That’s great to hear that plex and nvidia are working together to solve this issue, do you have a rough estimate when this will be fixed? as you can see it can be frustrating when watching some TrueHD movie’s. Thanks
@Nik3sh This is likely going to take a fix by Google because the root cause is at the lower layers.
I’m confused, so why are the plex developers above saying they are looking to fix this issue?
@Nik3sh because its a lengthy process. The player is built on foundational layers. To identify the issue, there is the process of elimination for root cause as you peel back layers. Plex, Nvidia and Google all have a part in making the magic work. Plex works with both Google and Nvidia. If the root cause and a solution can be identified by Plex and passed onto the other parties—this can be seen as fixing the issue even if its just passing along the fix to be executed by others. On the Shield much of this is based on FOSS packages. Even though it can be installed on the Shield, Kodi is a different FOSS beast than how Emby/Plex works.
Ah ok makes sense, thanks for the insight! Very helpful. hopefully all parties work together to get this fixed ASAP, hopefully plex and nvidia can put pressure on google to solve this.
I see the plex developer says there’s no dropouts on the 2019 pro model @Achilles but you’re saying otherwise, so I might buy one and check it out for myself.
There are several good reasons for getting a 2019 model.
- It includes the fix for random HD audio passthrough dropout issues
- It supports DFS RF channels for 5GHz
- The remote is significantly better
- Dolby Vision is supported for Disney+ and Netflix
However it suffers from the same time specific HD audio passthrough dropout issues as the 2015/2017 models do. This was tested last night at 2am by myself and the two main AndroidTV player devs. But if you are curious and itchy to buy a 2019 ShieldTV Pro, by all means do so.
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Yeah I know about the bug fixes and new features, I was just curious why @ChuckPa says they have no Audio dropouts on their 2019 pro model but they do on the other models, but as you say you’ve tested it and others with dropouts so I have no reason not believe you. Unless I’m misunderstanding what @ChuckPa has said above. Thanks
Since my statement above, I learned I do not have a video file on hand with the exact audio configuration which demonstrates the problem.
I’ve also since learned the app devs have the file and can reproduce the problem.
My statement was complete to the best of my knowledge. I know now I was incomplete. Apologies for that. I will be obtaining a sample of that file to reproduce myself.
Mildly off topic,
The 2019 Shield remote is very ergonomic.
Here is a photograph adjacent an 8" Craftsman straight blade screwdriver.
(Yes, the remote is triangular. It is very easy to hold and operate)
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Thanks @ChuckPa that clear that up. I might buy the 2019 model remote when it’s sold separately in 2020, looks so much better.
I am starting to dislike Dolby MAT 2.0
I received an email from Nvidia that it will go on sale in January. I will be buying two for my 2 x 2015 ShieldTV Pros.
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Slightly off topic but have you took in any hotfixes on the 2019?
My experiences with the previous model made me shy away from signing up and I’m pretty much at not seeing any major issues.
I took both HotFixes
- HotFix1 to fix the colorspace matching issue
- HotFix 2 validated for Disney+
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Ok thanks I may take a look. TBH I hadn’t really looked at what hotfixes were out there.
I have both test files in my possession and have reproduced the shield problem.
To augment:
We have cross checked with other player solutions.
This dropout is 100% reproducible for all of them.
The root problem is, as stated by nVidia in their forums which is referenced above, in the lower layers of Android and must now be resolved by Google.
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Asserting a hypothesis here:
Audio stream is ok until such time as additional bandwidth - buffer space is required for the LFE portion of that stream
This right here 
is something I was wondering but just didn’t know how to spit it out in words like you just did 
. This totally makes sense. So would this be considered more a LAN bandwidth assessment vs a WAN bandwidth issue? And if a LAN issue then we could be getting into a 10/100 network vs a 10/1000 bandwidth limitation issue correct?
@ChuckPa is not referring to network bandwidth. He is referring to the bitrate limitation of the TrueHD frame size within Dolby MAT encapsulation.
