Videos suddenly transcode on Shield

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.18.4.2171
Player Version#:7.27.1.15203 (5c57babb)

I just tried to watch a movie with Atmos and discovered that it only plays with 5.1 PCM. After some debugging it looks as if all videos on shield player (and to the best of my knowledge also my Apple 4k) are now transcoded. Kodi and XPlay on my LG still direct play.

Log shows:

Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.026 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 1399002, Subtitle Stream: -1
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.027 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Attempting to create AdHoc transcode session 700bb86511c593ee-com-plexapp-android
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mpegts
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 759615
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): Direct Play is disabled
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/truehd
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/truehd
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.028 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec truehd when profile only allows aac
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.029 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - MDE: XXX (2019): selected media 0 / 759615
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.029 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Added session 0x815f63798:700bb86511c593ee-com-plexapp-android
Feb 01, 2020 00:41:40.029 [0x80d3e3f00] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=331409 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=759615 part=(id=769894 decision=transcode container=mpegts protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=1399001 decision=copy width=3840 height=2160) Audio=(id=1399002 decision=transcode bitrate=774 encoder=aac channels=6 rate=48000))))

Now why does it say that the profile only allows aac? Why does it claim direct play would be disabled? I tried with old and new player. Everything is set to max. The LAN is configured in network settings as such with /24 bit mask. Everything worked like a charm but suddenly stopped (I only noticed today though). The Android.xml does look spooky:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Android">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="streaming" />
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="static" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" id="StereoMusicTranscodeProfile" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264,mpeg4" audioCodec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <MusicProfile container="ogg" codec="vorbis" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg,gif,bmp,png" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <ContainerProfiles>
    <VideoContainer name="mp4">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="part.optimizedForStreaming" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoContainer>
  </ContainerProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
        <NotMatch name="video.anamorphic" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="video.profile" list="baseline|main|high" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

Looks as if mkv is not allowed for Android.xml. Does anyone have any ideas? Again: Kodi works with direct play.

Regards,
JP

2

Can you provide additional information about your system?

Is the Shield connected to your TV, a receiver, soundbar, etc. Makes & models please.

Basically, does your system support passthru of TrueHD and TrueHD + Atmos audio?

Direct Play only means that Plex Media Server is not transcoding the audio. It is still possible that the client - Plex, Kodi, XPlay - alters the audio. PMS will report direct play as it has no knowledge of what is happening at the client level.

3

Sorry to be blunt but everything is answered I believe.

  1. I said everything was working like a charm
  2. everything is working with kodi

with everything I mean no transcoding and atmos through my AVR and my 9.1 system. But the moment I use the Plex client on the same shield the server decides to transcode. According to the log because the server thinks that there is no suitable profile allowing hevc,hls,truehd for this android client and then transcodes things to aac.

When the server decides to transcode things from truehd to aac I am not astonished to see no atmos on the AVR. :slight_smile:

4

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