Plex on Nividia Shield TV (2017) causing stuttering on 4K Movies Direct Play

[TeknoJunky]

3 things, in the plex media server log.

there are quite a few ‘connection reset’ which may be network issues

afaik gemini man is a high frame rate 4k and causes problems, try a different movie if other movies play fine, you may be out of luck with this one

May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mkv
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 893
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): Direct Play is disabled
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/truehd
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/dca
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.886 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/truehd
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/dca
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.887 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.888 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec truehd when profile only allows aac
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.888 [5806] DEBUG - MDE: Gemini Man (2019): selected media 0 / 893
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.888 [5806] ERROR - Streaming Resource: Cannot make a decision because either the file is unplayable or the client provided bad data
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.890 [5806] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=465 codes=(General=2000,Neither direct play nor conversion is available. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=4002,Not enough CPU for conversion of this item.) media=(id=893 part=(id=893 decision=none container=mkv protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=2401 decision=copy width=3840 height=2160) Audio=(id=2403 decision=transcode bitrate=774 encoder=aac channels=6 rate=48000))))
May 21, 2020 20:23:49.892 [3403] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.0.148:36988] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=1&directPlay=0&directStream=1&directStreamAudio=1&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=209664&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F465&protocol=*&session=b6223305c743cdca-com-plexapp-android&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (5 live) TLS GZIP 187ms 680 bytes (pipelined: 94)

basically from the log, it looks like the shield is unable to direct play the file, then it is transcoding, which most likely your server simply isn’t powerful enough to transcode 4k (it takes a huge ton of cpu to transcode 4k see FAQ link above). I don’t know if your nas supports gpu transcoding, but either way you don’t have plex pass so it wouldn’t work, and the whole point of 4k is to avoid transcoding in the first place.

[ark216]

I intentionally tested Gemini Man for these logs to push to the test. I really don’t know why do the logs lead you to believe that Shield TV is transcoding them (tautulli shows that it is a direct play) if you want I can send screenshots of tautulli as well showing that it is running in Direct Play.
You know what Gemini Man ran well in the first 15-20 mins and then it started to stutter after few mins. When I restarted the movie it started to stutter after a few seconds (10-15 secs).Those last logs are from the second run.
My point is why isn’t the Shield TV not direct playing it?

[TeknoJunky]

Not sure what to say, you can open the server log file and see the MDE: lines it clearly is saying that direct play is disabled, this is due in part to the audio being transcoded to AAC

it looks like the video is being ‘copied’ (not transcoded) and the audio is being transcoded to aac

May 21, 2020 20:23:50.468 [5557] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=465 codes=(General=2000,Neither direct play nor conversion is available. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=4002,Not enough CPU for conversion of this item.) media=(id=893 part=(id=893 decision=none container=mkv protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=2401 decision=copy width=3840 height=2160) Audio=(id=2403 decision=transcode bitrate=774 encoder=aac channels=6 rate=48000))))

again, I suggest change the AUDIO stream to DD or DTS

you can do this before the movie starts (pre-play screen) or during the movie (bring up the player pop up, navigate to the audio icon, choose a different audio stream).

[ark216]

I will try to change the audio bitstream and post you the new logs. I still cannot understand why isn’t Shield Direct playing the file? Does it imply that since Shield is failing in Direct Playing video my WD My Cloud Home NAS is fine?

[TeknoJunky]

the video is direct playing
the audio is transcoding
the nas may be fine, i don’t know enough about that to say whether or not it is powerful enough to transcode truehd to aac (the log implies that it is not powerful enough)

changing audio stream should avoid transcoding the audio

you can also check the shield and plex settings to disable ‘pass through’ which I also mentioned earlier

[ark216]

Is there a way that the audio also direct plays rather than transcode?

[TeknoJunky]

possibly, if you try DISABLE PASS THROUGH ?

[ark216]

In Shield TV there is no disable audio pass through option. However there is a section of “Available Audio Formats” it gives 3 options of Auto (use formats your audio device reports supporting) this recommended.
Manual allows to select audio formats
None is to never use surround sound.

[TeknoJunky]

check @ DTS-HD, TrueHD, ATMOS, showing as Multi-channel on AVR

this shows working audio pass through settings, if your AVR supports truehd/atmos, then that should be working without transcoding any audio.

maybe the hdmi cable is too old, I dunno.

enable/disable pass through in the plex settings
volume control: use fixed for pass through, use other option for non-pass through

you can also disable passthrough via the same settings above

your setup should be like

shield <> hdmi 2a cable <> atmos receiver <> hdmi2a cable <> 4k tv

[ark216]

Yes mate the layout you gave is exactly the same I am using a 4K HDR certified hdmi 2.0 cables (one out of Shield TV into my AVR input, then hdmi out with the hdmi 2.0 cable into my Samsung 4K TV).
Also in the Plex webapp I noticed a section that said “Transcoder” there was an option where I disabled video transcoding in order to avoid any further confusion.
Also in the plex settings I disabled then hdmi pass through, my receiver’s OSD is giving me the “PCM” read out instead of the DTS HD MA 7.1 which I opted to run for this particular test. The movie i have chosen is Terminator: Dark Fate. Will post you logs if I find any stuttering.

EDIT: Despite I selected DTS HD MA 7.1 my receiver is showing the audio as 5.1 instead of a 7 channel audio. (HDMI pass through is disabled in Plex settings). Since I have a 7.1 setup, I disables the hdmi after roughly 25 mins of movie play. Let us see if it stutters from there.

[ark216]

Everything worked fine up till the 1hr and 5 mins, then i decided the scan the movie 15 mins ahead and that is where it started to stutter after a few mins. Posting my log here please check.Plex Media Server Logs_2020-05-22_00-40-05.zip (1.6 MB)

[ark216]

Tautulli screenshot. It is not stuttering horrendously. But it is there and kind of ruining the experience.

[Ubik69]

Hello Everyone,

I just came across this forum after having the exact same error message trying to play Gemini Man with Plex on my Android TV box (not Shield, but Ugoos AM6 Plus), “Not enough CPU for conversion of this item.”. I’ve tried to play it locally on the box with MX Player and it worked flawlessly, but with Plex app over 1 Gigabyte LAN it does not. Not sure why Plex tries to transcode this video, maybe because Plex is not able to handle high frame rate? Definitely not HDMI cable issue. Other 4K movies play fine.