What's the status of Dolby Vision + Atmos on Plex? (re: LG WebOS, Nvidia Shield, Apple TV)

General Discussions
144

Here are my test results using the sample files from…

https://www.makemkv.com/download/dvtest/

System Config:

Server Version: 1.21.1.3876
Player Version: Plex for Android TV 8.11.0.22186
Client OS: Android TV 9 on NVidia Shield 2019 Pro 16GB version 8.2.1 (Ethernet Wired 1Gbps)
Client OS: Android TV 9 on Sony Bravia XH950 / X950H version 649601 (Wireless AC LAN Connected at 780Mbps average)
Server OS: Windows Server 2012 R2 Std on HP ProLiant ML350 G6 / Dual Xeon X5675 (Dual 1Gbps Teamed LAN)
AVR: Denon AVC-X6700H (Ethernet Wired - Denon restricts this port to 100Mbps)

NVidia Shield → HDMI → Denon AVC-X6700H → HDMI (eARC Port) → Sony XH950 (eARC Port)

Sony XH950 HDMI Setup = Settings → WatchingTV → External inputs → HDMI Signal Format
All HDMI ports are set to “Enhanced Format”

Sony XH950 Audio Setup = Settings → Display & Sound → Audio Output
Speakers = “Audio System”
Audio system prioritisaion = ON
Sound Sync Mode = ON
A/V Sync = Auto
eARC mode = Auto
Digital audio out = Auto 2
Dolby Digital Plus output = Dolby Digital Plus
Pass through mode = auto

Denon AVC-X6700H HDMI Setup = Setup Menu → Video → HDMI Setup
HDMI Control = ON
ARC = ON

Denon AVC-X6700H Output Settings = Setup Menu → Video → Output Settings
Video Conversion = ON
i/p Scaler = OFF

Denon AVC-X6700H 4K/8K Signal Format = Setup Menu → Video → 4K/8K Signal Format = 8K Enhanced

NVidia Sheild Settings:
Device Preferences → Display & Sound → Resolution = 4K 59.940 Hz Dolby Vision and HDR10 Ready
Device Preferences → Display & Sound → Dolby Vision = ON
Device Preferences → Display & Sound → Advanced display settings → Match content colour space = ON
Device Preferences → Display & Sound → Advanced sound settings → Audop Output = HDMI
Device Preferences → Display & Sound → Advanced sound settings → Dolby audio processing = ON
Device Preferences → Display & Sound → Advanced sound settings → Select formats → Manual Selection - all formats ON

P4_LG_Dolby_Trailer_4K_Demo.mkv :

Sony XH950 Internal Plex app:

Direct Plays, but doesn’t state HDR playback on the Dashboard or in Tautulli.
Doesn’t trigger HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Doesn’t trigger DV or HDR on TV - CONSISTENTLY DOESN’T WORK.
Colours look OK, but certainly not HDR.

NVidia Shield 2019 Pro Plex app:

Direct Plays, but doesn’t state HDR playback on the Dashboard or in Tautulli.
Doesn’t trigger HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
ONLY triggers DV approx 40% of play attempts, and when it doesn’t trigger DV, it also doesn’t fall back to HDR10 - CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT.
Colours definitely look improved over the TV Internal app when DV is triggered.

P5_Dolby_Amaze.mkv :

Sony XH950 Internal Plex app:

Direct Plays, but doesn’t state HDR playback on the Dashboard or in Tautulli.
Doesn’t trigger HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Successfully triggers DV on TV - WORKS CONSISTENTLY.
Successfully triggers Dolby Atmos on AVR.
Colours look great.

NVidia Shield 2019 Pro Plex App:

Direct Plays, but doesn’t state HDR playback on the Dashboard or in Tautulli.
Doesn’t trigger HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Successfully triggers DV on TV - WORKS CONSISTENTLY.
Successfully triggers Dolby Atmos on AVR.
Colours look great.

P7_FEL_GIJoe_The_Rise_of_Cobra.mkv :

Sony XH950 Internal Plex app:

Direct Plays, and states HDR playback on the Dashboard and in Tautulli.
Successfully triggers HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Doesn’t trigger DV on TV, but does trigger HDR on TV - DOESN’T WORK, but falls back to HDR10.
The Dashboard and Tautulli states Direct Play of DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, but AVR states it is only receiving DTS, not DTS-HD. Likely it is playing the DTS Core layer.
Colours look fine.

NVidia Shield 2019 Pro Plex App:

Direct Plays, states HDR playback on the Dashboard and in Tautulli.
Successfully triggers HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
50% of the time, successfully triggers DV on TV, other 50% of the time, falls back to HDR10 - Status always the same on Dashboard, Tautulli and Plex client regardless - CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT.
Successfully passes through DTS-HD MA 5.1 on AVR.
Colours look fine when falls back to HDR10, but definitely look better when it does trigger DV.

