I can’t see my videos with IOS 13.4

Did you just gloss over the part where I said that they play back fine in iOS13.3 and don't play back on iOS13.4? Or the part where I can play them back in another iOS app (AVPlayerHD fwiw). Unless the new update somehow has upgraded my hardware or AVPlayerHD reconfigures the processing in my iPad Pro it is either a bug or Apple eliminated the functionality.

I’ve figured out the problem. It’s with AAC surround sound audio. My content works if I use AAC 2-channel audio or AC3, but AAC 6-channel audio, which is what most of my videos are, is the problem. Fortunately it’s easy to convert the audio so that it works, but still annoying since I have several hundred videos that will need converting.

It may still be a bug, or Apple decided that AAC surround sound was no longer acceptable and didn’t tell us.

How you encoded them differently?

The top video has a lower profile, 4 vs 4.1. The bitrates and reference frames do match, that's good. Apple devices will reliably support AVC up to 5.1 @ 2.4mb/sec.

The bitrate for the six channel audio on the bottom screenshot is well below what it should be. Same codec appears to be used in both but the bottom one is trying to push four more channels with the same bitrate...

Again, get off the "Bug" train. This is not a bug. If you re-encode that audio to something within actual spec, and it works... not a bug. Tell me more about that six channel audio.

Dolby Digital? DTS? DTS-ES? DTS:NEO6? Dolby Pro Logic iix? Dolby Pro Logic llx? Dolby Digital EX? THX Surround EX? DTS-ES? Dolby Digital Plus? Dolby TrueHD? DTS-HD? DTS-HD Master? Dolby Atmos?.... etc. We haven't even got into the "side audio" stuff.

TigeyRai wrote:

I’ve figured out the problem. It’s with AAC surround sound audio. My content works if I use AAC 2-channel audio or AC3, but AAC 6-channel audio, which is what most of my videos are, is the problem. Fortunately it’s easy to convert the audio so that it works, but still annoying since I have several hundred videos that will need converting.

It may still be a bug, or Apple decided that AAC surround sound was no longer acceptable and didn’t tell us.

You can set up a batch encoding pretty easy. I would just add another audio stream instead of replacing one.

It's smart enough to search for a compatible stream before it gives up.

FFMPEG would sail through that pretty quick.

*EDIT* Misread initial post as I don’t use Apple TV app for anything other than the apps that sync in with it such as Amazon, Disney+, etc. I use Plex mainly for watching anything I haven’t purchased as digital media & ripped from my own personal original Blu-ray/DVD collection (Other than one offs that I might have on a USB-C thumb drive to not mess up the index on Plex)

No issues with my 2018 iPad Pro on 13.4.1 with playing back ANY video thru any app. Ripped MKV/MP4 video plays fine off of USB stick via Files or Readdle Documents, as it does from my Plex servers in my loft over the network in the Plex app. Amazon Video, Vimeo, YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ (for iTunes purchased video including 4K), etc are all fine as well. The only issue with video apps that I have had since buying the iPad Pro a couple of months back is with the ITV Player app that wouldn’t go past a grey screen until last night (ITV must have done something to resolve it at their end as nothing changed here & now works again).

Can’t offer anything other than what has already been mentioned but like most of the issues that get reported on here, some people may be affected & others aren’t with same hardware, software, etc & no real reason to why the problem exists!

MyNameIsOliverQueen wrote:

*EDIT* Misread initial post as I don’t use Apple TV app for anything other than the apps that sync in with it such as Amazon, Disney+, etc. I use Plex mainly for watching anything I haven’t purchased as digital media & ripped from my own personal original Blu-ray/DVD collection (Other than one offs that I might have on a USB-C thumb drive to not mess up the index on Plex)

No issues with my 2018 iPad Pro on 13.4.1 with playing back ANY video thru any app. Ripped MKV/MP4 video plays fine off of USB stick via Files or Readdle Documents, as it does from my Plex servers in my loft over the network in the Plex app. Amazon Video, Vimeo, YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ (for iTunes purchased video including 4K), etc are all fine as well. The only issue with video apps that I have had since buying the iPad Pro a couple of months back is with the ITV Player app that wouldn’t go past a grey screen until last night (ITV must have done something to resolve it at their end as nothing changed here & now works again).

