Great news, thanks! 
Excellent news!!
Just applied to beta. This will be a long-waited fix that finally came.
Thanks, canāt wait for this feature. Was almost a deal breaker for Plex for me.
On another note, using KODI allows you to transcode (AAC at least) on the fly LOCALLY to AC3, even when using the official Plex Kodi Add-On; yes this does mean you can have direct play subtitles and AAC audio transcoded to AC3 - the Plex server just sees you as direct playing everything.
My question is why canāt Plex app incorporate this feature? Most of my audio transcoding requirement is from AAC to AC3 due to sound system not supporting AAC. KODI is open source surely you can have a quick peek on how KODI does it. Doing it locally also gives an option to reduce CPU load on the Plex server. My Plex server is absolutely ancient and relies heavily on everything direct playing so this would be a very attractive feature for someone like me. See link below for more info on using the feature from KODI.
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This will be the biggest improvement to the Plex client in like 3 years if it works. Thank you to the devs for solving it.
Just ran across this and it was driving me nuts. My home theater/shield setup has no issues, but this weekend I tried 4K movies on my Samsung TV/Soundbar (via optical out)/shield setup and I was dumbfounded. Ended up watching a 1080p version of it. Hope it really is coming!
In todayās beta release. You can sideload & test if youāre not in the beta program. Hoping to try it myself later this evening.
WHATS NEW:
- Player: direct play subtitles even when transcoding audio or video.
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Tried it with an movie that was transcoding video when srt subs were enabled, now only audio is transcoded. So far so good.
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Amazing.
Have tested in on three different devices. So far so good. Amazing, love it.
So when is this version available for non beta testers? Canāt wait!
See IanDBirdās post above, ~2 weeks.
Seems to work mostly without issue. The only problem that I have is that the subtitle is slightly out of sync. The delay is pretty small though ~1 second behind the audio/video.
Were they in sync before? Are you using the embedded MKV subs, or are you using the Plex client add subtitle functionality?
Huh played the same movies again and now everything is in sync. Iām using either external .srt subtitles or embedded MKV subs. (either .PGS or .srt). Also, previously I double checked by playing the movies on my PC.
Iām using an older Sony Bravia Android TV (kd-49xd7005). Maybe one of the reboots fixed somethingā¦
As the original creator of this thread, I wanted to follow back up here and thank you and the Plex team for pushing this update. This solved a huge outstanding issue and we really appreciate all your hard work!
Thank you for this update. It made Plex perfect again, thank you a lot !
May I get a confirmation that the fix is out for the 2019 Shield Pro app?
I want to play 4K HDR with unsupported audio from NAS PMS -> gigabit ethernet -> Shield Pro running Plex Client ->HDMI-> Samsung TV and want to direct play the video, transcode the audio and use .srt subtitles (and PGS if that is possible?) and this fix means it wont force a transcode of the video now correct?
is this update going to be pushed out to the plex app on LG tvs? iām running into this issue right now. transcoding audio + enabling subtitles requires the video to be transcoded. using an LG GX (2020 model) the app was last updated april 2020 it seems
I just started using plex and I am experiencing the same issue on my 2020 Samsung TV. Will this be implemented on the samsung tv app?
This issue may have temporarily been fix for a short period, but it is back again in time for the fall TV season. All the videos Iāve been playing the Shield using version 8.7.2.20952 require subtitles to be burned in to play.
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Not just NVidia Shield for me. Chromecast and LG WebOS 2 also. Media is HEVC Main 10, EAC3 audio and embedded ASS subs. Causes buffering every time. Uploaded an SRT, played with these external subs no buffering/burn-in necessary.
