Plex for Amazon FireStick/4k Box Incorrect Resolution/Aspect Ratio on NBC/CBS Live/Recorded TV

General Discussions Plex Features
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Update on 7/5/2018. I’ve now had this same issue since last year.

I’m using Amazon firestick/4k boxes (3 sticks and one box) with a HDHomerun Extend and the picture is always stretched when watching live tv and recordings from those channels while using the Amazon Plex app.

Any ideas on what I can do to fix? See example below watching live TV via Amazon 4K box using plex app and the same 4K box using HDHomerun App. It’s stretched with black bars on Plex but not on the HDHomerun app.


If I cast (Vizio TV with chromecast built in) a recorded TV show from that channel it displays fine without the black bars on top/bottom.

Any ideas? I’m very surprised I haven’t seen someone else with this same issue.

I’d gladly take a one minute recording (.ts) file and share with someone at Plex if they’d like. Would even take a video using my phone to demonstrate the issue

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I updated the title and opening post. This is a bump post to get it back towards the top since it’s from 5 months ago originally and still an issue

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What platform is your server on?

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It looks like an SD 4:3 channel stretched to 16:9 ratio. Can you verify the channel tuned to and the actual resolution of the source?

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Hi, It’s a Windows 10 box.

MVIMG_20180705_184628
MVIMG_20180705_184628816×612 54.3 KB

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I’d be interested if you see the same thing on any clients, or just on the Amazon Fire products?

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Most definitely not a 4:3 format. It happens on any show on CBS/NBC. It can be PGA Golf, The SuperBowl, or anything. If I watch it using the HD Homerun App for FireTV it fully fills the screen. If I record something on those channels it also won’t fill the screen in the Plex app for FireTV but does if I cast it.

I’m willing to provide any more details.

Another example below.

MVIMG_20180705_184324
MVIMG_20180705_184324816×612 69.4 KB
MVIMG_20180705_184403
MVIMG_20180705_184403816×612 45.3 KB

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What do you have the Extend Transcode setting set to? Going to guess High Quality. From SiliconDust Support regarding the Extend High Quality setting.

It drops one of the fields and resizes to 1280x540 with a flag to decode as 16:9.

Guessing Plex is not using the flag to decode as 16:9 and giving the odd display.

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Yes! That’s it! I had it on High Quality. Changed to Highest and it’s now playing full screen. Wow! Can’t believe it took this many months! Basically I need to use Highest or Medium I guess and not High. This is what I had

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Changed to this

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Thanks for the help!

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High Quality is helpful when you have interlaced Live TV content and the Client device you are viewing on can’t handle Interlaced content. The High Quality setting forces the Extend to transcode to H264 and remove the interlaced frames. This then allows the Client to Direct Play the content. I have sent an internal message to one of the Transcoder Engineers with this thread so hopefully he can look at it and figure what needs to be done to display in 1080p. Instead of the 540p you were seeing.

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That’s very helpful. Thanks again. I’ll probably try that setting again once and a while in the future to check if it’s fixed since I was happy with the quality. I don’t have a very powerful processor on my HTPC so I liked to offload some to the Extend.