Are you sure about MP4 being capable only to contain DV5? I’ve downloaded a number of movies in MP4 that claims to be profile 7 and they work just fine. Matrix is one example:
Video #1
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High
HDR format : SMPTE ST 2086, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID : hev1
Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration : 2 h 16 min
Source duration : 2 h 16 min
Bit rate : 48.8 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 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.246
Stream size : 46.5 GiB (99%)
Source stream size : 46.5 GiB (99%)
Encoded date : UTC 2019-09-17 19:12:21
Tagged date : UTC 2019-09-17 19:21:25
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : PQ
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primar : BT.2020
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0020 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2
Maximum Content Light Level : 992 cd/m2
Maximum Frame-Average Light Le : 518 cd/m2
Codec configuration box : hvcC
Video #2
ID : 2
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High
HDR format : Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, dvhe.07.06, EL+RPU, Blu-ray compatible / SMPTE ST 2086, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID : dvhe
Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding with Dolby Vision
Duration : 2 h 16 min
Source duration : 2 h 16 min
Bit rate : 66.2 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 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 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.001
Stream size : 64.5 MiB (0%)
Source stream size : 64.5 MiB (0%)
Encoded date : UTC 2019-09-17 19:12:21
Tagged date : UTC 2019-09-17 19:21:25
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : PQ
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primar : BT.2020
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0020 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2
Codec configuration box : hvcC+dvcC
You’re right, I’m wrong. I think the fact there’s no official spec for the MP4 container probably means there won’t be good support for playback though. It was created for H264 and only supports H265 with a max bit depth of 8bit. Anything that goes beyond that spec may not be read correctly by software.
At least with MKV its a set standard, that can now be adopted (and has been by Exoplayer).
Or if you mean that Dolby Vision in MP4 isn’t standardized, because that’s well defined too. One of the spec documents is “Dolby Vision Bitstreams Within the ISO Base Media File Format”.
MP4 was either adopted from Quicktime, or created for MPEG-4, depending on how you count it.
Dolby Vision included both H.265 and H.264 in the first public whitepapers, I think.
I’m very curious about this comment. @stn1’s previous post shows 10-bit HEVC Dolby Vision in an MP4 container.
I had a longer response and was nitpicking details. I realized it wasn’t a positive contribution.
There aren’t any devices with published support for Profile 7!
But we’re all eager to hear about the ones that work anyway. So I’ll reiterate your request for people to share what works for them, and the details of their setup.
@Volts If there’s something that I say that doesn’t make sense I’m happy to try and explain. I may not be correct about everything but like most people I’m still learning. After all, its a complicated topic isn’t it. Still though, I’m flattered you are taking so much time to correct me.
MP4 can’t officially support Dolby profile 7 like mkv can. If you can see somewhere where support is officially added let me know. If Plex rely on backends like Exoplayer for file playback what chance is there to get a file format working universally without proper support? The future of profile 7 rips will be in mkv, not MP4. Regarding the posted meta info, again we seem to be on different pages, there’s a stark difference between what a file containers spec says it will support and what actually can be placed in that container. If we wanted to we could rename the container to something else and hope the software recognises it’s data, but if there’s no official support how is it ever going to widely supported? When playback software is created there’s no obligation for it to support something unless it’s officially supported by the containers spec… The only detail I can see about MP4 is it supports Dolby Vision, but that could mean a variety of things including profile 4 which was limited to h264.
If MP4 worked so well then we wouldn’t even need to use mkv but it clearly has been a problem, hence the interest in mkv adding it to spec. In fact, when you mentioned previously that mkv didn’t always use a single track file (and you also said that’s why playback probably works so well on my TV) I think you must have been referring to MP4, since the way that meta data is presented is with a separate Dolby Vision video stream.
The part about bit depth I meant to say 10 bit.
Regarding profile 7 support its pretty easy to tell which TVs don’t support it. We know Sony TV’s don’t because they don’t work using Dolby Vision with older UHD Blu-ray players or older firmware and those players exclusively sent profile 7 to displays at that time. In turn we also know from (limited) results of people owning Sony TV’s that files with profile 7 FEL don’t seem to work. Sony are the only exception, with every other Dolby Vision TV working fine with older UHD players. If there’s a problem with profile 7 playback on a TV that isn’t a Sony then it is either something Plex can sort out, or a strict limitation disallowing smart TV apps from accessing the decoder.
As mentioned above It’s likely that profile 7 just will never be supported by any external smart devices, at least those classed a streaming device. Unfortunately the gap that was previously filled by the likes of Zidoo or Vero when it comes to file playback support may also be narrowed since there’s no chance in hell they’ll ever manage to get a license from Dolby.
Let’s hope that there’s some workaround to getting profile 7 working for all TVs. If devices like the shield can do exactly what UHD Blu-ray players can and decode profile 7 properly themselves then that will be great. Otherwise and in the meantime I’d seriously consider not buying a Sony TV if you want to use Plex for Dolby Vision rips as it’s very plausible it will never be reliable in the long term, even with an external device.
