Video stuttering since version 8.18 of the Apple TV app

[jamesmwall]

Form filled, can’t wait to give this a go. Of all the people who complain the most about inconsistencies in playback, it’s our 3 yo. He’ll be overjoyed if ‘daddy fixed it’.

[jamesmwall]

@Howchie

Cheers, I’ve filled in the form for beta access. Very keen to see how this goes.

Edit: I noticed that the post was specifically about high bit rate files. This stuttering issue happens for me even on low bitrate 480p content and doesn’t seem related to anything about the file. It’s also unlikely to be throttling given infuse has no issues with any content and my device sits on the TV stand with complete airflow. Hopefully just switching to the updated API is enough.

Looks like it’s high bitrate or using the newest ATV 4K:

@Apple Player Update Beta Testing

high bitrate HDR content and/or using the latest 2022 (fanless) Apple TV.

[hsousa]

We’re specifically targeting thermal throttling with high bitrate because that’s something we’ve been able to reliably reproduce and knowingly improve with this update.

We’re also hoping that the updated MPV version, rendering on Metal, will also improve other issues like the one @Howchie is describing. And if not, we’ll keep digging.

[jamesmwall]

@hsousa

Now that we’re discussing much needed platform updates, where are we at on DDP Atmos support?

[jamesmwall]

Installed and tested with one of my boys favourite films that exhibited issues previously.

Playback started a tad quicker and overall is smoother. The only issue appears to be some minor judder during panning scenes. Plays fine during the same scenes in Infuse.

Feels like a reasonable improvement so far!

Once this beta is closed up, who do I need to take out for beers to get DDP Atmos support? That’s all I need to drop Infuse from a feature parity perspective.

ATV 4K 2022 > Denon AVR-x4500h > OLED65C2

File info attached

[jamesmwall]

Further update, appears I have to re-analyze my libraries to play quite a few items. No biggie for me, but worth noting.

[edd_1]

First couple of video’s tested seem to play fine, no audio sync issues either. I only see an issue in playing 4K HDR 60fps content (has never worked in plex btw).

Thanks for your work so far !!

[Tion1]

@jamesmwall

Playback started a tad quicker and overall is smoother. The only issue appears to be some minor judder during panning scenes. Plays fine during the same scenes in Infuse.

It’s the same on my end. Playback is noticeably A LOT smoother, but not perfect. I can still see light stuttering regularly. And yeah, especially during panning scenes.

So far I tested mostly with files that were h264, 1080p, SDR, 23.976 fps.

[Volts]

@jamesmwall

I have to re-analyze my libraries to play quite a few items

That’s surprising. Do you believe the items were analyzed in the first place?

[bgk1212]

The new beta build seems to have fixed the micro-stuttering that was prevalent for me for previous public and beta builds for both 1080p and 4K files. However, I’m still running into problems with certain 4K HDR file types. I’m assuming it’s likely due to some of these files having dolby atmos or dolby vision. After tinkering with the settings, some of these problematic 4K files play fine when “Auto Adjust Quality” is turned on under Video Quality setting on the Plex player (while “Allow Direct Play” is enabled, “Home Streaming” is set to maximum, and “Play Smaller Videos at Original Quality” is enabled). Plex Dash shows the container has been stripped and the video is direct streaming and audio is transcoding. These settings seem to play nearly all files smoothly without problem, with the exception of 4K Dolby Vision, which play fine in the new beta player when I turn off “Auto Adjust Quality” and it appears that both video and audio are direct playing. Not ideal to have to go into settings and regularly switch this setting depending on whether it’s a Dolby Vision file or not. Infuse just plays all these file types fine without having to fiddle with settings on a case by case basis. Only other thing that I’ve noticed is the UI seems a bit more jittery when scrolling through libraries than previous public and beta builds.

[gpuwhisperer]

@jamesmwall

The only issue appears to be some minor judder during panning scenes. Plays fine during the same scenes in Infuse.

Oh

bUtInFuSeUsEsMeTaL

[samesong]

I shared a sample file that caused extreme stuttering a while back. Could someone with beta access try playing this sample and report back on whether or not it plays smoothly or not?

Link to sample

[Jmanko16]

I still get stutter in 480p dvd rips

[SE56]

On which ATV?

Setup direct to TV or other sound device?

TV brand and model?

FIle Info:

Should be reporting to this page:

Apple Player Update Beta Testing

Hi everyone! We’ve been working hard on improving playback performance in our Apple TV client, namely when streaming high bitrate HDR content and/or using the latest 2022 (fanless) Apple TV. This is something that not only we’ve been investigating for some time, but that has been reported multiple times here in the forums. And on that note, I want to take this opportunity to genuinely thank all users who actively provided feedback in forum threads, via DMs with our Customer Success Plexians an…

[ckdxxx]

That file stutters on my ATV 4k (3rd gen, 2022) using the current release version (8.32.7911) as well as the current TestFlight build (8.34.8096)

Also stutters on my iPad Pro.

Edit: Smooth playback on ATV with Infuse.

[samesong]

Thank you for testing.
Same results as you. Stutters on my ATV 2022 and iPhone 15 but plays fine on Infuse

[tom80H]

same as above…

1. wrong thread → see link posted by SE56 above
2. when posting there, please include details (as described there – e.g. specific models, iOS/tvOS versions, app version and technical details of what you were trying to stream)

[Tion1]

From the Apple Player Beta Testing thread:

@Craig_Holliday

One Big Update:

After reviewing the feedback over the weekend, we realized we had made a mistake. We have a feature flag that enables the MoltenVK/Metal renderer, but that feature flag was disabled.

This means the previous testing was only for the MPV update and not the new renderer, which has had some improvements but not to the extent we want.

That said, we have enabled the new renderer. You can now test with the same build to see if there are stutters, thermal throttling, playback failures, etc.

I had a bit of time to do some very quick tests, and the stuttering I was still seeing a few days ago with this beta build seems to be completely gone. Can anybody confirm on their end? This new renderer seems to be really making a difference.

[mattrk]

Hello. I have been following this topic on and off for months. Today I ran into issues playing back an H.265 HEVC 2160p file. It was direct playing to my ATV4k using the MPV player at 20-ish Mbps (no transcodes or old video player), however it was basically playing in slow motion and dropping tons of frames. I decided to inspect this particular file using VLC and noticed it had 38 separate streams inside the MKV container. There were 3 different audio tracks and 34 different subtitle tracks. Using MakeMKV, i remuxed the file to strip out everything except the English audio track and subtitle track. The file now only has 3 streams total and it plays perfectly fine on the ATV4k. No lag, slowness or dropped frames. I made no other changes to Plex or the ATV4k.

I just wanted to mention this as I feel like the number of streams inside the MKV could be triggering some kind of bug. If you guys want, I can remux this file a few different ways to see if I can determine which combination of audio or subtitle streams is causing this. Or, perhaps, this is totally unrelated.

[SE56]

You may want to request a Beta invite for TestFlight. Link below, read the Total discussion.

https://forums.plex.tv/t/apple-player-update-beta-testing/872121/108