I’m not a dev 
but I work with our engineering team to identify issues 
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I just got my 2019 Nividia Shield TV (the tube, not Pro) with the intention to solve all Direct Play issues for all major formats on my new 4k TV and 4k capable Reciever.
It was with great disappointment that I learned that Plex on the Shield in fact cannot handle 4k HDR content for more than 10-15 minutes at a time, without crashing.
I’ve tried both with the current stable Plex client 8.0.2.17816 and the 8.1.0.17893-beta, same kind of crashes on both.
I would like to have a straight answer from the Plex team if this kind of content will be supported on this device? And when this seemingly long standing bug is expected to be resolved?
Is there any other device that will Direct Play 4k HDR content reliably? Will the Nvidia Shield Pro be more reliable, given it has one whole gigabyte more ram?
I do have my doubts that my HDMI-cables (High speed w Ethernet) isn’t up to par. But given that the content starts to play initially with out issues, should indicate they are good enough, right?
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I also have a Nvidia Shield TV and have it hardwired 1 Gb/s. Also have playback issues of HDR content on the Shield. Usually it starts out fine, but after a while it starts to stutter. Using Kodi, however, the same content runs perfectly fine, as it does using VLC. So seems to me the Shield is perfectly capable of playing the content.
I’ve had the same experience, with my shield tv tube. Even the latest beta hasn’t resolved the problem. Luckily I was able to get my hands on a shield tv pro, and its been rock solid (no stuttering, no lip sync issues, and definitely no crashes). Still wondering if the plex dev team can get this fixed, or if their app is simply too bloated for the shield tubes wimpy underpowered hardware.
One thing that I just noticed it that the Plex Android TV app plays Avengers: Endgame 4K HDR with TRUEHD 7.1 at 71 Mbps and the Plex addon for Kodi plays at 103Mbps. So it seems somehow the Android TV app doesn’t use the full bandwidth it apparently needs…
Got a Pro. Problem solved.
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I don’t think issues can be fixed without a fix coming from Nvidia. I have similar issues with Plex, Emby and Kodi. Seems to be a core problem.
Kodi does have issues, watch the framerate drop after a couple of minutes in. It recovers, but the drop shouldn’t happen at all. It doesn’t on the Pro. Because it’s not dogshit like the Tube. I’m kidding. Not I’m actually not.
You badly want to believe the Tube isn’t don’t you?
It’s been established already for 6 months it is. Nothing has changed.
Omg that sounds too reasonable to not agree with 
Enjoy and let me know when it’s pulled out of the dogshit.
Hi folks no need to get nasty.
I have a tube, and a 2017 pro.
The tube has only 2 gig ram, while the old and pro models have 3 gig ram.
If you have ever played a game on PC, then you know that RAM MATTERS, even for single applications.
4k is a beast, make no mistake it takes a lot of resources, including ram.
Nvidia shot themselves in the foot by trying to cut costs by reducing ram.
Whether or not any particular application (ie plex/emby/kodi) can optimize themselves to minimize the amount of ram needed, or if optimizations must come from nvidia/google themselves, either way we are all (including the devs) at the mercy of the hardware limits.
You cannot pour 3 gallons of water into a 2 gallon jug without making a mess.
2 gig may be enough for plex, but it is still a tight limit for 4k media.
neither the nvidia website, nor wikipedia indicate any video ram, so it should be safe to assume that the shield uses shared ram for both system and video.
going by nvidia-smi when transcoding 4k, it takes approx 1.3gig of video ram to transcode 4k.
so if the shield is using that much, or even somewhat less, that leaves less than 1 gig of ram for everything else including android system and apps.
/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder 1325MiB
frankly its a miracle the tube works at all on 2 gig ram.
It’s not the only 4K box that runs Android on 2 Gb’s though. Think the Xiaomi Mi does the same. Wonder if it has similar issues…
Yes I have to second that @spgra. For me transcoded 4K at 1080p ran very smooth too… Once I hooked it up to my 4K HDR OLED it started to give me problems.
The Tube transcoded it using the Tegra chip, which is a beast.
yes that is interesting, I’ve never used a shield on a 1080 tv (but I guess I could try).
I assume the shield gpu can downscale in hardware from 4k to 1080, thus plex should appear to be direct playing.
The shield can decode truehd to PCM internally, just turn off ‘pass through’, so when connected to non-truehd-atmos receiver, that is probably the best option to avoid audio transcoding.
8.1 didn’t fix the issue. High bit rate 4k files still stutter, have lip sync issues, and some induce crashes. Many of us are testing the betas and working with the plex team in other threads. They acknowledge it is a problem, and still not resolved.
Even low bitrate 4K HDR (like my Onward with EAC3) doesn’t play without problems. Not on Plex, not on Emby, not on Kodi to a lesser extent.
Doesn’t surprise me it’s not fixed yet.
Onward 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR) English (EAC3 5.1) 27 Mbps
Dolittle 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR) English (TRUEHD 7.1) 80 Mbps
Same problems. Makes me think bitrate doesn’t matter that much…
I’d say 80 is pretty high, but I’ve seen 100 Mbps +.
I think Android is devoid of RAM and is trying to garbage collect like crazy causing the stutter.
It’s speculation, but I’m too lazy profiling the DVM to see what’s happening. Too many JVM problems already in regular life.
Plex Server shows it in dashboard when it’s Direct Playing something.
