4th Gen Apple TV HD trouble playing bluray rip

[Jimbanville]

Trying to play this movie directly in the plex app on in the Apple TV I get a stutter in the image every so often. Here's is a pic of what the app says under technical details...
App cannot direct play this item. No direct play video profile exists for protocol http, with container mkv, and video codec h264.

Any ideas?

[dcoke22]

Does your setup Direct Play other files?

Plex Direct Play & Direct Stream

Are you trying to play the rip from MakeMKV or did you further compress the rip with Handbrake (or whatever your favorite compressing utility is)?

[Jimbanville]

Does your setup Direct Play other files?

Plex Direct Play & Direct Stream

Are you trying to play the rip from MakeMKV or did you further compress the rip with Handbrake (or whatever your favorite compressing utility is)?

The Apple TV will direct play other rips. It's a straight rip. Nothing else.

[dcoke22]

I wonder then if the troublesome rip is particularly large? Perhaps the network isn't robust enough to deliver the file without a hiccup?

I wonder, is your Plex server transcoding the file? The Plex Dashboard should give some insight. If the transcoding process can't keep up, that would cause a hiccup.

If it is transcoding, the question is why? Direct stream is the way to go (and the way I watch Plex on my Apple TV 4K).

The program MediaInfo can show a lot of details about .mkv files. I wonder if there's something particular about the troublesome file as compared to ones that work?

[Jimbanville]

I wonder then if the troublesome rip is particularly large? Perhaps the network isn't robust enough to deliver the file without a hiccup?

I wonder, is your Plex server transcoding the file? The Plex Dashboard should give some insight. If the transcoding process can't keep up, that would cause a hiccup.

If it is transcoding, the question is why? Direct stream is the way to go (and the way I watch Plex on my Apple TV 4K).

The program MediaInfo can show a lot of details about .mkv files. I wonder if there's something particular about the troublesome file as compared to ones that work?

This is the message I'm seeing on the Apple TV under technical info as the movie is playing... "App cannot direct play this item. No direct play video profile exists for protocol http, with container mkv, and video codec h264"

I think deciphering this is the key to understanding the issue.

[Jimbanville]

I wonder then if the troublesome rip is particularly large? Perhaps the network isn't robust enough to deliver the file without a hiccup?

I wonder, is your Plex server transcoding the file? The Plex Dashboard should give some insight. If the transcoding process can't keep up, that would cause a hiccup.

If it is transcoding, the question is why? Direct stream is the way to go (and the way I watch Plex on my Apple TV 4K).

The program MediaInfo can show a lot of details about .mkv files. I wonder if there's something particular about the troublesome file as compared to ones that work?

I figured it out. It was transcoding the audio because I was playing a truehd7.1 soundtrack. Changed it to ac3 5.1 AND I had to turn off "auto adjust quality" in the plex app settings. It's direct playing now. Haven't seen any stuttering like I did before so far

[zero269]

It was transcoding the audio because I was playing a truehd7.1 soundtrack. Changed it to ac3 5.1 AND I had to turn off "auto adjust quality" in the plex app settings. It's direct playing now. Haven't seen any stuttering like I did before so far

If you don't want to sacrifice your audio quality when playing back your BD rips, you might want to use Infuseon your AppleTV instead. It plays back everything, including directly from the BDMV folder if you back up your BD without needing to convert it to MP4, etc.

I use it for those movies I do not want to spend time converting and play the best audio available: TrueHD or DTS-HD MA.

You can even connect Infuse to your Plex library, so you don't have to worry about managing the metadata for what you already have in Plex.

[Jimbanville]

It was transcoding the audio because I was playing a truehd7.1 soundtrack. Changed it to ac3 5.1 AND I had to turn off "auto adjust quality" in the plex app settings. It's direct playing now. Haven't seen any stuttering like I did before so far

If you don't want to sacrifice your audio quality when playing back your BD rips, you might want to use Infuseon your AppleTV instead. It plays back everything, including directly from the BDMV folder if you back up your BD without needing to convert it to MP4, etc.

I use it for those movies I do not want to spend time converting and play the best audio available: TrueHD or DTS-HD MA.

You can even connect Infuse to your Plex library, so you don't have to worry about managing the metadata for what you already have in Plex.

Pretty sure I downloaded the free version
a couple years ago. Didn't wind up buying it or using it for some reason. I'll have to do some research on it again. Thanks!

[dcoke22]

It was transcoding the audio because I was playing a truehd7.1 soundtrack. Changed it to ac3 5.1 AND I had to turn off "auto adjust quality" in the plex app settings. It's direct playing now. Haven't seen any stuttering like I did before so far

If you don't want to sacrifice your audio quality when playing back your BD rips, you might want to use Infuseon your AppleTV instead. It plays back everything, including directly from the BDMV folder if you back up your BD without needing to convert it to MP4, etc.

I think the inability to play a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track is a limitation of the Apple TV HD hardware. The Apple TV 4K added support Dolby Atmos (and by extension Dolby TrueHD). I think Infuse would suffer the same limitation as Plex on that particular client.

The specification for Dolby TrueHD says that it should include a 'lossy core' of Dolby Digital 5.1. I'm surprised Plex didn't automatically select that audio track.

[zero269]

I think the inability to play a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track is a limitation of the Apple TV HD hardware. The Apple TV 4K added support Dolby Atmos (and by extension Dolby TrueHD). I think Infuse would suffer the same limitation as Plex on that particular client.

The specification for Dolby TrueHD says that it should include a 'lossy core' of Dolby Digital 5.1. I'm surprised Plex didn't automatically select that audio track.

Hi dcoke22,

I have the Apple TV 4K, and after looking at the specs you linked, it appears it doesn't natively support decoding True-HD or DTS HD-MA tracks.

Fortunately for me, I run my ATV through my Onkyo 7.1 system which is handling those audio codecs that ATV doesn't support.

After reading your post, I decided to run a quick check in Plex and Infuse and although Plex shows it's playing the TrueHD 7.1 for The Bad Guys movie (BD to MKV), I didn't really hear any sound difference when switching between True-HD to DD+. However, I did notice a difference when using Infuse. It sounded more prominent and the bass was far more noticeable.

I recommended Infuse because I've always had issues with Plex... even after I upgraded from Wi-Fi 5 to 6 (ASUS with ai-Mesh) and from my old QNAP (1GB x2) to Synology (1GB x4).

Basically, after these upgrades, I demoted Plex to Media Manager and Infuse to Media Server considering my playback experience with Infuse has been far more reliable than Plex.

Plex does have far superior media management capabilities than Infuse, and considering I've got the Lifetime Pass, I just use Plex to Manage my media and let Infuse Serve my media... which is "linked" to my Plex account and Infuse shows all of the proper metadata as seen in Plex.

However, when it comes to my kid's media... kid shows, etc... they use Plex because of the Parental Controls, and their media is minimal and often only played back in DD+ Stereo.

AS for my original post, Infuse will play back my BD backups (BDMV folder) without any further action on the media... a bit of a time saver considering how long it takes to convert them.

I tried MakeMKV using their Beta license recently, and I have to say it works like a charm. I used it to replace my BDMV backups to MKV. I like that I didn't have to convert them, thus losing some video bitrate quality.

It certainly saved me some time and a little bit of storage on my NSA.