@Muskehound said:
Oct 19, 2017 22:05:06.743 [0x70000999c000] DEBUG - MDE: [Movie Title]: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/truehd
Here’s the specs of the file. Previous to playing, I manually chose the 2nd audio (the AC3 one) and no subtitles. Direct Play/Stream is enabled on the player and server. I’m not sure if it’s because the audio stream I’m using isn’t the primary one that’s causing the issue?
Based on that log entry, it does look like the case that the app isn’t able to switch to the second audio stream directly in the file. Which starts a giant chain reaction: Because the file is being remuxed, HEVC can’t be sent in the new hls stream, this causes the video to transcode to h264, but then because the xbox one’s h264 decoder has trouble with 4K h264 the 4K is downscaled to 1080p. The log mentions stuff about the original audio stream in the MDE, but the transcode request does specify to copy the AC3 stream over.
I have mentioned this to Moussa just to double check that is indeed what is currently happening. If they are looking at changing this behavior typically an ETA won’t be released. But I would imagine that this is a feature that if they can fix the issue, that they will.
@Moussa said:
“If the audio stream needs transcoding then the video stream will be transcoded to H.264 as the streaming protocol we use (HLS) doesn’t support HEVC.”
I was thinking that they announced HEVC Support over HLS at WWDC17?
@Muskehound said:
I’m having the exact same problem (and have for every 4K file I’ve ever tried on my One S). I’ve located the part of the log which looks like it’s relevant.
Umm looking at you log right at the very start its says “Oct 19, 2017 22:05:06.743 [0x70000999c000] DEBUG - MDE: [Movie Title]: Direct Play is disabled” & “Oct 19, 2017 22:05:06.743 [0x70000999c000] DEBUG - MDE: [Movie Title]: selected audio stream is not the first audio stream and direct play stream selection is not enabled”
Seems Direct play is disabled, even though you said its enabled so seems it could a bug.
@instayay said:
I was thinking that they announced HEVC Support over HLS at WWDC17?
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where just announcing support for something doesn’t mean that everything currently using that protocol can start using it. Every device is going to need a software update to include the new functionality, and until that happens anything communicating with that device can only use the older standard. In your first article I think this is the key part:
HEVC in HLS using MPEG-2 Transport Stream chunks, which Apple doesn’t support
HEVC in HLS using fMP4 segments, which is what Apple announced on WWDC17 and our player supports
HLS using fMP4 segments is that part that is going to need updates all around to add that additional support before people can start taking advantage of it.
@morpheus2n2 said:
Umm looking at you log right at the very start its says “Oct 19, 2017 22:05:06.743 [0x70000999c000] DEBUG - MDE: [Movie Title]: Direct Play is disabled” & “Oct 19, 2017 22:05:06.743 [0x70000999c000] DEBUG - MDE: [Movie Title]: selected audio stream is not the first audio stream and direct play stream selection is not enabled”
Seems Direct play is disabled, even though you said its enabled so seems it could a bug.
This is one of those cases where what the log is saying doesn’t mean exactly what you think it is saying. (I actually requested clarification on this because it really is a confusing message).
Direct Play is disabled actually has nothing to do with the direct pay settings. It means that MDE looked at the media and determined that the file cannot be direct played so it takes direct play off the table. In that sense when it sends it’s request to the server Direct Play is disabled simply means don’t try and direct play this file for me.
After speaking with Moussa, the second log message is indeed the issue. The app currently cannot switch to a secondary audio track without running the file through the transcoder, which unfortunately snow balls down the hill into a bigger mess all around.
Glad the log has been of use, and appreciate the feedback.
I don’t know much about the HEVC toolsets available but I’ll see if there’s anyway for me to either switch around the audio tracks, or drop the TrueHD one, as a temporary solution. For me it’s no big deal as I’ve not rebuilt my home theater audio side yet anyway.
I’m sure I was getting the same results with files with a DTS track in #1 too, so I presume there’s no native decoding of that either? Maybe I can reencode those myself down to something compatible. Something to mess about with at least!
@Muskehound said:
I’m sure I was getting the same results with files with a DTS track in #1 too, so I presume there’s no native decoding of that either?
That is correct, currently DTS and most HD Audio streams have no decoder that the app can use.
Maybe I can reencode those myself down to something compatible. Something to mess about with at least!
