This problem has existed for some time but was confined to playing recorded uk tv over home network from plex on W7 to a Samsung TV in bedroom.
I am now on holiday in spain and trying to keep up with political discussions etc. Programs record fine but when I try ro play in Spain I often get no audio. Often the Audio option that shows in the recorded program start screen has a drop down arrow againat the MP2 option - sometimes changing the option from English ( MP2 stereo) to English ( MP2 Stereo) will provide an audio track - sometimes not . If I do not get a drop down arrow option then all is fine. This effectiveness of changing from MP2 stereo to MP2 stereo also seems ro be variable depending on the player I am using - android - ipad - Roku.
where do I start to look
thanks
Mike
Its very erratic - 2 hours ago andrew marr had no audio - now it does have audio playing to same device -SWMBO had no sound on eastenders ( I know, why would you want sound!) But changed from MP2 Stereo to MP2 stereo and now has sound ?
Could you provide a small snippet of such a file? ( ~50MB)
Upload it to Dropbox or Google Drive or similar and provide a download link.
I will relay this to the developers for analysis.
Hi thanks for responding
Do you want the original WMC recording or should I look to get the sample from elsewhere ? and if from elsewhere, where should I look ? Thanks
This was recorded last night and a quick attempt at playing it on my android client was met with video and silence. It has two MP2 audio streams with one described as “subtitle”
MediaContainer mediaTagVersion=“1453425942” mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" librarySectionUUID=“820797b0-9a63-451f-b8bc-9ccb2830834e” librarySectionTitle=“Home Videos” librarySectionID=“7” identifier=“com.plexapp.plugins.library” allowSync=“1” size=“1”>
Video title=“Trust Me, I’m a Doctor - Summer…_BBC TWO_2016_07_17_19_00_17” librarySectionID=“7” chapterSource="" updatedAt=“1468782947” addedAt=“1468778494” originallyAvailableAt=“2016-07-17” duration=“3864948” art="/library/metadata/113352/art/1468782947" thumb="/library/metadata/113352/thumb/1468782947" year=“2016” summary="" type=“movie” guid=“com.plexapp.agents.none://753894dc5d46f2432a80254b71566a00d0075e27?lang=xn” key="/library/metadata/113352" ratingKey=“113352”>
Media duration=“3864948” videoProfile=“main” videoFrameRate=“PAL” container=“wtv” videoCodec=“mpeg2video” audioCodec=“mp2” audioChannels=“2” aspectRatio=“1.78” height=“576” width=“704” bitrate=“5730” id=“195311” videoResolution=“576”>
Part size=“2768240640” duration=“3864948” key="/library/parts/195312/file.wtv" videoProfile=“main” container=“wtv” id=“195312” hasThumbnail=“1” file=“E:\recorded tv\Trust Me, I’m a Doctor - Summer…_BBC TWO_2016_07_17_19_00_17.wtv” exists=“1” accessible=“1”>
Stream height=“576” width=“704” bitrate=“15000” id=“360579” streamIdentifier=“85” scanType=“interlaced” profile=“main” pixelFormat=“yuv420p” frameRate=“25.000” colorRange=“tv” chromaSubsampling=“4:2:0” bitDepth=“8” index=“3” codec=“mpeg2video” streamType=“1”/>
Stream language=“English” bitrate=“256” id=“360577” streamIdentifier=“83” index=“1” codec=“mp2” streamType=“2” samplingRate=“48000” audioChannelLayout=“stereo” languageCode=“eng” channels=“2” selected=“1”/>
Stream language=“English” bitrate=“256” id=“360578” streamIdentifier=“84” index=“2” codec=“mp2” streamType=“2” samplingRate=“48000” languageCode=“eng” channels=“2”
Stream language=“English” id=“360576” streamIdentifier=“82” index=“0” codec=“dvb_subtitle” streamType=“3” languageCode=“eng”
A few minutes later I tried to stream to Ipad - first attempt have audio which was like voice describing it for sight disabled people, then I changed the MP2 stereo option to Stereo MP2 option and got audio
I have a very slow internet connection here and generally have to stream/sync at a lower quality however it is watchable when it works.
