Server Version#: 1.32.5.7328
Player Version#: v5.64.1
Plex app on Xbox Series X/S is finally working great 99% of the time. However I’ve had a few issues I would like to point out and maybe see if others have experienced this and found a solution.
During playback of some files the Audio/Video stream will desync from each other after getting stuck in a sort of “loop” and then when playback resumes the audio and video are way out of sync. Playback can be perfect for almost an entire movie or show before this happens. I can upload a video if needed.
Certain files have jittery playback. It’s not dropping frames per se and the audio doesn’t cut out on these files, the video just jitters as if it is lagging for a split second.
Green artifacts on some blu-ray rips. For example my blu-ray rip of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will exhibit green artifacts in the same exact moments each time but does not happen on other players or clients.
For settings I have audio passthrough enabled 5.1 uncompressed.
Direct Play, Direct Stream, Display mode switching enabled.
I’ve tried the trick of disabling display mode switching, but that didn’t solve it for all files.
Any help with these issues would much appreciated!
Would be happy to upload logs, test files or anything that could help you guys track down the issue. You all are doing great work on the Xbox app btw I hope it keeps improving!
Updated both Plex media server and xbox app to current public release.
Server Version#: 1.32.5.7349
Player Version#: v5.65.2
The above issues still persist unfortunately, and perhaps the new update made the audio/video desyncing issue worse. Also why remove DTS software decoder from the app? I’m assuming this shouldn’t matter to those using audio passthrough? That’s a curious move from Plex nonetheless.
Watching the same show tonight the audio/video desynced within 2 minutes of playback and several times during a 45 minute episode. Not sure what else to try as these are 1080p files with DTS-HD 5.1 which my system supports.
Any suggestions @Moussa on what I can do to fix this? Or is this something that has to be fixed on the Plex side? Do you all not experience the above issues when testing? Any tips/suggestions will be much appreciated!
On one of the files with green artifacts I did use FFmpeg to remux from mkv to mp4 container and that file didn’t have green artifacts when using the .mp4 version. Not sure why as the Xbox is supposed to be able to play mkv directly.
Do you have any issues on Xbox Series X direct playing certain media? Would be curious to know how you have yours setup and which settings work for you. Thanks!
Figured out how to create a test file using mkvtoolnix @MarkV1320 . Here is a 10s clip right at the beginning of the movie that exhibits the green artifacts.
Here is the MediaInfo for the file as well:
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 24.1 GiB
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 31.7 Mb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Encoded date : 2021-09-19 18:15:03 UTC
Writing application : MakeMKV v1.16.4 darwin(x64-release)
Writing library : libmakemkv v1.16.4 (1.3.10/1.5.2) darwin(x64-release)
Video
ID : 1
ID in the original source medium : 4113 (0x1011)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 2 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 27.0 Mb/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
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.543
Stream size : 20.5 GiB (85%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Audio
ID : 2
ID in the original source medium : 4353 (0x1101)
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : A_MS/ACM / 00000001-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 4 608 kb/s / 4 608 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS (1600 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 3.50 GiB (15%)
Title : Surround 5.1
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Text #1
ID : 3
ID in the original source medium : 4608 (0x1200)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 1 h 46 min
Bit rate : 34.0 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.506 FPS
Count of elements : 3218
Stream size : 25.8 MiB (0%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Text #2
ID : 5
ID in the original source medium : 4613 (0x1205)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate : 47.0 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.553 FPS
Count of elements : 3588
Stream size : 36.3 MiB (0%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Text #3
ID : 7
ID in the original source medium : 4614 (0x1206)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate : 49.0 kb/s
Frame rate : 0.587 FPS
Count of elements : 3810
Stream size : 37.9 MiB (0%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray
Ok thanks for checking, at least I know it’s not just me with the issue. And same here I’ve always ripped my own blu-ray and dvds from disk to avoid any encoding problems. That way I know the source is direct from the disk and “shouldn’t” have issues.
