Audio Format of Recordings (AAC LC SBR)

[jayg30]

Hello. I use NextPVR to schedule a Live TV recording. Didn't have a problem for a long time and then a few weeks back noticed I was having issues with playback on my Roku TV and Fire stick 4k Max within the app I use for all my media playback, Plex. I investigated and I think I found what has been going on by looking at the .ts files with mediainfo. The audio track of the recording changed to "AAC LC SBR" which is Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication (commercial name HE-AAC). It had always been just AAC LC. Even now this week the recordings worked Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday where it was AAC LC but on Wednesday it recorded as AAC LC SBR. Thus I'm concluding that Spectral Band Replication (SBR) is either not supported for playback on these devices or Plex app doesn't implement them. However I'm not sure if there is something causing the recordings to change the audio format and causing it to be "AAC LC SBR" or if there is anything I can do to force it on the NextPVR side to just always be AAC LC.

Thanks for any insight.

[sub]

Where is your TV coming from?

For the most part NextPVR just records whatever comes from the source. There are some very rare cases where it'll re-encode audio/video coming from an IPTV source, but other than that, you just get whatever your video source is supplying.

[jayg30]

Where is your TV coming from?

For the most part NextPVR just records whatever comes from the source. There are some very rare cases where it'll re-encode audio/video coming from an IPTV source, but other than that, you just get whatever your video source is supplying.

Thanks, that's what I assumed. It's an IPTV source so I'm guessing the root of the problem is coming from changes being made to the channels stream on their end. Don't think I'll have any luck having the IPTV source change anything. Sounds like NextPVR can't force a change to the audio encoding to not use SBR and instead just use AAC LC. In which case I'll just have to find a different workaround. Not sure if I can easily strip the SBR using ffmpeg or something.

I'm not 100% but I suspect the Fire Stick 4k Max does support playback of the audio format. I think the break in the chain is Plex. But I have little faith they'll address it or even acknowledge it considering nobody else is going to have my issue or tell them about it. I quickly tried MX Player and the recordings with AAC LC SBR audio work fiine as long as audio decode is set to HW+ or SW.

I have an older family member that watches the recordings who I had taught to be proficient in using Plex. So was trying my best to not make any changes for them.E

[sub]

If you want to post your logs after attempting to watch one of these IPTV channels, I could at least check if it's one where NextPVR has had to reencode.

[mvallevand]

Why not try native NextPVR clients for Roku and Android? This sounds more like a Plex transcoding question than a NextPVR problem.

Martin

[jayg30]

Why not try native NextPVR clients for Roku and Android?  This sounds more like a Plex transcoding question than a NextPVR problem.

Martin

I'll be entirely honest, wasn't aware there was a client lol

FYI, Plex doesn't even attempt to transcode, just throws a failure message to playback the file.