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.
What’s the full codec and format breakdown of an example problematic file?
Is it something barely supported like 10bit H264? Or perhaps an ass subtitle incompatibility?
Could also just be as simple as bad wifi to the roku.
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-rayIt’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?
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.
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.
Do you have a similar file to compare it to? Because the only thing I could think of is network bottleneck
I was recently having issues with my Roku Premier stuttering on some media. It’s hardwired to the same network as the server.
What fixed it for me was changing the audio output in the main Roku settings to stereo. This Roku use to be setup with a receiver to decode the audio stream but is currently sending audio directly to the TV. I think decoding the audio was too much for the Roku.