Something also of note, for those struggling with clipping and audio sync issues with high bitrate DV/DA/HDR content:
This thread seems to be getting a lot of attention, and since it is under the pretense of what is the status of Dolby Atmos, I think it’s fair to point this out to those who are also having this issue.
The player is responsible for decoding the DV bitstream and turning it into a video signal.
Everything up to and including the “Composer” block is done in the player device. The Composer needs to support the bitstream’s Profile. What comes out of the Composer is a video signal, not coupled to the bitstream that entered.
In a “Fat” or TV-led tonemapping setup, the processed dynamic metadata is smuggled in the video signal and the TV applies it - the “Display Management” block - but that’s not dependent on the original Profile of the bitstream.
In an LLDV or player-led tonemapping setup, the “Display Management” block is done by the player.
A DV display isn’t aware of the bitstream details; that’s the decoder+composer’s job.
Regarding display support. If the connected TV has no bearing why did UHD Blu-Ray players need to be updated, or new models had to be released to support Sony TVs? Its simple, these players were previously only passing profile 7 data to other TVs. Sony TVs didn’t support receiving this data, so they had to resort to decoding the data themselves before sending it to the display.
The tests in this video are interesting:
You can see with the Oppo 203 you can toggle between TV led and player led, and the quality loss when you do the latter.
The way it works is obviously two fold, otherwise there would never have been a problem with Sony TVs and UHD Blu-Ray (and Apple TV) to begin with. Let’s hope its possible at least for devices like the shield to use a decoder that supports sending a player led signal, and not just TV led…if they ever have decoding at all. My theory is devices like the Shield may work with TV Led, but not player led, as the latter relies more on built in decoding.
That’s half true: Sony TVs couldn’t perform tone mapping themselves. But it’s not a Profile 7 issue.
Dolby Vision originally required TV-led tone mapping. The “Dolby Vision Display Management” block (from the function diagram) was the responsibility of the display, because a TV can know how the panel performs, how it’s configured/calibrated, and the environment that it’s in. It was designed to deliver the highest possible quality.
Dolby “compromised” and added LLDV to the spec, moving tone mapping to the player. Partly for Sony, and partly because it’s useful for gaming & anything interactive, and it helps simplify things for other manufacturers too. It’s a quality compromise, as Vincent explained. They even changed things - Player-led LLDV support is mandatory and TV-led tone mapping is optional.
But again, this wasn’t a Profile 7 issue. The other profiles have dynamic metadata too, and need tone mapping to be performed too.
The EDR metadata that is sent from the Composer to the Display Management isn’t “the EL” from Profile 7. It’s the dynamic metadata extracted from the DV stream, regardless of the profile.
It still doesn’t really help in the bigger picture though. For things to work properly with Sony TVs the shield has to have a decoder that supports profile 7 data, and supports it in a fashion the new UHD Blu-Ray players do, not as older ones did. If it doesn’t support it, or doesn’t support it like the latest UHD Blu-Ray players do then it will give adverse results. And that is the only hope for Sony users, as playback of profile 7 won’t work directly on the display.
If the shield is sending Dolby Vision on profile 7 MEL but not FEL then I think it must be incorrectly identifying it, or transporting it. Do you see any solution to these problems? I don’t. Can’t find it now but I saw a post from an Nvidia employee stating the device doesn’t have profile 7 support. How or why its doing this I’m not sure, but my theory is its incorrectly identifying it as profile 5, or just passing it on to the display wrongly because it believes the display can handle the rest of the chain itself when it can’t. I want to see more tests, but somehow it seems this topic is pretty quiet.
@dodgexander It falls back to HDR10. Plex says “copy” on DTS audio (instead of direct play). I tried to encode the DTS to AC-3 (which I can direct play), but it still doesn’t trigger Dolby Vision (falls back to HDR10).
in this thread, or maybe another, it was stated (by someone) that DV content must be direct played, or DV will fail.
This means you cannot play DTS on fire sticks, it is not supported and will be transcoded, which will cause DV to fail.
This means you must pre-convert (outside of plex) any DTS content to ac3 or some other audio codec that can direct play on fire stick/devices.
In summary, if your content is not direct play, you will not get DV.
If your device is not compatible (ie only support profile 5/streaming) with the DV profile (ie profile 7/bluray) of the file, then it should fall back to regular HDR.
and I wonder… Why is no DV mel / fel mkv working in the internal apps of the tv yet?
like for example lg webos? is there any limitation? or is it being worked on?
going back to firestick: I don’t do transcoding, and for example in the LOTR 4K MKV movie, it’s mel, and it works dv even if it has dts :S audio selected.
Fel I understand that it will be impossible in firestick for what the partner has commented above
