode to AAC. Denon display “Multi Ch In”
PMS 1.7.1.3856 / Win10
FLAC stereo (16 or 24 bit): Plex Status shows transcode to MP3. Denon displays “stereo”
FLAC 5.1 (16 or 24 bit): Plex Status shows transcode to AAC. Denon display “Multi Ch In”
Great test and matches my findings although I did get up to 192khz playback of flac files for 2.0 but that may have been a bad test. I use the menu function on my Denon 4310ci and check the audio signal for confirmation on what the Denon is playing but the Plex Status confirms your findings. This transcoding of 5.1 flac files is the last hurdle for my PLEX / Shield experience. I have read on github that the player the shield uses is the issue. I guess it’s up to Google now.
@“Prog Rocker” said:
Great test and matches my findings although I did get up to 192khz playback of flac files for 2.0 but that may have been a bad test. I use the menu function on my Denon 4310ci and check the audio signal for confirmation on what the Denon is playing but the Plex Status confirms your findings. This transcoding of 5.1 flac files is the last hurdle for my PLEX / Shield experience. I have read on github that the player the shield uses is the issue. I guess it’s up to Google now.
Plex uses a custom forked version of ExoPlayer currently at 1.5.16 vs Google’s 2.4. It’s up to Plex.
@“Prog Rocker” said:
Great test and matches my findings although I did get up to 192khz playback of flac files for 2.0 but that may have been a bad test. I use the menu function on my Denon 4310ci and check the audio signal for confirmation on what the Denon is playing but the Plex Status confirms your findings. This transcoding of 5.1 flac files is the last hurdle for my PLEX / Shield experience. I have read on github that the player the shield uses is the issue. I guess it’s up to Google now.
Plex uses a custom forked version of ExoPlayer currently at 1.5.16 vs Google’s 2.4. It’s up to Plex.
Thanks for the clarification. Let’s hope Plex Developers have time to put some attention to this.
@“Prog Rocker” said:
I use the menu function on my Denon 4310ci and check the audio signal for confirmation on what the Denon is playing …
I pressed the INFO button on my remote. It said source was PCM when playing FLAC audio, but nothing about bit rate, etc. (I knew the audio was 48kHz and 16-bit or 24-bit, but didn’t see any such info in the Denon menus).
Is that the menu function you use or is there something with more details? I couldn’t find it if it exists.
I’m having the same problem. Just wondering if we are any closer to FLAC support in MKV container. Plex on Nvidia Shield with pass through enabled has my receiver say it is “Dolby Digital”, but the video is frozen.
Same issue here on my Shield TV. And the issue is generic for all my music which is encoded in FLAC.
When playing back my music collection >> via the Plex Android TV APP << it all is converted into AAC according to the ‘now playing’ stats on the plex server - irrespective whether the FLAC file is stereo or multi-channel.
The strange thing: when >> casting << from Plex App on my mobile phone the SAME FLAC files to the Chromecast capability on Shield TV, the files are NOT transcoded. So clearly something is strange in the way this is handled either in the Plex Android TV app or on the server side.
It’s a pity, since I do like the NVIDIA Shield Plex App as my player since I can use the remote AND I can see Lyrics. But for the music lover this is a inferior playback solution, e.g. not playing ‘direct’. The lack of gapless playback is another gripe.
I find the ‘accepted answers’ in this thread confusing since it too generically states that FLAC direct playback is supported.
Is there something that explains why when playing music FLAC files they often get transcoded to MP3 on Shield. My understanding of the NVIDIA Shield is that it support FLAC files natively so why won’t PLEX play them without transcoding? Very irritating!
Did anyone ever find a solution for this? All our precious high res lossless audio is getting transcoded to aac! You’d think FLAC would convert to straight PCM if anything right? At least that was my thinking when encoding so many files.
I’m hoping for a fix as well. The shield is the best player on the market, and PLEX is such a great software it’s a shame we’re not getting native output… also the 10 second delay during transcoding is very annoying
I would love a solution to this, too. When Plex Media Player on Mac stopped working with DTS-HD MA I had to transcode everything to 7.1 FLAC to keep the quality outputting to my receiver. Now I am looking at the Shield as is seems to be perfect in every other way but this would mean that most of my movies stop working. I would rather not have to buy a new Mac Mini for 4k support.
Just checked mine which has been on 7.2.2 since it was first available. It definitely still sends only stereo instead of the 4 or 6 channels it should. And this is definitely not an Android issue as MrMC on the same box is able to play the files correctly. If this has been going on for over a year and a half PLEX NEEDS TO FIX THIS NOW!!!
Update! When I play a multitrack FLAC PMS Running on my iMac says that it is direct playing the file. So it doesn’t seem to be the server side that is mis reading what type of file it is. I am going to look up how to get the Plex log off the Shield TV so that I can provide that.
@OttoKerner is there any chance we can get some feedback? I am collecting logs from my PMS and shield TV and need to know how we can get them to the right people.
By Plex for kodi so you mean the official plex add on for Kodi? I cant keep the other third party plex add ons straight.
Update!! Just tested my Kodi environment with the Official Plex Addon and it plays my multichannel FLACs exactly as Plex plays them. That is, incorrectly as stereo. FYI my Denon reciever is sering the stream as PCM stereo. In Kodi my audio is set to Passthrough mode. Am going to do some testing with the Kodi audio settings.
Update!! Just tested my setup and disabled Passthrough on PLEX and KODI and it did not alter the situation at all. Still showing as Stereo. FYI it is stereo but it’s not a mixed down version, it is playing the Front L and Front R elements of a Quad or 6 channel FLAC only.
Update!! I have messaged Corylam and hopefully that will garner some attention to this issue. I linked him to this Topic.
