Plex for Android 9.16 forces AV1 Direct Play on devices without AV1 hardware support

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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22

Thanks for reporting, this has been fixed and will be available in the next release.

3 Likes
23

Awesome! Thanks.

24

Looking forward to the fix.

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@sixones

This wasn’t fixed in the just released beta 9.23.0.1452. Was the fix suppose to be included in this release?

26

The fix was included in that version, would you be able to grab the logs after replicating the issue?

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@sixones

I spoke a bit too soon. The fix works on Android TV, but not on Android Mobile. On my Pixel 3XL, it’s still Direct Playing when it should be transcoding.

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@sixones

Pixel_3XL_Logs.txt (70.8 KB)

AV1 still Direct Plays on my Pixel 3XL mobile phone.

The fix works great on my Android TV, but not on Android Mobile.

29

I can confirm that 9.23.01746 correctly handles AV1 on my Shield; it automatically transcodes.

30

Still not fixed for Android Mobile on the latest beta. Fix works great on Android TV.

31

Whats happening when you play AV1 on your device? Your previous logs show that your device supports AV1 so it’s using the hardware decoder correctly, but it doesn’t show any errors.

32

When I play an AV1 file, the video is very juddery. My phone is struggling to software transcode the AV1 file.

My device doesn’t have AV1 hardware support. It’s a Pixel 3XL that was released on Oct. 2018.

33

The logs show your device has an AV1 hardware decoder, we don’t yet have a software decoder for AV1.

Is the AV1 video your trying to play in 4K, or 1080p?

34

The device was released on 2018. There are no devices in 2018 with AV1 hardware. Plex is obviously wrong if it thinks my device has AV1 hardware.

The file is 720p or 1080p. Definitely not 4k.

35

Your device has this AV1 decoder; c2.android.av1.decoder, but since it’s not working properly its likely its a software decoder that’s been added via a software update. So we can ban the codec on the Pixel 3XL.

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Google added a software decoder that is causing Plex to mistaken it as a hardware decoder? Am I understanding you correctly?

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Correct, it might be a hardware decoder we only have the name to go over, either way your device reports a system decoder is available for AV1, so we try to use it when you play AV1.

1 Like
38

So I tried playing a 4K HDR AV1 file and the Pixel’s AV1 decoder(c2.android.av1.decoder) isn’t used. My Plex server automatically transcodes it. It seems the AV1 decoder is only used for 1080p or below.

The AV1 decoder(c2.android.av1.decoder) works fine on newer phones like my S22 which has the CPU power to support it, but not on older phones like my Pixel 3XL.

I don’t think I will pursue this issue anymore because this seems to only affect older phones. Thank you for your help @sixones.

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