Plex - Fix no sound, no subtitles when playing MKV with EAC3 on Panasonic VIERA TX-L32E5E over DLNA and casting to Chromecast Ultra

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Plex - Fix no sound, no subtitles when playing MKV with EAC3 on Panasonic VIERA TX-L32E5E over DLNA or casting to Chromecast Ultra

For some reason, the default player profiles that Plex Media Server ships with are not enabling some - otherwise available - transcoding targets on these devices mentioned resulting in no sound/no subtitles when playing MKV with to multi-channel audio and embedded substitles.

To overcome this, I tweaked the related resources located under \Program Files\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\Profiles on Windows:

• Chromecast.xml
• Panasonic Viera 3D TV.xml.

You can find below the customized files. Also included a more robust version for Chromecast from https://github.com/ambroisemaupate/plex-profiles/tree/master created by @ambroisemaupate.

In addition to this, I've also found it better if the following settings in the Plex configuration were disabled:

• Plex Web > Player > Chromecast: Disable "Force multi-channel audio support"
• Settings > Transcoder: Disable "Disable video stream transcoding".

Please note, these settings may get reverted to their defaults when installing an update.

Sources

• https://github.com/ambroisemaupate/plex-profiles/blob/master/Chromecast.xml
• https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/media#audio-codecs
• https://www.reddit.com/r/bigscreen/comments/vmam39/fix_for_no_audio_codec_issues_when_streaming_from/
• https://support.plex.tv/articles/audio-configuration/
• https://www.winxdvd.com/streaming-video/plex-no-sound-fixed.htm

Chromecast.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Chromecast">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="http" container="mkv" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,mp3" context="streaming" />
    <MusicProfile container="mkv" codec="opus" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
    <SubtitleProfile container="ass" codec="ass" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="8" />
        <UpperBound name="video.level" value="42" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac,eac3,mp3">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="6" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

Chromecast_by_ambroisemaupate.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Chromecast">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <!-- Updated for Chromecast Ultra by ambroisemaupate. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="http" container="mkv" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,mp3" context="streaming" />
    <MusicProfile container="mkv" codec="opus" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
    <SubtitleProfile container="ass" codec="ass" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mkv" codec="mpeg1video,mpeg2video,mpeg4,h264,vp8,vp9,Hevc,h265" audioCodec="eac3,ac3,dca,aac,mp2,mp3,pcm" subtitleFormat="srt,ass" />
    <VideoProfile container="mp4,webm" codec="h264,mpeg4,Hevc,h265,vp8,vp9" audioCodec="eac3,ac3,dca,aac,mp2,mp3,pcm" subtitleFormat="srt,ass" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp2,mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="eac3,ac3,dca,aac,mp2,mp3,pcm" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <MusicProfile container="ogg" codec="vorbis" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg,gif,webp,png" />
    <SubtitleProfile container="ass" codec="ass" />
    <SubtitleProfile container="srt" codec="srt" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="h265,Hevc,vp9">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="3840"/>
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="2176"/>
		    <UpperBound name="video.bitrate" value="75000"/>
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264,mpeg4">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="3840"/>
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="2176"/>
        <UpperBound name="video.bitrate" value="75000"/>
		    <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="10" />
        <UpperBound name="video.level" value="42" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="mp3">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="ac3">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="6" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="eac3">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="6" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="dca">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="6" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

Panasonic Viera 3D TV.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Panasonic Viera 3D TV">
  <!-- Author: Cecil Coupe -->
  <!-- http://service.us.panasonic.com/OPERMANPDF/TCP42ST30.PDF -->
  <Identification>
    <Header name="User-Agent" substring="Panasonic MIL DLNA" />
    <DeviceDescription>
      <Manufacturer substring="Panasonic" />
      <FriendlyName substring="VIERA" />
    </DeviceDescription>
  </Identification>
  <Settings>
    <Setting name="TimelineBufferOffset" value="10" />
  </Settings>
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="ac3,aac,mp3" context="streaming" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />  <!-- Not 100% sure about this; other media servers use wav/lpcm -->
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mpeg" codec="mpeg2video,mpeg4" audioCodec="ac3,mp3" />
    <VideoProfile container="mkv" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,ac3,eac3,mp3,pcm" subtitleCodec="srt,ssa,ass" /> <!-- Customized -->
    <VideoProfile container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="ac3,aac,mp3" />
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,ac3,mp3,pcm" />
    <VideoProfile container="mov" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,pcm" />
    <VideoProfile container="avi" codec="mpeg4" audioCodec="pcm" />
    <VideoProfile container="flv" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="8" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
  <ContainerProfiles>
    <PhotoContainer name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="media.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="media.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
      </Limitations>
    </PhotoContainer>
  </ContainerProfiles>
</Client>