Can’t offer anything other than what has already been mentioned but like most of the issues that get reported on here, some people may be affected & others aren’t with same hardware, software, etc & no real reason to why the problem exists!

No real reason?! You should read the whole thread.

Your Plex server is transcoding audio when streaming to devices with identifiers from Apple/Android.

What container/codecs are you using?

I have been having the same issue that has been discussed here on my iPhone XS Max. I updated to 13.4 and had the issue with "there's a problem loading this content" started. The issue persisted with 13.4.1 and now on the 13.4.5 public beta. I tested the movies that are not playing, on an old iPhone 7 Plus that I still have and the movies play without issue, I even tested them on an old 2nd gen iPad mini that I have and the movies play without issue. These movies are all purchased items also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpw2H9nH3gU

Work around but you will have to download the media player app.

Also I have found these home movies will play if you use Bluetooth

ear buds (Apple). Some posts are seeing the movie won’t load due to the seven channels of audio.

So when downloading if you just make it two channels (PCM) if you have that option.

I have spent a bunch of time testing every iteration and I have come to the conclusion that Apple has removed support for multi-channel AAC audio in iPadOS/iOS 13.4. iOS 13.4 will support 2ch AAC but not 5.1 AAC. Part of what confused me was that Handbrake encodes video packages that will play back in the native TV app, but after looking carefully at the Handbrake parameters, it appears that in the iPad presets they use 2ch AAC along with 6ch ac3.

Considering that Apple has been one of the biggest proponents of AAC, this is a strange and unexpected turn of events. Even though Apple claimed that AAC was more efficient and transparent than ac3, it now appears that since Dolby's ac3 license expired in 2017, Apple has decided to follow that format while removing support for their "superior" solution. oth I am still not convinced that this is not a bug considering that media files with multichannel AAC audio are still able to playback on Mac hardware (including Catalina) and (as far as I have seen to this point) in TV OS and also with VLC or other video playback apps on iPads & iPhones. The issue is obviously not hardware based since it can play on an iOS device and appears to be constrained only to the native player. I am also wondering if this is related to Apple moving the video playback functionality into its own TV app - there are parts of the TV app that still appear to only be half-baked in the separation of audio and video into their own apps.

I have begun encoding all my newer multichannel video clips in ac3, but will likely leave the 10TB of other content in AAC unless I decide I am specifically going to play back on an iOS device. I still hold out hope that this is a bug that Apple will fix, but it certainly appears that it is a low priority for Apple to address. I doubt they will comment on this issue since they have proven over the past few years that they are perfectly happy to abandon some of their own highly touted technologies without any explanation.

I have found that MP4 videos playing through Safari don't work at all now, but they do work using Firefox. I originally had thought this was just a Safari encoding issue, but reading these five pages of comments shows otherwise.

Anyway, MP4 are working great in Firefox, even air played to an appletv, but not in safari.

I should have been more specific and assumed my message would make sense. Sorry.

I have a few terabytes of MP4 that i have legally obtained. I wrote a custom web application based off of the HTML5 video tag, this was years ago... maybe 8 years.. anyway, i play these videos on my ipad and via airplay to an appletv for a very long time. I updated to ios13.4.1 yesterday and the functionally no longer works. But it does function under Firefox.

I hope this clarifies that it appears my issue is directly related to this posting.

Hello,

Have you tried restarting your iPad?

Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/free-mp4-converter/id693443591?mt=12

That one?

All my purchased iTunes content plays fine btw. Just mp4 content I own that worked prior to 13.4 doesn’t.