P7_MEL_GIJoe_The_Rise_of_Cobra.mkv :

Sony XH950 Internal Plex app:

Direct Plays, states HDR playback on the Dashboard and in Tautulli.
Successfully triggers HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Successfully triggers DV on TV - WORKS CONSISTENTLY.
Colours look great.

NVidia Shield 2019 Pro Plex App:

Direct Plays, states HDR playback on the Dashboard and in Tautulli.
Successfully triggers HDR Playback Symbol in Plex Client next to 4K Symbol.
50% of the time, successfully triggers DV on TV, other 50% of the time, falls back to HDR10 - Status always the same on Dashboard, Tautulli and Plex client regardless - CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT.
Colours look fine, but definitely look better when it does trigger DV.

P81_GlassBlowing2_3840x2160@59_94fps_15200kbps.mkv :

Sony XH950 Internal Plex app:

Direct Plays, states HDR playback on the Dashboard or in Tautulli.
Successfully triggers HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Successfully triggers DV on TV - WORKS CONSISTENTLY.
Colours look great.

NVidia Shield 2019 Pro Plex App:

Direct Plays, states HDR playback on the Dashboard or in Tautulli.
Successfully triggers HDR playback symbol in Plex client next to 4K symbol.
Successfully triggers DV on TV - WORKS CONSISTENTLY.
Colours look great.

Summary:

The Sony XH950 seems to support DV Profiles 5, 7 MEL and 8.
With Profile 7 FEL, it falls back to HDR10.
It doesn’t support Profile 4 and also doesn’t fall back to HDR10.

I’m surprised about the inconsistent DV triggering of Profile 7 files on the NVidia Shield. Is this because of the Sony TV, or inspite of it, even though the TV internal app plays Profile 7 MEL correctly every time?

NOTES:

The Denon AVC-X6700H Video Conversion setting seems to have no bearing on the above results. I retested with the setting on and off and found no differences whatsoever.

This setting “Automatically converts video input signals to the proper monitor output format”

If you turn it off it “Disables conversion of non-HDMI sources to the HDMI output. NOTE: In this mode the AVR can not display the on-screen graphics over the top of the video signal” - I tend to leave it on for convenience.

Hope all this helps. It took bloody hours to test and collate lol :hot_face:

2 Likes
145

I’m surprised about the inconsistent DV triggering of Profile 7 files on the NVidia Shield. Is this because of the Sony TV, or inspite of it, even though the TV internal app plays Profile 7 MEL correctly every time?

I can confirm that this is the case with my Sony AG9 as well. DV playback on internal player seams rock-solid. Whenever DV is supported (DV Profiles 5, 7 MEL and 8) it works 10/10 times.

Something important though, is what @TeknoJunky mentioned, that you need to ensure that you can direct play. At least on my TV It seams that copy/transcode of audio can prevent DV from triggering.

146

It absolutely IS required for me to playback DOVI profile 7 rips (single track, dual layer)
Playback from Shield Pro 2019 to LG CX.
The second I turn off instant game response I get HDR10 instead of Dolby Vision. Have tested this severeal times with several titles.

147

I can confirm that I am unable to trigger Dolby Vision when playing my DOVI profile 7 rips through LG WebOS Plex App. It works when playing from Shield Pro 2019 over HDMI.

148

MORE NOTES:
On LG CX remote you can press the green button multiple times to see HDMI stats.
Doing this I noticed that enabling Dolby Vision on the Shield Pro 2019 forces the TV into 8bit mode.
Turning it off, the input switches back to 10bit. This is just by enabling the feature, not using it.
So by enabling Dolby Vision on the Shield Pro 2019, one sacrifices 10bit.

149

That’s a misleading indicator on the TV. You aren’t giving up any bits. :slight_smile:

LG TVs and the Shield both support the original, full-fat, TV-led form of DV.

The 10 or 12-bit video signal & dynamic metadata are encapsulated and sent over HDMI using “8-bit RGB Tunneling”.

It’s like a VPN for HDMI. The HDMI connection itself is configured in an 8-bit, 4:4:4 mode. The player tunnels the 10 or 12-bit 4:2:2 DV video signal, as well as the dynamic metadata, through that connection.

The TV extracts the real 10 or 12-bit 4:2:2 video signal from this tunnel, and the metadata, and applies the metadata.