Oddly enough the built in media player app for Xbox also showed the green artifacts at the exact same location when playing through DLNA from Plex. Weird.
Remuxing to .mp4 via FFmpeg could be a temporary solution (although Xbox seems to stutter badly with .mp4) so hopefully @Moussa can take a look at the test file and see what’s happening behind the scenes to cause the green artifacts.
Effected titles I’ve found so far in my collection:
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Burlesque (2010)
Easy A (2010)
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
All are direct from disk blu-ray rips (1080p) with no additional encoding.
@MrFancyPants1999 Thanks for the sample file. If you’re seeing the artifacting while playing through the system media player too then it’s likely an issue with the file encoding somewhere that the system decoder doesn’t like. I can take a look and try to pass it on but it would be easier to see if re-encoding the content helps. The sample file details you posted suggest it’s an AVC (h264) encoded file, which means it likely was transcoded from the original video format from your bluray. I would suggest looking at the encoding settings to see what may be causing the issue.
DTS decode support was temporarily removed due to reports of issues with the feature, which we’ve confirmed.
Yeah I could use FFmpeg to remux the problematic files from .mkv to .mp4. However remuxing to .mp4 causes the files to play even worse with constant stuttering and buffering (although without green artifacts).
Is the Plex app using the Xbox native player for video? I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary with the AVC h264 .mkv files, so I would love to know what the devs say could be causing the green artifacts in the sample file I provided.
The green artifacts are not present when playing on other players (Apple TV 4K, Android TV etc).
Are they aware of any audio/video desync issues like I mentioned above? I could try to provide a test file but the audio/video desync is random.
I have found a fix for the video stuttering issue and thought I would share in case others experience this issue.
I had to turn off “allow 50hz” and “allow 24hz” in the Xbox settings because somehow that causes videos to have slight stuttering throughout playback. Keeping “allow display mode switching” checked within the Plex app still allows video to be played at the proper frame rates so all seems good now.
However I still get the green artifacts, and the audio/video desync still seems to be present (although not nearly as often as before).
Hope this helps someone as the video stuttering had been a big reason I had abandoned Plex on the Xbox. However minus a few bugs this is the most stable Plex app across many devices I have. Keep up the good work devs!
Can confirm the Audio/Video desync is still an issue. The Xbox seems very picky which .mkv files it will play.
Could it be some sort of codec issue? Over the last few days some movies and shows have played perfectly without going out of sync, and some movies and shows go out of sync and require a rewind to resync the audio and video. Strange!
Have the developers been able to replicate this issue? I notice it more on higher bitrate content like full 4K UHD rips but also happens occasionally on lower bitrate stuff. If we can get this resolved then the Xbox Series X/S will be the perfect Plex player
Update: The Audio/Video desync seems to be a Direct Play/Direct Stream issue (at least from my end). Seems to be completely random as well and not for any specific codec.
Have the developers gave you any news regarding the audio/video randomly desyncing? Have they been able to reproduce this themselves?
I haven’t ran into any 50hz issues so not sure they are related. I don’t have many films or TV shows at that frame rate to really test though.
I would try disabling “allow 50hz” and “allow 24 hz” in the Xbox settings and enable “allow display mode switching” inside the Plex app. Those settings pretty much removed any stutter or frame rate drops for me.
@Moussa the current Xbox app update seemed to make direct play much worse and less stable.
I’m noticing more movies switching mid stream to transcode for no apparent reason at all even though I’m hard wired with Ethernet, using audio passthrough with a capable A/V setup, and the server is working properly. Any updates on when direct play and the audio video desync will be looked at?
5.66.1 seems to be a step backwards with direct play. I usually can fix the audio video desync by rewinding once or twice per movie, but now it’s about every 2-5 minutes and I have to turn off direct play and direct stream to get movies to play properly.
Not sure what changed but hope you and the devs can look into this!
Just to say, I am now suffering this. Everything used to direct play fine, but now after a number of minutes it will switch to transcoding and therefore lose my TrueHD or DTS-HD. It used to work fine so some change has broken it.
