Channels & viewing

[1DayAfterAnothe]

@GoPenguins 

Yea... I notice when I tried to open recompressor it wouldn't load and said I needed to update. I guess you have no choice but to update if there is an update? Anyway.... I've spent a couple of years making sure everything I have on Plex direct plays...I never use subtitles and always use stereo or AC3 5.1.... If anything has AAC 5.1 I re-encode the audio because I know plex will transcode it via Roku Ultra.... I don't even use force direct play. I just use direct play (auto) and allow direct stream...but everything I check is direct playing both audio and video....I do not want my server to ever have to transcode anything.. Been using Plex for maybe five to six years now. Using Plex is definitely a huge learning curve over the years.

It sounds to me like you're saying as long as things direct play (both audio and video) on Roku nothing will be red...I'm here to say that's not the case. I've verified that the red files are direct playing and not direct streaming....

but this program is genius once I've figured it out (LOL) thanks to your help..

It really is super fast and takes no time to fix any problem files that are direct playing but still showing red. I think I've got almost everything sorted now... Although I'm not understanding the colorspace thing... Is that like burned into the file or something? Say, for example: You select the profile to remove color header...you run that... Now, all of the elements are GONE, right? So then you RUN QUERY AFTER removing all of the elements.... and it STILL says BT.709.... this is where I'm confused... If you removed all of the elements...shouldn't that be gone?

No big deal... It obviously is working for me so I'm happy... Just still slightly confused

[GoPenguins]

The colour header is an additional thing.  It's really not needed.   Colorspace will be how the file was encoded. That being said if you have files that were at some point transcoded/encoded incorrectly you could get either muted colors or the red push.   And I've seen this, when I play an HDR 4k into a Roku Ultra, (and my projector is a 1080p which doesnt support HDR) the ultra doesnt map the colorspace and I get a muted color appearance.  So I have to preconvert my 4k videos to 1080p.

Colorspace basically defines the number of levels available to a color or the color model used.   So if you are changing from bt2020 to bt709 you have to map the colors using some method, like mobius, hable or a simple clipping.    FFMPEG will do it and recompressor has some profiles to do that.

[1DayAfterAnothe]

@GoPenguins 

Gotcha...thanks for all the help....Hopefully Roku fixes it but until then...this little program is so fast... if I run into something that's RED... I'll run it through this and I'll be good 🙂 

Take care

[2ka]

@1DayAfterAnothe,

Yes, yes yes!  That is the whole point, and what makes this problem difficult to understand.  If the Plex server remultiplexes the file, either  to Direct Stream or transcode the audio it will reconstruct the color elements and put them back in the header before sending it to the Roku!  And so the red bug comes back.

Of course the color elements don't reappear in the copy on the disc drive, just in the copy sent to the Roku.

This also happens even if the original was in an MP4 container.  If it gets Direct Streamed, the server will remultiplex it into an MKV container that has color elements in the header.  And so the red bug comes back.

The only way to perfectly work around the bug is to Direct Play files that have had the color elements stripped.  Or to Direct Play MP4 files.  The files also have to contain an audio track that is compatible with your equipment, or they will get remultiplexed anyway as part of the audio transcoding process.

[2ka]

@GoPenguins,

I actually don't strip the color info if the original was in BT.2020.  If you play such a file on HDR equipment, it will play correctly.  If you don't, Plex transcodes it and does the colorspace tonemapping using the H.248 encoder, which is immune from the color bug anyway. 

Unfortunately though, tonemappping isn't perfect.  And even more unfortunately, Plex's H.248 tonemapped transcodes are in 1080P, so 4K resolution is also lost.

[GoPenguins]

If you use Recompressor, it also won't strip a bt2020, it automatically skips stripping in that case

[2ka]

@GoPenguins,

Super cool program.  Thanks for pointing us to it!

[1DayAfterAnothe]

@2ka 

It is a really cool little program. I'm slow to figure something out sometimes but once I do I'm golden. My problem was I needed to check and uncheck a few things for it to work properly...which is illustrated in the screen caps he posted....I'm definitely KEEPING this if/when I run into something red...it can be fixed in seconds with this 🙂 (as long as your file is direct playing, as we discussed)

[kcossel]

Does anybody know if the 2022 Roku Ultra still has this issue?  https://a.co/d/5jRR805

[1DayAfterAnothe]

@kcossel 

Yes - I'm pretty sure that any Roku that has DolbyVision/HDR will have this bug...