Yes, you just log into your Plex account after installing PM4K and you will see your libraries like you would on any Plex app. PM4K is like an app within Kodi, it takes over the whole screen when you open it and behaves similarly to official Plex apps, using the same metadata.
Yea⊠actually I was suirrpised at how easy it was⊠however, my multi-channel FLAC files still only play in stereo.
Thereâs a check box to enable multi-channel music in the PM4K settings iirc (inside the plugin, not the pluginâs own settings).
Edit: No, I was thinking of the âHi-Res Musicâ option, which I donât think will help here. But you might check the Kodi settings for âNumber of channelsâ (SettingsâSystemâAudio) to make sure itâs configured to match your audio setupâs abilities.
Is Arial the only font option that includes characters for two-byte language? I have McFontface installed and all the fonts I tried didnât display names for any Japanese albums in my music library.
The new default font bundled with PM4K is good, including the dot and heart glyphs used on the Plex Smart music playlists, but itâs missing Asian characters. Arielâs character size seems to be a little smaller and I didnât see any way to adjust the UI font size.
According to Kodi - the ânumber of channelsâ option is not used when you are using âpass throughâ and since I am using an external Denon AVR, this is the case. Siield is also set to HDMI passthrough.
Still no joyâŠ
You mentioned earlier this is for multichannel FLAC. Is FLAC a format that can be bitstreamed here to your AVR? You said you have a playback setup with Plex on Windows streaming the multichannel music, but I would expect the app is decoding the FLAC audio and playing in 5.1 PCM, not passing it through.
My home studio has a Windows Plex player and as an HDMI pass-through to a Pioneer AVR surround FLAC formats work fine. Shows up on my AVR as PCM @ some Fs. Windows must be decoding the FLAC to a PCM output.
My home theatre is an NVidea Shield connected to an Denon AVR and it does not work via Plex; for some reason they do not pass-through for FLAC. Someone suggested Kodi works and with the Plex Plug-in then it should work too⊠its why I posted here.
Normally, bit streaming is required so that the encoded signal (DTS, AC3, DD, Atmos, etc) is untouched getting to an external decoder like in a an AVR or Soundbar.. If it simply left FLAC alone, my Denon AVR would decode multi-channel FLAC⊠but clearly Plex - and maybe Kodi too - are deciding NOT to passthrough. My AVR sees stereo. Why would the app decode something after you told it to pass it through? (BTW: I have yet to see an AVR misinterpret an incoming format⊠well at least with Pioneer, Denon and Sony. So it means my Shield is sending stereo.)
However this is not strictly a Shield problem. Other users are reporting Emby works fine on Shield. and even the Plex app on the LG OS works. See here: Multichannel FLAC and high resolution audio support for music in NVIDIA Shield Plex app - Feature Suggestions - Plex Forum
So its not a Sheild problem unless its on Plex - and apparently also Kodi.
Other users say they can do it on Apple TV: Retain playback of multichannel music files in the new Plex - Feature Suggestions - Plex Forum
Well, as explained in the Kodi forum thread I linked, FLAC does not meet the technical requirements to be bitstreamed over HDMI. Your receiver may support FLAC, but that doesnât necessarily mean âover HDMI passthroughâ. It would be played back directly as a file from USB or passed over from (proprietary to Denon) client/server app setup.
If Kodi does not change the bit depth or sampling rate after decoding the resulting audio is going to be the same, and it will still be digital signal â having the audio decoded by your AVR isnât going to result in better quality than having Kodi do it (in fact, if a difference is possible Kodi would likely be better because Kodi is software than can change and improve over time, and be updated with newer versions of the FLAC codec, which wont happen with a AVRâs implementation.
People on emby saying they can play it back are likely doing the same thing your Windows box is â decoding to PCM before it reaches the AVR.
Have you tried setting the channel number and Fixed output config, to see if Kodi can play back successfully (as PCM) when given a test file direct (like on a file share or thumb drive plugged into the port on your Shield) and bypassing Plex completely?
