AndroidTV 0.17.5 - Transcoded Video + Remuxed 7.1 Audio plays like a slideshow

[TheDreadPirate]

IIRC, there is a bug with AAC 7.1 audio, specifically. Which is why setting the audio output to "downmix to stereo" worked as a workaround.

theguymadmax, correct me if my recollection is wrong.

[theguymadmax]

I conducted further testing on 7.1 audio and found the following:

7.1 AAC:
- Direct play: No playback issues occur.
- Video and audio transcoded: No playback issues occur.
- Video transcoded and audio remuxed: Player errors and playback fails
  FFmpeg.Transcode 7.1AAC.log.txt (Size: 8.97 KB / Downloads: 55) .

I also checked if transcoding the video while remuxing the audio would cause TrueHD 7.1 to fail, but the server consistently transcoded both streams instead. This indicates there may be a server rule preventing audio remuxing when transcoding. I didn't test DTS on Android TV due to its known issues.

Based on these findings, I believe it’s worth opening an issue. This could explain the numerous problems with 7.1 AAC media reported in the forum, where the suggested solution is often to transcode to stereo, as TheDreadPirate mentioned. Instead there should be a server-side rule that if a video file is transcoded and the audio has more than 5.1 channels, then the audio stream should also be transcoded.

[RxBrad]

Issue #4038 filed for Android TV client...

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and...ssues/4038

Or should this be a Server issue??

[RxBrad]

Looks like this issue also makes it impossible to Direct Play files with 7.1 audio if they also have image-based subtitles.

There's already a PR in the pipeline for this (!!) that would seemingly fix a lot of longstanding Android TV Jellyfin issues. Just need Niels to OK it.....

[TheDreadPirate]

The workaround for now is to set audio output to downmix to stereo until that fix merged and released.