This is done because HDMI didn’t have a way to send dynamic brightness information, and 8-bit RGB 4:4:4 provides the same bandwidth as 12-bit 4:2:2. By encapsulating the DV video in 8-bit RGB 4:4:4 they could transmit both video and metadata over “standard” HDMI chipsets.

Some equipment displays this as an 8-bit HDMI connection, which is technically true from the HDMI cable’s perspective. The Dolby Vision decoder reassembles everything.

Note that this is different in LLDV mode. In LLDV mode the player does the dynamic mapping, and no dynamic data is sent over HDMI. In LLDV mode the HDMI signal is sent as a normal 10/12-bit 4:2:2 format.

2 Likes
151

For Dolby vision and the Nvidia Shield should the Plex App be used or Kodi with Plex?

152

Every Sony/Shield test is the same. No Profile 7 FEL. My guess is the shield is sending profile 7 FEL when it should fall back to HDR10 because its incompatible.

Need to make sure Plex are aware of the problem, so they can make sure the shield disables Profile 7 when connected to a Sony TV. Alternatively, add a toggle to enable and disable profile 7 support in plex.

153

Here it is known if nvidia shield will solve color problem with DoVi??

154

As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes the DOVI decoder on the Shield itself crashes, and it falls back to HDR10. This is beyond our direct control, but something we have fed back to Nvidia.

1 Like
155

Could you share anything in particular on situation regarding .mkv DoVi support on LG WebOS?

Thank you

156

Thanks for the info :smiley:

157

if I’m not mistaken, the situation does not depend on plex with WebOS, but on the internal player of the TV.

When using Plex for playback, if no transcoding is done, it all depends on the TV.
If your TV does not natively reproduce these new mkv (the most normal today), there is little plex can do. I’m wrong?
greeting

158

You’re correct. In a Direct Play scenario, the decoding device must support the combination of container, video codec, DV profile, audio codec, everything.

159

That’s not how it works. A FEL is never “sent” to a display. In LLDV mode, only fully decoded and tone-mapped video is ever sent to a display.

The player is responsible for decoding and reconstituting the DV bitstream.

A TV doing TV-led tone-mapping receives the reconstituted video signal, encoded with embedded dynamic metadata. This is not the FEL.

For a TV that can only do LLDV - most previous Sonys - the player uses the dynamic metadata and does tone-mapping itself. The TV receives a normal video signal. In LLDV mode zero dynamic metadata is ever sent.

Which isn’t to say that it’s working! :slight_smile: Only that “sending FEL” between player and display doesn’t happen in DV.

160

Are you a Shield or Sony user by any chance? you seem unable to accept profile 7 isn’t working. My theory is as I’ve said before, the shield must be using an older decoder that older UHD Blu-Ray players that doesn’t support LLDV TVs…or perhaps it just doesn’t have one at all.

You can keep saying it should work all you want, but as you said yourself you don’t know for sure the shield supports profile 7 decoding.

It’s clear the fact profile 7 MEL works and profile 7 FEL doesn’t work and its only on LLDV displays like Sony’s that have this issue. It’s just a case of putting 2 and 2 together.

161

I never said it should work, only that the hypothesis “It’s sending FEL” isn’t how DV works, so it isn’t why it isn’t working. :slight_smile: It’s not a bad theory, it’s just wrong in that regard.

The Shield supports both TV-led and LLDV tone-mapping. Some people are using EDID manipulators to force the Shield into LLDV-mode.

Dolby Vision now possible through MP4 Mux. - Page 272 - www.makemkv.com

But also nobody thinks the Shield is handling FEL correctly.

162

I still can’t see how you can’t make the connection. I guess since you didn’t answer my question you are a Sony/sheild owner who can’t accept it won’t work.

The fact you can set the mode to LLDV has no relevance when it comes to Profile 7 FEL working. It could just be there for profile 5 support.

163

?! I don’t think I’ve suggested that the Shield handles FEL correctly. I don’t expect it to.

LLDV isn’t there for Profile 5 support. That’s not how it works.

Dolby Vision now possible through MP4 Mux. - Page 270 - www.makemkv.com

164

I have a doubt about this whole “mess” of MEL and FEL.

If there is no device that reads FEL (only SHIELD, and according to some comments I read, it seems to be by “chance”, since FEL is a mode only for NON-streaming blueray disc players)
What is the point of doing MKV in this mode?

Or is it expected that some device will be activated to make it MEL compatible? This seems to be unlikely.

Nvidia shield, continues with the problem of the colours in DoVi, with a result that is far from being Dovi :frowning:

Anyway, I don’t know, I’m a bit lost.
So what is the purpose of these mkvs?

Why not make them all in MEL, if you have already discovered how to convert them (FEL → MEL)?