Plex + ATV 4K 2022 Dolby Atmos (DD+) not working at all

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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I’ve been a hardware & software engineer for 40+ years. I can and do still write code for my personal use.

Knowing the younger engineers are ‘current’ with the new tech,
it’s on this foundation, speaking as “Chuck”, with a dusting of my work knowledge injected, my thoughts & observations -

  1. I know we’re all frustrated so first thing I’ll ask is we curb our sarcasm. I see it in the forum all the time. It’s not productive.

  2. Knowing there was the staff reduction 2 months ago, the posting for a new senior development position is profound. This tells me the company is serious about fixing this and fixing it the right way. I had a conversation about Apple a week ago which independently confirms this.

    • Anyone know a Metal engineer who’s looking for a job? :slight_smile:

  3. Problems I see with the app

    • Audio handling needs major update to decode or pass through correctly in light of Apple now handling Dolby codecs (more than 5.1 core). No more forced LPCM decoding.

    • Video handling needs a rewrite. Remove the OpenGL based decoder and replace with Metal.
      – To me, Metal is the “HW transcoding” equivalent of the server & desperately needed.
      – I do not know how easily the existing playback code can be replaced. If it’s modular enough then this should be a relatively easy task for someone with Metal skills.

    • Downloads/Sync, is a full rewrite. The current mechanism should not be background-only.
      – My 2017 iPad Pro sustains 500+ Mb/s so 20-30 Mb/s does not cut it.
      – If I have the app open and hit ‘download’ then I want it NOW (as fast as the server can give it).
      – If the app goes into the background then it would be OK to let downloading also be background speed too.

  4. “Nice to have”

    • “Airplane mode” in the app. If it’s there in iOS/ipadOS, I can’t make it work. :frowning:
      I want to be FULLY OFFLINE (no wifi / cellular) and play the content I downloaded from my server. What good is having a 256+ GB phone/tablet with HDMI dongle at the cabin (no LTE service) only to get stopped because I can’t authenticate.
      (( iOS/ipadOS/tvOS will work for a limited time without internet. The player should ALSO WORK without it. It’s already unlocked so licensing shouldn’t be an issue ))

    • ( I do NOT know much about licensing – which can change EVERYTHING )
      Would like to see everything coming from my server as DirectPlay be at least as good as content I stream from Apple/Netflix (Dolby audio + video).
      – I know there are licensing issues blocking the transcoder from some things already so won’t consider those.

  5. Managing our expectations

    • We know what the Plex app costs. We know what Infuse costs.
    • I don’t think it’s at all fair to expect the Plex player app to perform like Infuse.
    • Should the Plex app get better? Yes.
    • Hiring another Apple-skilled Engineer will do a lot.
    • How soon can we expect results? No clue but I’m sure I’ll hear about things as they start happening.

Here you have it,

My thoughts about what’s broken, two cents about a path forward, and optimistic but curbed expectations of how soon change will happen.

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