@Mikesin said:
Do you want the original WMC recording or should I look to get the sample from elsewhere ? and if from elsewhere, where should I look ? Thanks
Of course your recording.
Take a new recording if you don’t know how to cut the big file.
Just verify, that this new recording exhibits the same issue.
I remote accessed server, copied file, loaded into Win Live Mov Maker and it plays fine. Switched immediately back to Plex app on tablet - no sound from program on server - switched to Roku and got strange voice over commentary until I selected “first” MP2 option then got audio with program - switched to android phone app accessed same program with "first"MP2 option and got audio -selecting “second” MP2 option gives a long period of silence at the start of the recording until a voice suddenly describes the scene I am watching - “at a street market” the disembodied voice announces.
So I guess my real problem is why I have 2 MP2 options when one if them is not actually audio but a type of commentary and it appears that this one can become the default and if there is no disembodied commentary I get silence ?!
That is not a problem, but a quite normal experience from the “real world”.
TV stations usually transmit this ‘audio description’ in a second audio stream.
I sometimes record transmissions from a dual-language station which transmits 4 audio streams!
So, to have more than one audio stream available is nothing unusual and no reason for concern.
And one of the selectable audio streams should be the ‘normal’ audio you are expecting to hear.
It should pose no problem to Plex, once you told it which audio stream to play.
Plex should not mix two audio streams together, though. Are you experiencing this?
No I am not experiencing mixing but sometimes I have no audio from the ‘default’ stream and selecting the other stream does provide a solution - I’ll try sync-ing some recordings to my phone tonight and try them out tomorrow and then update this post
Thanks
@Mikesin said:
No I am not experiencing mixing but sometimes I have no audio from the ‘default’ stream and selecting the other stream does provide a solution -
There is not much what Plex can do here. It has no information which stream contains the descriptions and which one the normal audio. So the best is to offer both streams and let the user decide.
Bit of a delay as I had problems with laptop used for posting.
Overnight synced two recordings of a series I am watching (recorded last month) to my android tablet. Both play OK on the server (with the usual MP2 Stereo options available) . They were synced one after the other to my tablet and both end up with audio described as English (AAC stereo).
First one has no dialogue with the video but does have an audio description of the scene ( which is actually about 5 mins out of sync with video).
Second one plays without issue.
Is there something in the library agents that could be controlling how plex analyses the recording and influences its’ decision on how it will transcode ?
I tried using tablet as server to my Roku and got exactly the same situation - not sure what this implies
Have just synced a program recorded last night to my android phone which plays fine from server ,only has one audio option (MP2 stereo) on server, has English (AAC stereo on synced copy) and plays fine on smartphone
This seems completely random so far.
Thanks for all the responses
mike
@Mikesin said:
Bit of a delay as I had problems with laptop used for posting.
Overnight synced two recordings of a series I am watching (recorded last month) to my android
Sync uses the same audio track selection as you see in the preplay screen of that movie. If you already had selected the “proper” audio track there, then sync should contain the right track too.
As I explained above: Plex cannot know which audio track is the “right” one, because your .TS stream doesn’t contain a hint about it. So Plex defaults to whichever track comes first in the stream, unless you explicitly select one.
OK thanks I will try playing from server before attempting to sync to ensure that all was well before the program “left” the server
Will post back results after a few syncs
update 15.54.
I have an episode of Versailles recorded from BBC2 on 29/6/2015 - I synced this overnight only to find that the audio is a commentary and not dialogue.
I attempted to stream to my tablet and was unable to get dialogue only commentary.
I remote accessed the server, started Plex on the desktop and played the recording - the first setting was commentary so I changed the MP2 option to the second one and got dialogue.
I disconnected from server and retried to stream to tablet - no matter what I did I could not get dialogue, only commentary…
I next used ipad to stream from server and with second MP2 option selected got dialogue - I have always been able to get success with ipad…
MIke
Further update 1529
I have just realised that having synced a copy to my tablet I have to use the “play version” option to switch between synced and stream.
Synced version gives commentary irrespective of MP2 option selected and streamed version gives silence on first MP2 option and commentary on second MP2 option. No useable audio for dialogue
However since I do not have problems with ipad does this not suggest an android client issue ??
Mike
