Plex for PlayStation 4 Pro and HDR

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
, , , ,
1

Server Version#: 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#: 2.01

Hello :),

I’ve got the following setup, everything is up to date.
Synology NAS 1019+ with the Plex Server installed.
2 x 1 Gb Cat 6.a Cables Bonding to a Switch (Zyxel GS1900-24E) . From there a direct cable (all of them 6.a) to my router ASUS-AX88U and from there to my PS4 Pro.
PS4 Pro is my favorite Plex Player.
The PS4 is connect through a new HDMI 2.3 cable to my new “Dolby Vision” receiver (Denon AVR-X1600H) to my new “Dolby Vision” Panasonic TX-65GZC1505…
Well, the Panasonic has the Plex Player app too and of course I tried it, more about that below.

I’ve got the following problem, and I tried diffrent solutions.
I spent now almost one week googling and searching. I really hope maybe you can help me.
The issue only appears with 4K HDR (HEVC Main 10, ITU-R BT.2020, SMPTE ST2084 (PQ)) files. I analysed the files, the codecs, sounds… and I didn’t find anything in common, so the issue is randomly over all the files. It’s not every movie but some. There are 4K HDR movies working fine. “Working fine” means, they play smoothly but colors are washed out or the colors are ok but sometimes way too bright.
So the issue is, some of them don’t work fine :).
No serously, when I start the movie I’v got green artefacts in the first second, then it starts to play for about 10-20 seconds and then it stucks the picture, sound works fine. Some play fine until a specific second, then stuck.

Now the funny part… if I enable subtitles, these movies play “fine” but buffering every 20 sec.
If I disable “Direct Play” and “Direct Stream”, all movies work fine, but the colors are washed out.
Well, disable these doesn’t make sence in my eyes…

On the TV App, all the same issues.

On my smartphone, no problems at all, play smoothly and the colors are perfect.

There is also another issue I run into. I have for example in one folder the 1080p version of a movie and in another folder the 2160p HDR version of the same movie.
If I start the 4K movie and stop it, switch to the home screen where you can see the continue watching movies, there it shows me both version, the 1080p and 4K.
Maybe I have something wrong in my file structure or this is a bug.

I hope you understand all of what I’ve witten down and could help me in some way.
Thank you very much

3

Hello trumpy81

Thank you very much for your reply.
Oh wow, very interesting. Well, I love Plex and in my opinion it’s still the best entertainment solution ever made… in this regard it is pioneer work.
As a first mover, is there any effort in this direction? I mean supporting Tone Mapping in the future? Do you know any release date for it?
As a side note, I wonder in the year of 2020 where HDR in TVs exist for about 5 years and Dolby Vision is implemented in TVs for about 2 years I guess… not sure, the point is… Plex doesn’t support it? Whaaat? Why?

Yes, on the Plex Server I can see which movie is transcoding and which is direct playing/stream.
It doesn’t matter if subtitles work or not with this NAS, I can live without them :).
It’s just the interesting fact, if I let/force the NAS transcoding the movie it works fine. Forcing with the subs or by disabling, no difference. The NAS is transcoding to 1080p.
BTW: Is it possible to somehow force transcoding to 4k so it works better? You know what I mean.
What I don’t understand is, my NAS should be capable of streaming two 4k movies at the same time. They sell it like that…
If it is a direct stream/play, these green artefacts appear. So I understand, these files are poorly encoded in some way… or is it also a problem that the files are .mkv?
Or did Synology tell me a lie and my new NAS is not capable of streaming even one 4k file?
Because I have to correct my statement.
Yesterday I tested again some movies and every movie I tested stucked, some of them after 5 minutes, some of them later… but always at the same second.

Thank you for the explanation about duplicat file names, good hint too.
There are other problems I run into… after migrating to the NAS.
I do all these tagging stuff on all the movies with genre and collections and so on, sometime I do even adjust the name of a movie.
Everytime I “close” or “lock” the automatic editing by Plex. On some movies it works perfectly fine, on other movies, I don’t know how many times I tried to ajust and lock them, it’s not working.
Plex safes it correctly, when I reopen the editing window, it looks like it has safed it right, but after a while or the next scan, all gone.
Same with the posters on single movies oder posters on collections.
Sometimes the posters are gone on some movies and I have to reselect them…
On collections, Plex does not automatically create a collection poster…
Any advise for this…?

Thank you very much
Greetings from switzerland :slight_smile:

5

→ Yes, playing files on my smartphone I see on the dashboard direct play for all the files and both movie and sound.

→ As you may know about my setup, the TV and my AVR are both supporting everything that is available on the market even Atmos and Vision. It support eARC. My AVR even supports 16bit deep color… well, I am not really sure what for, but it does :).

Now here are some facts:
Starting Netflix on the PS4, the PS4 immediatly changes the resolution to 4k HDR.
Well of course, the content is in the right format and so on.
Starting up Plex, it doesn’t.
Starting Netflix with the TV app, I’m able to watch Dolby Vision content with Atmos over the eARC HDMI cable connected to the AVR.
I tried some of the movies on the Plex TV app, the green artefact are gone, the movies work but not smoothly.
In the TV app, it doesn’t matter if I activate oder deactivate the direct play/stream, the Plex Server will transcode the movie down to 1080p. It does not even think about direct play/stream.
Now the best fact:
Today I installed the Mediaserver and the Video Station on my NAS… :slight_smile:
I hop to the TV and browse the DLNA, fire up the movies and testing them.
All work perfectly fine 4k HDR, perfect color, smoothly…
So you are right, my NAS is capable of :slight_smile: and as it looks like the TV and AVR too, that proofs it… but why not in Plex? (Guess because of the Tone Mapping thing, right?)

