I’ve recently upgraded my Plex instance to separate out the storage side and the compute side. In general, I couldn’t be happier - the compute side is a little HP prodesk with a quicksync-capable CPU, and the results have been phenomenal.

I have one user who has been complaining about stuttering playback when doing Direct Play on a Roku 3 (2015). When they switch to transcoding, it works perfectly. The only time I’ve seen it, it has been doing a direct stream of MKV -> MPEGTS for the video container with a transcode of DCA 7.1 -> Stereo audio.

Bandwidth is not the issue and they were the only ones streaming at the time.

Do you think the Roku choking on it somehow? My 2017 Shield TV can fully direct play it without issue.

  • @[email protected]OP
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    31 year ago

    Nothing crazy. No 10bit HEVC or anything. Full codec info:

    General
    Unique ID                                : 898317064945381349172254457243775154 (0xAD027368905BC5EA73277A3F7230B2)
    Complete name                            : Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania (2023) Remux-1080p.mkv
    Format                                   : Matroska
    Format version                           : Version 2
    File size                                : 33.3 GiB
    Duration                                 : 2 h 4 min
    Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
    Overall bit rate                         : 38.3 Mb/s
    Frame rate                               : 23.976 FPS
    Movie name                               : Ant-Man.and.the.Wasp.Quantumania.2023.1080p.BluRay.REMUX.AVC.DTS-HD-MA.7.1-UnKn0wn
    Encoded date                             : 2023-05-16 17:47:08 UTC
    Writing application                      : MakeMKV v1.16.4 win(x64-release)
    Writing library                          : libmakemkv v1.16.4 (1.3.10/1.5.2) win(x64-release)
    
    Video
    ID                                       : 1
    ID in the original source medium         : 4113 (0x1011)
    Format                                   : AVC
    Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
    Format profile                           : [email protected]
    Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
    Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
    Format settings, Reference frames        : 4 frames
    Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
    Duration                                 : 2 h 4 min
    Bit rate mode                            : Variable
    Bit rate                                 : 31.7 Mb/s
    Maximum bit rate                         : 35.4 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)                       : 0.638
    Stream size                              : 27.6 GiB (83%)
    Language                                 : English
    Default                                  : No
    Forced                                   : No
    Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
    
    Audio #1
    ID                                       : 2
    ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
    Format                                   : DTS XLL
    Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
    Commercial name                          : DTS-HD Master Audio
    Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
    Duration                                 : 2 h 4 min
    Bit rate mode                            : Variable
    Bit rate                                 : 4 757 kb/s
    Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
    Channel layout                           : C L R LFE Lb Rb Lss Rss
    Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
    Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
    Bit depth                                : 24 bits
    Compression mode                         : Lossless
    Stream size                              : 4.14 GiB (12%)
    Title                                    : Surround 7.1
    Language                                 : English
    Default                                  : Yes
    Forced                                   : No
    Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
    
    Audio #2
    ID                                       : 3
    ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
    Format                                   : DTS
    Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
    Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
    Duration                                 : 2 h 4 min
    Bit rate mode                            : Constant
    Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
    Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
    Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
    Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
    Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
    Bit depth                                : 24 bits
    Compression mode                         : Lossy
    Stream size                              : 1.31 GiB (4%)
    Title                                    : Surround 5.1
    Language                                 : English
    Default                                  : No
    Forced                                   : No
    Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
    • Faceman🇦🇺
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      41 year ago

      It’s the DTSXLL audio track, I guarantee it, there are people having issues on other apps like emby with high bitrate 8ch DTS on some devices.

      If you force the second 5.1 audio track to be the default does it still have issues?

      • @[email protected]OP
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        21 year ago

        I’ll reach out and ask them to try swapping audio.

        The issue’s on the Roku side, correct? Or am I going crazy? I’ve checked everywhere a long the stack and don’t see bottlenecks.

        • @linearchaos
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          21 year ago

          I have 4 Roku’s When they’re great, they’re the greatest. Stuff like this on large content is sadly not uncommon. They fix it in an update, break it in another. For single titles, i’ll just run optimize on it.

          It still runs better than the plex client on my smart TV’s, but that’s not saying much.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Do you have a similar file to compare it to? Because the only thing I could think of is network bottleneck