Right, colour me confused now. To confirm I re-enabled Refresh Rate Switching to ON in the Shield Plex settings and played the same EAC3 movie that had dropped frames in this config earlier. Now it hasn’t dropped a single frame and I played it all the way through. No other settings changed, other than I had the TV and soundbar off for a while at lunch time after my 60Hz output test that was perfect. Why was it dropping a ton of frames first thing today but is now fine with the same settings?
I think this is one that needs way more testing by way more people to verify.
My next test was a high bitrate 4k remux with True HD + Atmos track (the nerd stats said its bandwidth average was 248Mbit over the course of the play, though the video stream is reported as a fixed 56.4Mbit). This is only HDR10 so not Dolby Vision like the EAC3 movie I tested last. Note, I disabled Refresh Rate Switching (OFF).
This was a nearly 2 hr movie and it has ZERO dropped frames in this time. It hit some pretty crazy high bandwidth values at points but not a dropped frame in sight!
Maybe more testing needed on EAC3 videos after my initial issues this morning but this was a great result for a 4K remux with True HD Atmos. My initial issues with the EAC3 file was then followed by two full play throughs with no dropped frames though.
I turned Dolby Audio Processing On and have all the formats still set to manual and they’re all selected.
I’m now seeing 0 dropped frames on files with EAC3 audio.
I have been testing this all day and finally, 0 dropped frames. This is amazing
I’ll double check other files tomorrow but EAC3 was always a problem.
Quickly tested a file with TrueHD high bitrare also works perfectly.
Whomever fixed this bug deserves several beers from me! I have been running plex 9.28 for over a year to avoid this bug.
Turning Dolby processing on means the Shield decodes the audio instead of passing it through, which explains why it would work. Last I knew though, this removes any Atmos channels since Atmos can only be passed through.
@FlaTechNole21 You seem knowledgable and have tested 10.21. You also say you see dropped frames in 10.21 (expected as that is acknowledged not to have the fix in it) when none are shown in the nerd stats. Why not check 10.22 and report your findings? It would help.
I simply side loaded the APK and it “upgraded” my version keeping everything the same, including settings. I also have not noticed any other issues in this alpha so it seems safe.
I retested the high bitrate 4k remux with True HD + Atmos, but this time re-enabled Refresh Rate Switching (ON) to ensure a fair test. Note, I have Dolby Audio Processing OFF, but get the full suite of audio passed through to my soundbar with no issues.
Anyway, this was another PASS, with ZERO dropped frames for the entire movie length.
I will stress installing this 10.22 alpha was really easy side loading the APK and it just updated my existing official release version (10.20) as if it was a Play Store update, all settings and content remained the same. It works for me without any noticeable issues despite being an Alpha release. Just a thought for those a bit nervous about trying it.
I’ll sideload the beta version when it comes out. I’m fine using v9.28 for now since it works. You and others have done enough testing on the alpha to demonstrate that it has improvements, but still has some issues.
Well its time I admitted I maybe had the placebo effect with hope driving it. The 10.22+ versions still have slight stutter for me after weeks of use now. Its very much reduced and almost unnoticeable when you try and tell yourself its fixed, but in an hour long episode I still see maybe a few very brief stutters or what look like split second jumps in motion which cant be repeated when skipping back to check. The Nerd Stats don’t record them as dropped frames either so who knows what is going on.
I say this after suspecting a refresh rate matching issue but I rolled back to 9.28 and they are gone.
I’m not sure what to do when 9.28 becomes unusable due to continued development and Plex haven’t explained what the issue was, given they did something to improve (but not 100% fix) the issue.
If anyone else has more to chime in given the 10.22 is now released to everyone, please do. But note the 0 dropped frames in the Nerd States don’t prove its gone. I see it even when it says 0 dropped frames. You have to sit and watch and its easy to miss its so minimal now in 10.22.
I still have dropped frames and stuttering on 10.22+. Going back to the older version still works fine. It drives me insane to mess up my whole setup, re-watch a bunch of things with such hope only to find it happening again such that I have to revert back to the old version and re-setup everything. And, I can’t have auto update turned on in the play store for all my other apps that have their s**t together.
Same. I updated to the latest version from 9.28 as I was getting stutter there too surprisingly and wanted to see if it fixed it. Maybe its because this Shield is on 9.1.1. Anyway I was watching something with my wife last night and it stuttered more than usual to the point I turned off the Shield and we watched it flawlessly using my LG’s WebOS Plex version which of course has perfect frame rate matching and frame pacing. It was something with EAC3+Atmos so no HD audio and thus I lost nothing much (Dolby Vision) using the TV app.
I think I will just leave the Nvidia off until I have a Reumx to play. Even then I am tempted to go with a 4K version that has EAC3+Atmos. Yes I lose Dolby Vision and full HD audio but I am so sick of Plex stutter on the Shield at this stage I am throwing my toys out of the pram and I don’t care any more.
p.s. Post something in this other Forum that also tracks this issue and in the distant past had a Plex employee acknowledge it. We can hope but lets face it, its the broken Exo Player they have no control over that is the probable cause.
Is there any way to enable the debug information overlay on Plex 9.28? Just tried rolling back to see if it’s any better, but the overlay that’s there in the newer versions is gone in 9.28. Without it, its hard to confirm if it’s actually dropping frames or not.
No overlay in 9.28 but it doesn’t matter, you need to ignore the overlay. This has been a red herring and many posters have stated they still see micro stutters in the latest Plex version despite the overlay showing zero dropped frames. You might say Plex is gas lighting us with this new overlay : )
I originally tested it trusting the overlay and played several movies while off doing something else. On returning I saw zero dropped frames and declared on this forum it was fixed! I was wrong and should have sat down and watched the tests.
So to answer your question, you don’t need the overlay. Just like Luke at the end of Star Wars, disable your targeting computer and trust your eyes. You will see very slight jumps or stutters in the playback in the up to date Plex version. They are pretty infrequent now compared to more egregious Plex versions (post 9.28 but pre 10.22) but they are there and only a frame so you really need to be on the ball to spot them. Then go back to version 9.28 and you will see they are gone.
I’ll report in this thread as well:
So, I’ve now tested 9.28 for a week, and I’ve not had a single stutter the whole time. Nothing. Just perfect playback, like it used to be back in the days.
I prefer the UI optimisations in the newer versions, but playback is obviously the only thing that really matters, so I guess I’ll be using this now.
I wonder if they’ll ever fix this issue, or even properly acknowledge it. Really, really frustrating.
