I recently received a Chromebit. I planned to use it as a media streaming device (example: Roku or FireTV) replacement. It works well with all of the major streaming web apps. Netflix, Hulu, AmazonVideo, Crackle, Youtube, Pandora etc. It works flawlessly with PLEX as well, until I play something that has more than stereo (2.0) sound. The video skips and the audio is about 3 octaves too low and going 1/4 normal speed(obviously those are estimates). I have tried many videos and I am sure the issue only arises when the video has 5.1 audio or higher. It doesn't have any correlation with file type, file size, video quality, network speed, or access type (local IP vs. through PLEX domain). I believe the Chromebit is not capable of consuming greater than stereo streams.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? Does anyone know how to fix this (theoretical answers are fine)? I considered converting all of my 5.1 media to stereo. However, that seems very unpleasant as I have around 4TBs as of now (plus, I actually use surround sometimes on one client). It seems like there should be a feature in the server that allows you to always transcode the outbound audio stream to stereo. If there is such a feature, I can not find it. Is that a PLEX pass feature? I found these items in the web player settings:
HTML5 Player
Prefer the HTML5 video player over the Flash player.
Direct Play
Allows the player to play compatible media without any conversion. In most browsers, direct play supports MP4
videos with h264 video and AAC audio. Videos with subtitles cannot be played directly.
Direct Stream
Allows the server to copy compatible audio and video streams without converting them.
Allow Direct Play of AC3 Audio
Allow MP4 videos with AC3 audio to be played directly. Browser support for AC3 audio is limited.
Prefer AAC Audio
Prefer AAC over MP3 when transcoding audio. Some devices, like the Wii U, only support HLS with AAC audio.
The only thing that somewhat fixes it is deselecting the "Prefer HTML5 Player". However, this brings up a new problem. The flash player is sub-par. There are consistent hiccups and artifacts during playback. These new errors manifest on ALL media, not just the non-stereo media. This is not an acceptable solution.
I know that PLEX can transcode surround audio to stereo sometimes from this setting:
Multi-Channel Audio Boost
Boost volume when converting multi-channel audio to stereo.
Obviously that setting wont help me. However, it clearly states: "when converting multi-channel audio to stereo". So how do I make it convert multi-channel audio to stereo always?
Has anyone had this issue?
Has anyone fixed/found a work around for this issue?
Does anyone have any helpful information or hints ?
Any and all information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.