Ideally, if you use a tool such as mkvmerge or ffmpeg from the command line you can simply swap the audio tracks to the desired position. Overall, if just the audio is moving/converting the operation should be less than 5 minutes. If you’re seeing a long encoding time it means the video is converting as well. Based on those log entries the only thing that looks like it is tripping things up is the position of the audio tracks.
The developers are looking at adding direct play support for secondary and other audio streams contained in the file. And they are also looking at taking advantage of the new (newly available to the app) pass-through ability. The first option would allow your secondary stream to direct play and the second allows your receiver/TV to decode the audio instead of the Xbox which would again allow the file to direct play.
Yep, I’m running it through MKVToolNix on my Mac remotely at the moment, and based on the length of time (17 minutes for a 50gb file reading/writing to a USB3 external drive) it looks like it’s doing that fine. I decided to drop everything except the video stream, the AC3 audio, English PGS subtitles, and the chapter markings. Once I’m home I can do a test and see if it gives me the green light.
@Muskehound said:
Yep, I’m running it through MKVToolNix on my Mac remotely at the moment, and based on the length of time (17 minutes for a 50gb file reading/writing to a USB3 external drive) it looks like it’s doing that fine. I decided to drop everything except the video stream, the AC3 audio, English PGS subtitles, and the chapter markings. Once I’m home I can do a test and see if it gives me the green light.
Sounds good, just a heads up though, if you enable those PGS subtitles it will force a transcode. Currently, only text based subtitles can be sent as sidecar subtitles and PGS are image based.
@Moussa said: @TheVMaster The app supports direct playback of 4K HEVC and MPEG4 content.
The App may does, but the Xbox One S does not have a “4k” MPEG4/H.264 decoder.
We probably have to wait for the Xbox One X in order to direct play 2160p H.264 content.
Both the Xbox One S and Xbox One X models are capable of playing content at a 4K output resolution. Native playback of 4K content is supported so long as it meets the following criteria:
Resolution: 4096x2160 or smaller
Video Encoding: H.265 (HEVC; both 8-bit and 10-bit) and mpeg4
The content is being Direct Played
No subtitles are enabled
Tip!: If you have 4K content with a different encoding (such as H.264), it cannot be played at 4K and will instead be transcoded down to a maximum of 1080p.
Regarding the criteria above, it still can’t direct play videos that meet those criteria **AND **have HDR and/or Dolby Atmos sound. Can’t wait for that.
@DirectPlayer said:
Regarding the criteria above, it still can’t direct play videos that meet those criteria **AND **have HDR and/or Dolby Atmos sound. Can’t wait for that.
HDR currently does not affect the ability to directly playback a media file, but an Atmos Track will.
I have 4K HDR content with AC3 audio stream and still don’t get Plex app to play it with HDR on TV. It will do 4K, no HDR.
Using LG Plex app and ps4 pro Plex app.
That said, using also XPlay app on LG TV and it does play 4K content with HDR, regardless Atmos, DTS or AC3 and with multi audio support.
Shame Plex app can’t do it
@binia said:
I have 4K HDR content with AC3 audio stream and still don’t get Plex app to play it with HDR on TV. It will do 4K, no HDR.
Using LG Plex app and ps4 pro Plex app.
That said, using also XPlay app on LG TV and it does play 4K content with HDR, regardless Atmos, DTS or AC3 and with multi audio support.
Shame Plex app can’t do it
Agreed. I wish the Xbox App would support 4k HDR. The metadata exposed by Plex seems to show it is detecting the correct color space and video profile. For some reason, it just looks washed out when playing back. Since it is direct play, shouldn’t this be as simple as telling the TV this is an HDR source?
I’m quite annoyed this isn’t a top priority right now. I also have a growing library of content that is 4k HDR with atmos/dts-ma. I have a roku tv that can do the HDR video but the TV is not capable of doing earc so i’m limited to 5.1.
I’m just getting started with 4k,and trying to understand what exactly we get with the current Xbox one app. If I understand correctly a direct play 4k file will actually output 4k video, but if it needs to transcode, it won’t output 4k content. Did I get that right? I’m having trouble understanding why a transcode would push it down to 1080p if that’s the case. Why wouldn’t the PMS just strip out HDR and transcode to 4k only without HDR/Atmos?