Are your FLACs actually multi-channel FLACs or are they lossless multi-channel Dolby or DTS encapsulated to WAV and compressed to FLAC. There is a difference and, dpending on how the Shield bitstreams, the latter would only get recognised as a stereo file.
You could enable debug-logging within PM4K, play such a file, then use the PM4K Log Uploader from my repository to upload an anonymized log. I can then check what which part of the software chain decides.
I think so, yes. Interâs glyphs donât include JIS etc., check: Inter font family
But Noto Sans JP seems to, you could add that via McFontFace:
This beta introduced slight A/V desync issues due to pausing too aggressively on start. Beta3 will fix this and should be out soonâą
I will copy some files over to a USB storage device and attemt to play them on both Kodi and Plex via my Shield
They are FLAC. Many I have encoded via Foobar 2000 to FLAC myself - for example coming from SACDâs.
That would be interesting to me becasue I am also struggling to understand why Plex does not figure out this problem themselves and implements something directly. IMHO, its a cluster when Plex users have to deploy a secondary audio playback system to play common audio file formats in 2026.
Is there a link to you repository somewhere? (The Plex forum system is horrible., There is no way to get to the bottom or top of a post without manually changing the post number in the URL.)
I am seriously considering decoding all my FLAC to WAVE and doubling my storrage requeirements. The Shield can manage it, but I have no idea if Plex can.
@NX6 - Thanks for your post. Some of it got me doing some research last night and after a bunch of investigation, I believe the reason Plex works on Windows - and other versions, but not Android - is that it decodes FLAC to LPCM. Its why my AVR in my studio says PCM.
On Android they elected NOT to do this - or forgot. (Both are failures IMHO but I will not speculate on motivations/competance.) FLAC decoding is simple, and computationally irrelevant; as a reference, mp3 decoding is more complicated and has more processor requirements.
BTW: I really appreciate the dialog here and I apologize for âhigh-jackingâ this thread, as it must look like that now. However, I had a moderator suggest I post this here. Please feel free to move as required; but I also welcome any other theories on why Plex - with probably the most popular and also excellent quality Android media device - cannot manage multi-channel flac files in 2025.
The Plex forum system is Discourse, like mostly everywhere else nowadays.
You can always click the top of the timeline to get to the first post.
How did you install PM4K if not from my Kodi repository? Hopefully not via Official Kodi repo, as that would mean ages old 0.7.9 now.
Edit: Here are the instructions with which youâll also add my repository: PM4K / PlexMod for Kodi (18, 19, 20, 21, 22+)
Also: Hold your horses a little with your agitation level when it comes to this topic (Plex, motivation/competence, highest quality Android media device etc.). Youâre not off to the best start mate 
I couldnât care less about your multi channel FLAC issue, but Iâd like to understand if the problem is PM4K, Kodi, or the Plex server.
Keep in mind, this project here is not affiliated with Plex Inc. nor paid for by anyone. Weâre trying to help because you asked.
Oh. And youâre seriously POSTING about not wanting to edit your URL instead of just doing it, because Iâm your Google bot? What the â â â â .
Edit: Dialing back. Getting agitated myself.
Either thereâs a proper debug-log here soon or this conversation is over.
2 Likes
None of this has anything to do with the topicâŠ
Moderator: please either move or delete this portion of the thread as you see fit. Thank-you.
I think @nx6 gave you a good pointer.
After a quick research you should note:
- there are multichannel issues on Android since Android 9
- Kodi probably doesnât consider multi-channel FLAC as passthrough, if it wants/needs to convert it to PCM - hence you should set your kodi audio channels properly (5.1)
- Kodi, at least since Omega, knows 24bit multichannel float (ref: https://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings.xml#audio) (check
allowmultichannelfloat), which youâd need to enable manually, though; your SHIELD should be ideal for this
References after a quick google search:
- Kodi Omega Android Nightly - Quad plays as 'Dolby Audio' (stereo only) · Issue #24546 · xbmc/xbmc · GitHub
- https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=372996
- Android TV client outputting multi-channel FLAC albums in stereo
Itâs highly likely itâll work with your setup, try with a local file first.
