Please revert back to AVPlayer on iOS & tvOS. Demux MKV locally, feed streams via m3u8 to AVPlayer

Plex Players
,
1

The “old player” setting enables the native iOS media player (called AVPlayer) which is made by Apple themselves and is therefore super optimized. It’s used by Netflix, Disney+, Paramount, HBO, etc…

It’s much more performant & power efficient, works perfectly with HomePods/AirPods and supports Dolby Atmos & Vision, and opens the door for newer features like “enhance dialogue” on Homepods.

Dev Tip: The only way to properly support Atmos on Apple devices is to feed eac3 to AVPlayer (via m3u8 with correct manifest or mp4 with correct dec3 atom). Check links for details.

Dolby Vision also works with AVPlayer as long as FourCC is set to hvc1.

Biggest problem is, as with anything Apple, it doesn’t support mkv containers. But it DOES support most common streams contained in those mkv files anyway (h264/265, vp9, av1, aac/ac3/eac3).

Currently, when you force AVPlayer, the Plex SERVER demuxes the file and sends the raw streams from inside the mkv and feeds them to AVPlayer - and that works 10x better on my Apple TV with Homepods.

MY SUGGESTION:

Local, on-device on-the-fly demuxing and feeding the streams via an m3u8 to AVPlayer. This also opens the door to modding the FourCC and dec3 ATOM and providing proper support for files not encoded to Apple’s standards.

Fallback to mpv ONLY when unsupported codecs are encountered.

RATIONALE:

1- This frees up server resources in certain use cases (like large shared servers).

2- AVPlayer integrates best with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Future proof.

3- Proper Dolby Vision & Atmos support - done the right way.

4- More power efficient. No 3rd party player will ever be as efficient as Apple’s native player which will help on mobile devices.

5- Will avoid certain problems for certain people (mpv causes annying microstutters in my case)

6- It’s the native platform player! :smiley: So why not use it if we can.

7 Likes
2

I completely agree and also prefer the avplayer but there is a bug when it comes to ts files. Hopefully, it will be fixed in less than 3 years.

2 Likes
3

What’s the bug?
Most of my .ts files and streams work fine.

4

The only way I can get them to play is by disabling direct play when using the avplayer.

5

Oh right.

Yes I get this with some recordings, but I assumed it was because I was converting them from m3u8 to mpegts.

I have ‘Hazel’ set up on my Mac - I’ve set it up to detect whenever a new .ts file appears and automatically run it through ffmpeg via CLI.

So as soon as a recording is done, within 30seconds it’s been converted to an mp4.

EDIT:

But yes, I agree with OP, that the native player is far superior to the current mpv player implementation and would rather see the plex team build on that.

2 Likes
6

The issue is with Plex because the same videos play fine using emby and the avplayer. I see posts going back to 2017 with the same issue. Six years later and it is still not fixed.

2 Likes
7

The Plex approach right now is maximum codec compatibility above anything else - thus mpv.

IMHO this is not the correct approach with the Apple ecosystem. I’d say 90% of users require only a handful of common codecs all of which are already supported by the native player provided media gets demuxed/remuxed. This is not a cpu instensive operation, and can very easily implemented client-side (as opposed to current server-side).

Problem is, the Apple ecosystem is not like Android/Windows, but rather highly integrated and co-dependant. Features expected by users like Air/HomePods with spatial audio, Volume Leveling, Dialogue Enhancement, etc… require the native player.

The native player with minor adaptations will cover the 90% of users’ requirements and do so much more effectively than mpv or any other playback library.

Plex already supports this server-side, but I think we need move this to client-side instead and expand on it to suport Dolby Vision and Atmos.

3 Likes
8

For what it’s worth this is maybe, in all my time monitoring these forums, the most helpful, productive suggestion I’ve seen regarding all the weird foibles and goofs that have gone one with Apple TV implementation over the past few years

It’s a legitimate way forward that doesn’t necessitate a whole lot of rethinking and handwringing that most other solutions seem to offer.

I wish there was a way to get this in front of more eyes inside the company, so I’ll just heart and respond, LOL.

2 Likes
9

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.