One device/Plex client to rule them all ? 4K HDR, 3D MVC, lossless audio bitstreaming

Is there a single device that exists on which there is a Plex client that’s capable of :

  1. playing 4K HDR content to a 4K HDR display without server or client video transcode (ie. no HDR->SDR conversion)
  2. playing 4K HDR content to a 4K SDR display without server transcode, and hardware assisted local HDR->SDR transcode
  3. playing 4K HDR content to a 1080p display without server video transcode, ie. doing local 4K HDR → 1080p SDR conversion, hardware-assisted
  4. playing 3D MVC content to a 3D TV without server video transcode
  5. bitstreaming DTS-HD, TrueHD, and other audio format without server audio remux, assuming the receiver is compatible with those streams
  6. properly switching the display to HDR and 3D mode automatically when appropriate
  7. switching the frame rate to match the source media, when supported by the display
  8. enable subtitles from the source without any server video transcode, as I’m not a native English speaker and always turn them on.

Also known as
9) just play the damn movie to the best of the audio/video capabilities of the local display and audio receiver.

Warning : this is a long post, and a bit of a rant. Feel free to ignore it and respond to the original post questions above. But I typed it, so I figured I would post it.

[RANT]
So far, I have not found one device on a which a Plex client exists that can accomplish all the above.

I have a house full of electronics without various displays from 4K HDR TV, 4K SDR monitors, 4K HDR projector, 3D 1080p TV, massive 480i CRT TV with component input (don’t laugh. OK yes, it’s OK to laugh), HTPC clients, streaming sticks, single board computers. There is enough network bandwidth to stream the full source from server to every client, which there is more than enough of through a combination of 10 Gbe ethernet for things on the main LAN, and Wave2 APs at 160 MHz for rooms that aren’t wired. Hell, there is a 114TB NAS.

So far, I can’t find a single device capable of accomplishing all of the above. In some case it’s due to hardware limitations, sometimes firmware, sometimes drivers, sometimes application limitation. In any case, the result is that the experience is a fail in some way. And it fails differently in every client. I would love to standardize on a single client device that can handle all the above. So far, I have been out of luck on locating one, unfortunately.

Samples of things that fail, for a room with a Sharp LC60LE835U 3D TV and a Marantz NR1603 receiver with a 5.1 audio system capable of TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding.

  1. Chromecast 3rd gen, Odroid N2+ can’t handle 3D content at all
  2. Chromecast 3rd gen, Raspberry Pi 3b can’t handle 4K movies at all
  3. Chromecast 3rd gen, Raspberry Pi 3b can’t handle bitstreaming of DTS-HD or TrueHD

So, to play 3D movies in that room, I have to use the Raspberry Pi with Kodi 18.9 and Plex add-on. But the audio gets downgraded to lossy DD+ or DTS.

To play 2D movies in that room, including 4K movies, I can use the Odroid N2+ with Kodi 19.2 and Plex on, and everything works beautifully including lossless audio.

The third streaming stick, the Chromecast is basically useless to me for Plex since it can’t play 3D or 4K, and even for 2D SD and HD movies, audio gets downgraded to lossy DD+. It’s there mostly to be able to cast my Android phone onto the TV, or Netflix (which could run under Kodi, but it’s a bit of a PITA).

This is the experience just for one room, my guest bedroom, and already two client devices are needed to play movies from Plex, and still a little audio quality is lost when playing 3D content.

I also have a home theater with Optoma UHD65 4K HDR 2D projector, Marantz SR7011 AV receiver, 15 speakers (11.1 with 4 subs), a Chromecast Ultra, Chromecast with Google TV, Amazon Fire Stick 4K, HTPC with Ryzen and nVidia GTX 1050Ti GPU. With that combo, still couldn’t find a Plex client that would do 4K HDR with Atmos/DTS-HD tracks. I can have 4K HDR with some of the sticks, but then audio gets downgraded. I can have lossless audio with the HTPC, but HDR doesn’t work in the Plex client. Automatic refresh rate change only seems to work in the Firestick 4K.

My master bedroom upstairs has a Samsung Q70R 82" TV (2019 model) with Marantz SR8015 receiver and 11 speakers (9.1 with two subs), a Chromecast with Google TV and HTPC with nVidia GT1030 GPU. Again, with that combo, still couldn’t find a Plex client that would do 4K HDR with Atmos/DTS-HD tracks. The TV’s built-in Plex client triggers a transcode when subtitles are enabled. The Chromecast with Google TV Plex doesn’t properly bit stream audio. It also doesn’t switch refresh rate correctly. The HTPC Plex Windows client will bitstream audio, but doesn’t do HDR. Nor does it switch refresh rate.

Those are the 3 main rooms I’m concerned with, and they all have fairly modern hardware, by which I mean all the electronics are less than 10 years old (some speakers are not).

