Thanks for this post.
My Shield had Dolby on and the formats on auto. I’ve turned it to manual and selected all formats.
I have a demon S760H AVR. Playing the same file as yesterday to test again now as we speak
Edit
Yep still dropping frames. Only other difference is yours has a hotfix from Nvidia. So I’ve just requested that. Says it takes 48 hours
Is it just this file you’re getting drops ?
Are the drops random or at the same place each time ? Is there a noticeable skip in the video ?
I’m no longer seeing drops on EAC3 , true hd 7.1 or aac
Skips are in any files that have EAC3 audio files.
It used to go way out of sync but now with version 10.22 at least it corrected itself audio wise. It’s just noticable frame skips at random.
Video there was 30mins and had 40 dropped frames.
Hopefully putting my shield to 9.2.0 fixes it like yours.
Jeez that’s a lot. I used to get 4 ot 5 in 1h 45 and it annoyed me.
This is the shield pro ? Something real strange going on to be getting 40n dropped frames in 30mins
Agreed. I watched a 40 minute episode with EAC3. I started it with my public version of Plex (10.20) and got really annoyed with the frame drops. Side loaded this 10.22 alpha to finish it and no frame drops. My shield pro 2019 is on 9.1.1 no hotfix.
I know this isn’t a perfect test so I’ll run more tests tomorrow with a longer movie or something.
Scratch what I said. I tired an EAC3+Atmos movie today and it was dropping frames right after starting like crazy! This is on 10.22 Alpha, via a Soundbar to the LG C9.
I changed one setting and it just ran the full length (1hr 40min) with not a single dropped frame. I turned OFF Refresh Rate Switching. Then its perfect. Note, I am an idiot and only just realised my 120Hz TV can remove judder from 24p movies even in a 60Hz container (thanks Rtings review for confirmation!) so I don’t even need to have Refresh Rate Switching ON for smooth panning.
I’ll do more testing today and come back with results.
Ahh good! i thought something fishy must be going on for that many dropped frames!
So i have an LG B7 and came across the same conclusion , framerate matching is not worth your time on LG tvs from the tests i’ve done,
Even if you have framerate switching on , but real cinema off, the TV will still do 3:2 pulldown and you’ll get judder… so its useless.
You may as well leave it at 60hz, turn on real cinema so it does 5:5 on 24hz content and be done with it.
Takeaway - Real Cinema has to be on for 5:5 and the proper motion, refresh matching on LG doesn’t make a difference
Yes I just had the old school understanding that for good motion all our external devices should be outputting 24p refresh rates when playing film and TV to avoid 3:2 pull-down. But modern high end TVs, especially the 120Hz ones, don’t need it. At least the modern LG OLEDs don’t and the ones Rtings state don’t (see their 24p judder tests, specifically for “24p via 60p” where they test for judder). If it shows YES in the Rtings table for “Judder-free 24p via 60p” you don’t need refresh rate switching on and no more black screens when it switches either if we can leave it at 60Hz. You do have to be sure you enable the right setting which LG name as “Real Cinema” like @chris0101 said.
Anyway I’ll run more tests now.
Edit: This is off-topic but in the interests of clarity for future readers, I did some testing and it seems you can’t just rely on this “reverse pull-down” to provide smooth motion of 24p in 60Hz. Yes it works for 24p in 60Hz and also 23.976p in 59.97Hz. BUT it does not work if you mix and match. Which you have no choice about because many streaming services now produce TV shows with exactly 24p and not the classic 23.976p.
The problem: If you play a 24p in 59.97Hz or 23.976p in 60Hz it initially seems smoother than 3:2 pull-down but every 5 seconds or so has a rather jarring judder. I noted this using some 24p and 23.976p motion test files and changing my output refresh from 59.97Hz to 60Hz. So the reverse pull-down algorithm is not good enough to tackle this mismatch. I went back and forward several times and its confirmed. So its back to refresh rate matching for me.
I had the exact same old school understanding lol, glad we’ve come to the same conclusion!
@chris0101 I would clarify your comment in case others see it and assume, Real Cinema has to be on for 5:5 and the proper motion on LG TVs. Refresh matching is not needed on SOME LG TVs and other manufacturers. There are plenty of quite newish LG, Vizio, Samsung etc TVs that don’t have this ability and will judder on 24p in 60Hz container. You MUST check this Rtings table before assuming you can disable Refresh Rate Switching in Plex.
Edit: See my longer edit to my above post. My discovery of reverse pull-down meaning I no longer needed refresh rate matching seemed like it was too good to be true and unfortunately I think it is. It has its issues.
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.
Could you confirm how you’re viewing dropped frames, I’m struggling to see how to enable this, assumed it would be “Display information overlay” but that doesn’t seem to do anything.
Pause the video. Three dots and there’s a setting turn on nerd stats I think it is
Then when the video is playing press the down on the circle of the shield remote
So step by step (only available in version 10.21 and higher):
Pause the video or press down when the video is playing > Three dots on the lower right > Playback Settings > Scroll down to the bottom and you will see “Show Nerd Statistics”. Enable this and they will always shown then you press down on the remote when the video is playing and show any dropped frames. Try not to pause it when you want to look as this might (not always) generate a frame drop.
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.
First time in over a year it’s working now.
Update 10.22 and some changes in settings on the shield and it’s working
Full info here
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.
Same experience here with 10.22 simple to sideload via downloader app, so far very impressed though I haven’t completed testing but tentatively seems as though this has fixed the issue that’s been plaguing Plex on shield for over a year.
I would love to know what it is they fixed, just out of a nerdy curiosity. Maybe I wouldn’t understand it but others have speculated about audio sync issues and such.
Continued testing with Dolby Processing On and everything just works fine. Atmos, everything I’ve thrown at it. No dropped frames or out of sync audio
Agree with the above two posters.
Super easy to install no issues
Would love to know the fix
