Stutter playing 1080p 60fps HEVC Main10 on Roku Stick +

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Hi all,

I am having trouble with stuttering HEVC Main 10 1080p 60fps video using the Plex app on my Roku stick. I would appreciate any help you can offer.

The HEVC sample linked at the bottom of this post demonstrates the issue on my Roku. File details:

Media

    Duration 0:30
    Bitrate 3256 kbps
    Width 1920
    Height 1080
    Aspect Ratio 1.78
    Video Resolution 1080p
    Container MKV
    Video Frame Rate NTSC
    Audio Profile lc
    Video Profile main 10

Part

    Duration 0:30
    File H265 Main10 4.1 (No tuning) CRF24 Med 1080-60p Remuxed 2.mkv
    Size 11.66 MB
    Audio Profile lc
    Container MKV
    Video Profile main 10

    Codec HEVC
    Bitrate 3256 kbps
    Bit Depth 10
    Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
    Coded Height 1080
    Coded Width 1920
    Color Primaries bt709
    Color Range tv
    Color Space bt709
    Color Trc bt709
    Frame Rate 29.97 fps
    Height 1080
    Level 4.1
    Profile main 10
    Ref Frames 1
    Width 1920
    Display Title 1080p (HEVC Main 10)

    Codec AAC
    Channels 2
    Language Italiano
    Profile lc
    Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
    Title AAC Stereo
    Display Title Italiano (AAC Stereo)

Server Version#: 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#: 6.6.2.6457-57b807617
Client device: Roku Streaming Stick +

  • I have made sure the app is using direct play.
  • The client is connected to the network via Wifi (802.11n). Server is wired (1 GBe). Bandwidth doesn’t seem to be an issue.
  • The sample plays fine on my phone using the Plex app for Android v7.30.0.16390 (5d527228).
  • An H264 version, identical in every other respect, plays fine on the Roku.

(I previously posted about this here: HEVC Main 10 1080p Stuttering on Roku Ultra)

The video in question is 1080p 60fps HEVC Main10@4.1 (not HDR) encoded using Handbrake 1.3.1 (2020010400). The original was 60i interlaced blu-ray H264 8-bit - I chose to convert to 10-bit as I am finding from my tests that the extra color precision reduces blockiness/banding with minimal penalty in terms of performance or file size. Of course it needs to play properly on my devices which is obviously the catch!

Here are two samples - one HEVC with the problem described, the other H264 High@4.1 which works fine. I have updated the samples from my original post to remove all irrelevant tracks.

HEVC video sample (stutter) 12MB
H264 video sample (no stutter) 18MB

(Apologies for all the singing.)

It could be a Roku problem but I thought I would run it past the Plex community first.

Many thanks.

2

Update: I’ve now had chance to test streaming from the Plex DLNA server to the built-in Roku media player. I had to edit one of the Roku profiles to get it to stream direct without transcoding but the result was the same - horrible stutter! It only affects 60fps videos, I’ve tested 30fps 10-bit HEVC and it plays fine. Looks like a Roku problem.

More details in my Roku community post: Stutter playing 60fps 10-bit HEVC videos on Streaming Stick +

3

This might not be an answer to your question, but I’m curious about your media.

Mediainfo on your HEVC sample says this:

Frame rate                               : 59.940 (59940/1000) FPS
Original frame rate                      : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS

What’s your goal in increasing the frame rate?

Edit: I agree that your sample plays with stutter/judder. But also your file looks strange, and your description of I->P is confusing.

Edit2: I have other true 60fps 1080 HEVC Main10 that plays well on my Roku.

4

Could your wireless network be choking on the bitrate of the files?

5

His “stutter” sample plays poorly for me too. It’s actually not very high bitrate at all, and I have consistently good luck playing above 50Mbps, up to where I think the Roku starts to have trouble.

I was willing to believe the combination of 1080p/HEVC Main10/60fps was a compatibility issue for the Roku, but that’s well inside the Roku compatibility matrix, and I encoded one that plays just fine.

I think there’s something weird about this file specifically, or the process that created it.

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