My bar does have a Sony 32" CRT 480i TV and 2.0 system with non-HDMI receiver (SPDIF in). There are Raspberry Pi3B and a Chromecast audio attached to it. I’m not really expecting to play 4K or 3D movies in this room. Audio, yes. I may try Rasplex on it, though.

The home office PC on which I’m typing this also has 3 monitors including two LG 4K SDR hooked up to a GTX 960 monitor. And an Echo Firewire 12 audio card, hooked up to an old Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver through the 7.1 analog multi-channel input, and a 4.1 audio system. Again I won’t normally play movies in this room. The Echo audio drivers are buggy. They can’t handle missing channels at all.
[/RANT]

1 Like

Have you read [INFO] Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you - aka the rules of 4k ?

I just read it . There is nothing in the article about 3D support. It’s all about 4K HDR directplay. I already have multiple devices that do 4K HDR directplay with Plex : Fire Stick 4K, Chromecast with Google TV, Odroid N2+.

What I’m looking for is a single device that can do all 3 of :

  1. 4K HDR
  2. lossless audio bitstreaming.
  3. 3D MVC

The main recommendation in your link is nVidia Shield. AFAIK, that device doesn’t support 3D, so it doesn’t solve my problem. It’s just the first 2 out of 3. My Odroid N2+ also supports the same 2 out of 3.

I’m looking for a single device that can do all 3. Does that exist ? I would buy at least 3 of them if it did.

BTW, Windows HTPC supports 3 out of 3 at the hardware level. All 3 work with competing software. But with Plex on Windows it’s just 1 out of 3. No HDR and no 3D.

nope.

Neither Plex Media Server nor any Plex client recognizes 3D. It may play the video, but you have to switch your TV to the appropriate 3D mode manually.

The 2019 Shield Pro will perform the other tasks on your list.

You are quite wrong about that. The Plex add-on for Kodi on my Raspberry Pi 3 not only plays the video in 3D, but automatically switches my Sharp TV to 3D mode just fine. I just tested verified this after your post.

Proof here : https://youtu.be/oLVphawKA4w

The problem is that the Pi 3
a) cannot pass the lossless TrueHD or DTS-HD audio tracks of movies to the receiver. It only passes lossy DD+ or DTS at best.
b) cannot handle 4K movies at all

So it’s 1 out of 3.

Isn’t it Kodi that is handling the 3D part of things?

Either way, it works, so thanks for the info.

Maybe Kodi + Plex add-on on the Shield gets you where you want?

I don’t have a 3D capable TV or I would test it on my Shield.

Kodi on the PI3 has support for HDMI 3D mode. And the PI3 has hardware to decode 3d MVC data. I don’t know how much the Plex add-on really knows about 3D, but it has to be enough to take advantage of those Kodi features. But it does work.

As far as the Shield, nVidia has stated they don’t support 3D on it. And even went as far as saying they never will. Kind of a head scratcher as they support 3D on their PC GPUs still. Ask me about DSD audio bit streaming next to know how I really feel about nVidia.

Actually, even if you let go of 3D there’s no client that can do it all. Shield or any android/android-based box doesn’t play SSA/ASS subtitles and the video will require a transcode as that’s a limitation of ExoPlayer with no fix in sight for a couple of years at least.

Apple TV 4k will fix this but doesn’t work with TrueHD Atmos content.

And we haven’t even gone to the Dolby Vision rabbit hole with profile 7 which doesn’t work on basically anything except for a Blu-Ray player and Nvidia Shield Pro(2019).

MVC 3D really needs to be decoded in the hardware and the RPi is one of the few pieces of hardware that has support for it. Supposedly with Kaby Lake Intel’s integrated GPUs have added support for it.

As others have said you can get what you want minus the 3D. Support for 3D is likely to decline going forward because the industry has pretty much moved on without it. The writing is on the wall with everything now trying to move to 4K (or higher) and the lack of a 4K 3D standard in either the encodings on disks or HDMI signalling.

Use a beefy NUC, I bet that’d do it all.

And you would be wrong. NUC hardware may be 4K/3D capable, but the Plex for Windows client software doesn’t support HDR. I’m not sure if it supports 3D either. It’s at best 2 out of 3 and probably just 1 out of 3.

Thanks for your response. I’m well aware that 3D is legacy, but that doesn’t mean Plex software shouldn’t support it on hardware that’s actually capable of supporting it. Does Plex for Windows support it ? JRiver Media Center for Windows supports 3D with my GT 1030, Intel Graphics 530, and GTX 1050 Ti. None of my PCs are in the room with the 3D TV anymore, though. The 3D TV was moved to a guest room. So, I haven’t been able to test the combo of Plex for Windows and 3D combo yet. And I was really hoping to avoid building another HTPC. But if I did build one more some day, I would want it to also support 4K and HDR, not just 3D. And Plex for Windows doesn’t support HDR, as far as I can tell.

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