Hi all, a couple of my UHD remux movies are choppy when played using the Apple TV client, even though no transcoding is occurring. It doesn’t happen with almost all my other 4K movies, nor does it occur with the native TV Plex app. It also only happens with Direct Play, it seems. When I switch it off and use the old player, things appear to be fine - except the movie is transcoded. Any suggestions or is this just a case of waiting for an update to the Apple TV client?
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I’m having the same issue with stuttering playback for some UHD rips with Latest Plex ATV clients and latest server. Infuse app plays everything just fine. In researching this, it appears to be a VERY LONG TIME issue, back to 2019 at least. Seems Plex still needs to fix something in their player. In my case this is for some 4K UHD rips playing thru the Plex client on both ATV4K and ATV4Kv2. Even though it shows it is Direct Play, (no transcoding), the video is on constant “stutter” dropping frames, and is unwatchable. However, as I indicated, infuse player works fine. I just prefer the Plex App UI over Infuse, and wish Plex would address this issue. It is annoying.
Update: Just tried something with one of the problem files. On ATV4K (gen 1 device), I set Direct Play to “OFF” and also Enhanced Player (the new player) to OFF. This fixed the issue for this particular file (Capt America Civil War (UHD 4K) rip.). I will try others…
Update 2: Yeah, well just tried my 4K UHD Rip of Star Trek The Motion Picture, and it refuses to play with the “Update 1” settings…just hangs paused on a Black Screen. If I go back to Direct Play ON and the Enhanced Player I just get the dropped Frame stuttering. Both Files play perfectly fine in the ATV Infuse App Player.
Thanks for your observations and possible solution in Update 1. Yes, the playback is fine with Direct Play switched off but then it transcodes the file (something I would prefer didn’t happen). Switching Auto Adjust Quality to ON works too but again it transcodes the file. But I’m unsure what you meant by having the Enhanced Player switched to OFF? My version of the ATV 4K Plex app (7.23) doesn’t show this option. With your rip of the Star Trek The Motion Picture, does it play normally using the Plex app on your TV?
Hi Irendina,
The “Enhanced Player” option has been replaced by “new player” option in the latest version of the ATV Plex app. (under “advanced” settings section). That is what I was talking about. Also, when Direct Play is off, if possible, I believe Plex will first revert to Direct Stream before reverting to any transcoding…at least that is the case for me. So I am not seeing any transcoding…just reverts down to Direct Stream. I should mention that all of my “official” library files are MP4 containers w/DD AC3 + 2.0AAC Audio. While I do have some MKV files hanging out, I’m in the process of converting all of them to MP4 containers with only AAC2.0 + AC3DD5.1/7.1/9.1 audio tracks. (If I want DTS or Atmos tracks, I can always play the blu-ray…but, honestly, I only have 5.1 surround and cannot hear a difference necessitating the need for DTS or Atmos surround sound.
For the case of Star Trek The Motion Picture 4K UHD Rip, it does not play usably at all on my ATV4 Plex App, no matter what settings I try. I can only play that particular file in the Infuse ATV app (flawlessly btw)…
Hope this helps!
Thanks again. I only see “Use Old Video Player” option under the Advanced settings in the ATV Plex app, not “New Player”. It’s set to “OFF” but when switched on, the problem goes away (as the file is transcoded). I believe I’m using the latest version of the ATV Plex app (7.23), so not really sure why it’s different to your settings. Also, all my files are MKV, not MP4, so that could explain some of the differences you’re seeing (i.e. no transcoding with your ones). I don’t have a copy of Star Trek The Motion Picture 4K UHD to test, sorry!
Sure, I think we are seeing the same, except the ATV settings now default to the new Player. So the only option (with default settings) would be “Use Old Video Player”, unless/until you enable that. Then next time you go to those settings your option would be something like “Use New Video Player” or “Use Enhanced Video Player)”
Get it on the MKV…I agree the container could be a consideration. I’ve replaced the UHD video in question with a new encoding I found online (slightly lower bit-rate) and it plays fine on Plex player. I have not 100% confirmed, but I think the issue is the frame rate supported by Plex Player, compared to Infuse Player.
I’m having the same issue with some 1080p HVEC 24p MKV content on my Apple TV 4k. Turned on Old Player and it works perfectly. I hope the Plex dev team can fix this soon!
This exact same thing happened to me too. A 4K HEVC file with direct play to Apple TV was unwatchable. Switching to the Old Player fixed the problem.
I’m experiencing this exact issue for several months. High bitrate HEVC 4K video files are choppy and unwatchable on my Apple TV 4K. The video stream looks like its playing back in slow motion and frames are dropping. The audio plays at regular speed for about 30 seconds before cutting out.
Switching to the old player results in good playback, but seeking is broken (checked multiple files, so it’s not a broken file) and the player never resumes after seeking or resuming from the middle of the video, instead displaying the loading spinner indefinitely.
Infuse plays the same files perfectly and even seeking works beautifully.
Edit:
This is bizarre. I took the original file and copied it into an mkv container and put it in my library. I let PMS merge the files.
If I hit the play button on the movie’s summary page, it plays as expected and I can skip around the timeline without the playback dying! However, if I play any of the two separate files under More > Play Version, they both stutter. Also, if I unmerge the two items and play them each, they also stutter.
When it plays successfully, it looks like it’s playing via direct stream (copy transcode). In the instances where it’s choppy, it’s direct play.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m experiencing here, seems like a bug of some kind? Either way, I would really like for the original problem to be addressed. I’ve captured verbose logs from the Apple TV app if a developer wishes to take a look.
I too am having this issue.
I’m playing a 4K movie on my ATV 4K and it stutters really bad.
Also, the colours are messed up. Hard to explain but the video is really tinted with reds and greens. Perhaps a HDR related issue?
Play the same movie via Infuse on ATV and its perfect. Also perfect from Plex Android on the Sony TV. Like others I would prefer to use the Plex UI rather than switch to Infuse.
I have a captured log file if a dev could take a look at it.
Bought Plex to use on my ATV so pretty disappointed.
Video
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5@Main
HDR format : Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, dvhe.05.06, BL+RPU
Codec ID : dvhe
Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding with Dolby Vision
Duration : 2 h 35 min
Bit rate : 17.9 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.090
Stream size : 19.5 GiB (96%)
Writing library : x265 3.4hy:[Linux][GCC 7.5.0][64 bit] 10bit
Audio
ID : 2
Format : E-AC-3 JOC
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3 with Joint Object Coding
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID : ec-3
Duration : 2 h 35 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 768 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 811 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 854 MiB (4%)
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Good to know I’m not the only one seeing this issue! My quick comment on your weird colours is that the movie you’re playing is using Dolby Vision. This doesn’t work with the Plex app on Apple TV (lots of posts about it elsewhere), so use HDR10 if you can. DV works fine using the native Plex app on my (LG) TV and also Infuse, however. As for the stuttering issues, let’s hope Plex can soon update the app so it works using Direct Play.
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That sounds correct. I only experience the stuttering with Direct Play. If I use the old player, it seems to work fine (but it needs to transcode). What’s odd is that it only happens with certain 4K mkv movies, not all the 4K movies I own, so I don’t really know why that’s the case?
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