→ Yes, absolutely, it is the HEVC codec. The PS4 is just not able to play it.

→ ehm, well, to explain that. Maybe I did something wrong but I don’t know what.
So, in the beginning I had the Plex Server on my PC. All the files on a drive. The Plex Server worked perfect, never had an issue. All Covers and the automatic Covers from the collections worked and also the other stuff.
The problem started after the migration to the NAS.
The file structure and all the file names are exactly the same, nothing changed…
Why isn’t it working now?

→ All the movies are matched properly. I just add additional tags or collection information. Sometimes I change the titel or the sorting title, because Plex
delets “The” out of the title. For example The Fast and the Furious.
In the Titel field it’s correct like “The Fast and the Furious”
In the sorting title field it’s like “Fast and the Furious” and I don’t want that.
Plex wipes out any edits even when I lock this field and I don’t want Plex to change it? What is this lock for then?

7

Hello trumpy81

Thank you so much for your patience, I don’t want to bother you.

First of all, that was a missunderstanding here I think, maybe because of my poor english :).
I want to avoid transcoding when ever possible.

Thank you for the solution, I did it. I can’t give a feedback right now, Plex is still working on the metadata.
In this preferences file is PubSubServerRegion=“fra” for France I guess, this is definitly totally wrong. As naive as I’m I changed it to “ger”, should work like that? :slight_smile:

To call out for your patience again :).
Could you please explain this for me I really wanna totally understand it.
So there is my NAS store the movies. In the other TV App… the “player” I choose
the movies and it works directly.
I understand it like, it’s streaming direclty to the TV and the TV “knows”, “oh look, there we have this signal, the parameters are this and this and I have to show it like this and this”. So I understand, my client is supporting the movies and the codecs and so on.
The Plex app on the TV (Panasonic TX-65GZC1505, with Plex for Smart TVs Version 3.13.21) and there is also an “Smart TV Alliance” something Version 3.0.
This Plex app as far as I understand it, is a player too, no?
It does play the content from Plex Server, doesn’t it?

When I hit play in this Plex app, I think there is a communication between the App and the Server like similar to TCP/IP like:
App: “Yo Server, my friend here requested this movie.”
Server: “Ah, let me check. Yes, the parameter of the movie are this and this, do you support it? Can I send you the signal directly or do have to do a workaround so you can play it?”
App should say: “hmm, let me check, yes, I see my underlaying hardware supports this and this you can send it directly, I passthrough it or I can play it”
Or the App should say:“hmm, let me check, no, I’m sorry Server you have to do the hard work buddy”
Network communication for dummies :slight_smile:
I think the communication is similar to that, am I right?

When I start a movie on the PS4, on the dashboard I see it does direct play/stream, but we know so far, the PS4 does not support directly the hevc codec. Thats why I have green artefacts. I understand this so far, well actually the Plex Player should tell the Server, “yo, my underlaying hardware is not able to play hevc, so you must transcode it”
Now I start the same movie in the TV app, where I know the TV supports the codec, but on the dashboard I see it transcoding. So why is that?
Do I have a wrong setting in the TV app?
Is there a missing or wrong communication between the TV and the App?

Also interessting is the fact, when I am on the HDMI Channel on the TV where the PS4 is connected and using Plex on the PS4, I have different Options to ajust the Picture, Color, HDR in the TV Options menu. If I change to the Plex app from the TV, these Options are not availabel.

If I were a dumpass without any knowledge, I would say something like: “Look here in this player it works, in the Plex App it doesn’t, so it doesn’t support what you want, the Plex Player is the Problem. The other one works, so let it be.”

Fortunately I’m not. So let’s analyze this. I want to help and improve if possible.
Or really understand the problem.

All movies have the following specs:
Codec: MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265)(hevc)
Resolution: 3840x2160
Framerate: 23.97…
Color: ITU-R BT.2020, SMPTE ST2084(PQ)
Audio Stream depends, but not in focus now, they work always: E-AC3, AC3, DTS

9

Hello trumpy81

Okey :). I’m sorry. I changed it immediatly and I never gonna change something else, I promise.

Thank you very much for the explanation, I read your text a few times and I’m very sorry, but I still did’t get in technical detail. :slight_smile:

I listen to your advise and reencoded some of the movies. That’s why I write you after this long time.

They work now without green artefacts… and they are direct playing.
The issue with the HDR (Tone Mapping) still exists I know.

Long story short, I can’t use Plex to watch 4k HDR content at the moment and I have to wait for an update. Point.

Last but not least, are you working on it? How long approximatly do I have to wait for it?

Thank you and have a nice day
Greetings

11

Did you find a solution?
I had green artifact, and it was fixed when i changed my HDMI cable to a better one.

Rune

12

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