Hello guys,
I’ve been struggling for sometime with plex and I’ve tried different options.
My setup:
PMS on a 1Gbps connection
Home connection of 100 Mbit
HiSense smart TV, 4K HDR
Android TV box (a cheap one)
My tests:
- Plex coming with the TV: garbage, can’t even handle 720p videos. Transcodes for any reason
- Netflix on TV: 4K with HDR, play smoothly, immediate loading and fast forward, good colors and brightness.
- Plex for Android on the TV box: keeps transcoding also 1080p videos saying h264 is not supported on this device. The server is on a good link but the CPU is poor and the video keeps stopping.
- Plex for Kodi on the TV box: Runs everything smoothly. 4K content loads fast but the video is dark and colors are washed out. It’s actually so dark that is unwatchable.
So right now my best option is plex for kodi.
Am I the only struggling to get a decent 4K video or is it a common thing? I was wondering also about this kodi thing, how come that official paid apps are worse that an addon for kodi?
Cheers
I didn’t have much luck with Plex and Android, so I’m guessing it’s not you, but Plex.
I have several Android boxes - 2 MiBox’s and 2 MiniX NEO U9-H boxes.
I hated the android app and only used the Plex for Kodi app. I didn’t have good results trying to play 4K HDR to any of these boxes with either app. The Minix U9H are very capable boxes, and should’ve had no issues with the media I was sending to them.
I keep trying, but at present, I pretty much just use Kodi with these boxes.
You might want to take a look in the Android forum.
https://forums.plex.tv/categories/android-tvs
If your videos are transcoding, it’s most likely your files are not encoded in a way that is compatible with the TV app or the Android app. You’ll need to provide the XMLs for the videos you are trying and indicate what version of PMS and clients you have.
Also note that we don’t officially support HiSense TVs. We have not done any testing of our app on these TVs.
It’s actually Android. It’s all about vendor implementation, and most of the cheap Android boxes are just that; cheap. They don’t put a lot of development into them. They’re just stock android images with a few UI/skin tweaks to make them a “media device”. They don’t bother implementing proper framerate changing, color space detection, UHD mapping, etc. For instance framerate changing is available in stock Android, but it requires developers to specifically implement its use rather than it being a default feature. I’ve tried Plex on a myriad of devices, and when it comes to Android, Nvidia’s Shield is the only one I found that has taken the time to implement things properly, which cost more, but it works flawlessly.
Thank you all for the answers that cleared a lot of things up. I didn’t know that the app for hisense was discontinued. Anyway I’ll also keep trying to see if things get better but I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one:). I was wondering if it was the box or something else. My Android is a Tannix tx-5 which should also be capable of doing 4K HDR…but yeah it’s not at the level of Nvidia Shield.
I guess that the kodi/xbmc guys did a good job with their player.
@jomamasfat, where you able on one of those devices to run 4K videos without transcoding and with good quality? I may consider an upgrade.I’d rather use a capable device than transcoding my library also because there is not easy way to transcode 4K HDR as far as I know.
I want to be sure before I say yes. Let me run some test tonight and I’ll get back to you. If you can post a few specs for the files you’re wondering about it would be helpful. Stuff like container and codecs. A copy/paste of “get info” from the web app would also work (I don’t need titles or file names).
For 1080p, the only thing I found that it couldn’t play was a 65Mbps 1080i/60 mpeg2 transport stream. I think the interlacing at that bitrate breaks the hardware decoder, but it’s also not something that most people are going to have.
@gasparov said:
I didn’t know that the app for hisense was discontinued.
The app was not discontinued, it’s still available. HiSense made the app available on their TV’s without working with Plex to check for compatibility, so we have not done any testing or have any idea how the app will function on these TVs.
For your Android box, a lot of devices manufacturers modify Android and add in their own customizations. This can sometimes mess things up. If you want to recreate your problem, then provide me the log from the Android app, I can look what is going on.
@gasparov said:
Thank you all for the answers that cleared a lot of things up. I didn’t know that the app for hisense was discontinued. Anyway I’ll also keep trying to see if things get better but I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one:). I was wondering if it was the box or something else. My Android is a Tannix tx-5 which should also be capable of doing 4K HDR…but yeah it’s not at the level of Nvidia Shield.
I guess that the kodi/xbmc guys did a good job with their player.
@jomamasfat, where you able on one of those devices to run 4K videos without transcoding and with good quality? I may consider an upgrade.I’d rather use a capable device than transcoding my library also because there is not easy way to transcode 4K HDR as far as I know.
I would use a chromecast if you don´t want to spend a lot of money, 40 euros and your done.
I have one but hardly use it as i picked my new tv based on weather it had a good plex app or not
@jomamasfat said:
It’s actually Android. It’s all about vendor implementation, and most of the cheap Android boxes are just that; cheap. They don’t put a lot of development into them. They’re just stock android images with a few UI/skin tweaks to make them a “media device”. They don’t bother implementing proper framerate changing, color space detection, UHD mapping, etc. For instance framerate changing is available in stock Android, but it requires developers to specifically implement its use rather than it being a default feature. I’ve tried Plex on a myriad of devices, and when it comes to Android, Nvidia’s Shield is the only one I found that has taken the time to implement things properly, which cost more, but it works flawlessly.
It’s not just android. The Minix U9H isn’t a cheap box running a “standard android image”. The same files (4K HDR10) that stream flawlessly on the mibox and on the Minix U9H box with Kodi, fail inside of Plex - the PFK app tries to transcode when it shouldn’t and the android app is hit or miss.
I’ll admit I’m not familiar with that particular box. My comments were more on the generic android boxes in general and shouldn’t be taken as a statement that there aren’t any other good Android boxes besides the Shield. The Shield is just one I have personal experience with that I think is a great example of what can be when it’s done right.
What you’re describing certainly sounds like a container or codec compatibility problem in Plex. My hunch would lean toward the container. Mind if I ask what container you are using, and if you’ve tried others?
Sorry for the delay, I was out. I’ll post some info
Container is Matroska Video
Some info on codecs:
Video
ID : 1
Format : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 1h 35mn
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Title : MPEG-H HEVC Video / 59976 kbps / 2160p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / Main 10 Profile 5.1 High / 4:2:0 / 10 bits / HDR / BT.2020
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : TrueHD
Codec ID : A_TRUEHD
Duration : 1h 35mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 12.0 Mbps
Channel(s) : 8 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, Back: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossless
Title : Dolby Atmos/TrueHD Audio / 7.1-Atmos / 48 kHz / 7438 kbps / 24-bit
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 35mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 439 MiB (1%)
Title : Compatibility Track / Dolby Digital Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
