I think many of you are missing something fundamental here. So I’ll try a different route:
If you connect an optical connection to a computer’s output:
In the audio settings in the OS, you are presenting with stereo as the only option in audio channel count.
You additionally have the option to use AC3 and/or DTS passthrough in apps on this optical connection. The compressed audio is sent on the optical link and the receiver on the other end decompresses this audio into audio of potentially greater channel count than stereo.
If you connect the computer to an AVR over HDMI (assume just HDMI 1.4 for simplicity of the explanation):
In the audio settings in the OS, you are presenting options in audio channel count to go up to 8 channels
You additionally have the option to use AC3, DTS, EAC3, TrueHD, DTS-HD passthrough (along with extensions such as Atmos) in apps on this optical connection. The compressed audio is sent on the HDMI and the AVR on the other end decompresses this audio into audio of potentially greater channel count than 8 (such as 7.1.4 in Atmos).
The settings in the app are reflecting this reality. On optical you have only have the option for stereo because it doesn’t have the bandwidth (nor the protocol) to support greater than stereo PCM. You do additionally have the option to enable AC3/DTS passthrough as illustrated by my first reply on this topic.
So if you have these checked and:
You play something that’s 5.1 AC3, it’ll passthrough this AC3 to the receiver and it’ll decode into the 6 channels there.
You play something that’s 5.1 AAC, it’ll downmix this to stereo (because AAC isn’t a supported passthrough codec on optical). However, there is a caveat to this: on an optical connection we set an audio filter in MPV to transcode multichannel audio to AC3 for purposes of passthrough.
For the record: I’m very much aware of the capabilities of optical especially in terms of passthrough. I was writing code to packetize AC3 and DTS frames to enable passthrough on optical connections over 15 years ago.
Showing 5.1 on my Win 7 laptop with only optical out (DTS add on enabled) ?
Tried hardware acceleration again for remote users last night - as expected, playback is blocky and stutters. Definately does not like my Ryzen. Back to software only and playback is perfect. CPU runs under 20% when doing two 1080p transcodes so I can live with that.
Whhaaaa?? I had no idea this was a thing, I gave up when I read somewhere I wouldn’t be able to run Big Sur and I never thought about it again. I’m definitely giving this a try this weekend. But holy crap this is a lot of steps. Thanks!
Tested the latest version, video still the same issues for me. but always hoping for the next release to be the one! …
ok, I agree that the option to select 5.1 instead of 2.0 maybe needed within the app ( or something in the coding to work with windows sound settings). even thou i don’t use this method, but when testing on one of my systems, it doesn’t output 5.1 to the avr, the avr stays in 2.0, in comparison mpc-hc, pot and vlc do output 5.1 and the avr switches to 5.1 with the same test files. most likely a bug , as there are so many different hardware and software setups in the Windows OS universe.
As far as the difference in technology between spdif and hdmi audio formats, i don’t see that being the root request \ issue. It is to have audio in 5.1 not 2.0, again most likely just as bug if it works for some user systems and not others users.
Would assume (maybe wrongfully on my part) most users know the difference in audio advancements over the years since DVD first came to consumers.
My Windows system (with refresh rate enabled and direct stream local content only) used to suffer from very noticeable occasional stuttering according to @gbooker02’s scenario 1.
I am very happy to report that playback is much smoother on my system from version 1.7.0. I have recently installed version 1.8.0 and can no longer see any noticeable playback stuttering on my system so I use Plex HTPC a lot more now and I love it!
I have noticed some stuttering after pause/resume. Skipping back or forward does not help, nor does pause/resume. My workaround is to stop the show/movie entirely, then starting the show/movie again, no more stuttering.
I should test more shows/movies and I have not attached any logs because I think you are able to replicate this. But if you need any logs from my system, don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll be happy to provide you the logs you need.
Stuttering has been fixed since the last update (I think version 1.8).
I’m still not able to get passthrough audio to my AVR.
I’m using the same config that I use on the old Plex Media Player but for some weird reason, it doesn’t work.
On the other hand, good ol’ PMP still handles DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, DD, DTS and AAC 5.1 like a charm.
I have a HTPC machine running an Intel Core i3-7100, connected via the iGPU to an A/V receiver and then out to my projector. Previously when using the old version of Plex HTPC before it started being updated again (back when Plex team announced they would no longer be supporting HTPC) I was able to easily playback 1080p and 4K video files, never any issues.
Now using this new version (I’ve applied 2-3 updates so far) I am having performance problems. When playing back any 4K movies my CPU or iGPU depending gets maxed out and can’t render the movie smoothly. 1080p playback is fine however resource usage seems higher than expected, I have no comparison point though so cannot say if it’s always been like that.
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about why I cannot playback 4K movies anymore? If I open the file through MPC-HC or VLC it plays fine, but through this new Plex app absolutely not.
I have tested with different settings including hardware decoding and different quality / bitrate options.
Great to see progress on the new playback method, although I am not seeing much in the way of picture stutter my end ( Windows 10, running HTPC on same box as server connected via HDMI to TV) I’m sure when it rolls out it will be a benefit for the whole app.
What’s really stopping me from using HTPC full time is the DVR Guide limitations and live tv control issues. Can anyone else confirm the same issues below and can @gbooker02 and @Moussa comment if there are plans to fix/bring over these missing features to HTPC:
When watching a live DVR channel, pausing and then trying to skip forward or back will result in the play position randomly jumping to the start or an arbitrary point in the future.
This also affects watching ‘in progress’ recordings but does not effect finished recordings, movies or videos.
Similarly, in what I strongly suspect is a bug, I have found that pressing either Menu (M) or Info (D) jumps the playback forward 10 mins
Cant navigate live tv channels or the guide in any easy way.
Cant use channel up or down buttons to move to next channel. You have to navigate back to the guide to select a channel which stops playback. Other Plex apps overlay the guide over the currently playing channel so you can browse, will this be implemented?
Cant jump to a particular channel or sort the channel list.
A long-standing limitation of the Plex DVR is that you cant re-order the channel list so your favourite DVR channels are up top (although you can have a favourite list for Plex free TV channels - go figure!) but the web app and a few others have a ‘Show HD Channels’ filter button for the guide, this would help a great deal for UK users where are channels start at 1 but the HD version of the channels start at 101 - that’s a lot of mashing the down button!
Another improvement would be to map the channel up and down buttons to page scroll the guide list when in guide view and allow typing channel number in directly - you know, like how every set-top box and TV allows you to since forever
Cant set a recording from the guide or see the recording schedule.
I expect that this will come in time as it’s native to all the other apps but it’s notably absent at the moment.
No ‘Skip Intro’ or ‘Skip adverts’ feature enabled for recordings that have been processed for them.
Thanks for reading this far! Would love to hear from other HTPC DVR users and the Plex bosses on the issues/possible solutions above.
Can other HTPC users comment if they are seeing the jumping around behaviour when trying to skip forward or back in live shows and the menu and info button issues??
(as detailed in point 1 of my post above)
I had way too many issues with live tv and plex, so i don’t use live tv with plex, sadly. but maybe in the future if they get some of the bugs worked out.
