Plex, Fire TV Cube and DTS

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Server Version#: 1.40.0.7998
Player Version#: 10.10.1.5986

Hi All,

I’m going through a bit of a tech refresh at the mo and part of my plans going forward are to use Plex.

Can anybody tell me if plex is actually able to pass through DTS on a 3rd gen fire tv cube?

I have enabled HDMI pass through on plex, the fire TV is set to best available and is plugged into a Denon S770H which can handle pretty much any audio format thrown at it.

How ever for some reason with DTS audio the video begins to stutter and eventually cuts out along with the audio.

If I play the same files via Kodi on the fire tv is correctly passes DTS to the AVR and videos play fine.

Any suggestions?

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I gave it a quick test and I am able to successfully pass through DTS audio on my 3rd gen Cube with no stuttering.

Would you be able to provide a sample file from a file you are experiencing these issues? And your Android Logs after reproducing the issue?

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I shall see if I can get one of my test tracks uploaded.

I have noticed that it doesn’t seem to happen on first playback, I need to play DTS content, then either DD or DD+ and then back to DTS content for it to begin happening.

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Are you changing audio tracks during playback or playing DTS > stop playback > Playing DD or DD+ > stop playback > Play DTS (Then have issues here?)

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No I am doing the latter, play DTS, stop playback, play DD+ then stop again and go back to DTS the stutter begins, I shall do some testing later to see if the same happens going from one DTS file to another.

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Ok I’ve done some testing to get the logs.

I went straight in and played a movie with DTS soundtrack, I realised shortly after I had passthrough disabled so went and enabled that and played the same movie again in case you’re wondering what the stop / start was in logs.

Hopefully they can reveal something I’m missing.

logs.txt (352.6 KB)

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I can’t play any DTS or DTS-HD Master Audio on my FireTV Cube (latest one with all updates), everything else plays fine, the same file will play with no issues on the PC using Plex HTPC on Win 11… so appears it does the same thing as yours, stutters then eventually just gives up on the Cube.

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Glad to hear I’m not alone on this one, it’s strange because sometimes it actually plays DTS fine but majority of time I get the stutters, I can’t put my finger on it or find any pattern to what triggers it.

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I have finally been able to reproduce this, I can mainly reproduce it if I attempt to play a DTS X track after playing another format like AC3 or EAC3. I will have someone look into it and update once I have feedback

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Thanks for coming back, hopefully now the plex team is able to troubleshoot effectively.

I have tried with DTS 5.1, DTS HD-MA 7.1 and both of these have the same issue. Unable to test with DTS:X as I don’t have any content with that.

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I also see this.
It was ignored when I reported it, probably because there was so much noise about DTS-HD passthrough which is not supported (at least the formats we see most, MA, X etc.).

Try a DTS-HD MA 5.1 or 7.1, they should hang too, straight DTS doesn’t hang so much.
IOW I believe the playback of the DTS core of the HD formats is the problem.
Oddly the most recent Fire TV 4k Max seems to play back the core just fine, maybe some fix in the fire tv itself hasn’t been back ported … or perhaps a fix in Plex …

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I’m in the same boat here. My son is using a 3rd gen cube and he reported the same problems with all kind of DTS tracks. I can not join the test army here since my son would rather give up on Plex rather than let me spend time in his room to test audio problems… real life problems… grin

Well, I just hope that your devs are hunting down this nasty bug and can fix it without relying on Amaz*ng fix. My only available workaround would be buying a Nvidia Pro for him. But since it is probably a software bug, let’s fix what need fixing.

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Hi,

Any progress or update on this yet?

Thanks

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I made progress, ended up selling my FireTV Cube and bought an NVidea Shield Pro instead, all works fine now :slight_smile: Bit of a drastic solution maybe but at least it’s working!

Only downside is I don’t really like the Shield remote control - have to keep looking at it to work out where to press as the buttons are flat… and it’s a weird shape too… minor problem really - just want everything to be perfect all the time :slight_smile:

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I have posted it here many times. The firecube can play dts /x/ma ect audio codecs. The problem is only with Plex as they have not been able to implement it for years. There is an easy way. Install Kodi and use the audio codec from Kodi. Then simply install Plex Kodi Connect. You can set the Connect app to start automatically when Kodi starts. Everything works for me without any problems. If you have any questions, just write to me. Have fun :grinning:

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Switching to a shield is a no go for me I’m afraid as it doesn’t support HLG HDR which other apps on my fire cube use.

Also I tried Kodi with plex connect and just wasn’t a fan and would rather just use native plex.

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I was never a fan of Kodi myself, but I’ve been using it for 3 months the Kodi- Plexconnect and thanks to the updates it’s running really well. All films run without any problems. I think Plex native will never be able to do that because Plex has no interest in solving the problem. Or they can’t solve it.

One thing is important. Get an Amazon USB network adapter for 10 bucks. With that I get a speed of almost 300 Mbit.

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@morganj any update on this? Still unable to play any DTS content on my fire tv cube.

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Unfortunately, I have no updates, I have tried to reproduce the issue I was seeing when I filed the issue and I am no longer able to reproduce it on a 3rd Gen cube or the latest FireTV 4K. Is everyone still having issues with DTS?

How often do you see the stutters and how severe are they? Do you see visual stuttering or audio only? Have you tried enabling/disabling refresh rate and resolution switching and notice a difference?

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Yes I am still having the issue.

It is not a stutter as such, the video completely freezes, it will then play and then freeze again.

Audio will continue playing and then eventually both audio and video will stop and not play and it will freeze until I exit out of playing.

I have tried it both with refresh rate switch on and off and I get the same issue.

When I tried just now. Audio was at 1 min 45 but video was just at 40 seconds.