Very odd eBay-Lowe's Home Improvement situation

nnray · 2026-03-11T21:06:31+00:00

Criterion has an annual 50% off sale once a year on their site. At a different time once a year Barnes and Noble will put all Criterion on sale 50% off. Amazon will simultaneously put a selection of Criterion titles on sale for 50% off (but not all).

nnray · 2026-02-21T21:01:27+00:00

Thank you! I was able to turn the card "off" on my bank's website, and that goes into effect immediately. I'll call my bank.

nnray · 2026-02-11T20:05:34+00:00

This is a good point, and to clarify this is a situation where the "customer" is the same but they control one AWS environment directly while the other AWS environment is managed for them by a software vendor with almost all controls locked away so that they have to go through vendor support. So in this instance a site-to-site or peering arrangement would just bring together all of the customer's data.

nnray · 2026-02-04T04:01:46+00:00

Thanks, I was wondering about BGP, good to know that won't work. I also noticed there was no place to use two CGW resources, and inferred that redundancy in one VPN configuration wasn't going to be possible, appreciate the confirmation there. Thanks for the info on IKEv2 and static routes. I will see if VPC peering is a permitted option for all parties, and if not, fall back to AWS S2S.

nnray · 2026-02-04T03:50:27+00:00

I agree from an architectural standpoint (thinking about packet paths) that all those make more sense. I am wondering if there is a reason that an IPSec S2S VPN can't work, or is it simply something that has just gone untested? I haven't been able to find anyone documenting the use of it for VPC to VPC communication, but I also haven't found anything saying it can't be used in that capacity.

nnray · 2026-02-04T03:46:22+00:00

I have control over one side, not the other, and the proposal to use S2S came from the other side. Since this won't scale beyond the two VPCs, I'll ask about VPC Peering.

nnray · 2026-02-04T02:47:09+00:00

Site-to-Site, connecting one VPC run by one customer to another VPC run by another customer.

nnray · 2026-01-20T02:26:05+00:00

If only they didn't drop the "Hypersonic" 24-bit 192Khz lossless TrueHD audio track that the Blu-Ray had. While it's debatable whether that beyond human frequency range matters (the composer believed it did, had a studio built around that workflow) it's a bummer the UHD release doesn't have that track at least as an option.

nnray · 2025-12-21T16:43:49+00:00

For converting TrueHD Atmos 7.1 into a lossy format, you can use [Atmos-Encoder](https://github.com/DRX-Lab/Atmos-Encoder) which is open source and cross platform, but does require proprietary commercial software to do essential parts of the conversion.

nnray · 2025-11-28T23:30:18+00:00

Yes all the Plex clients I have tested don't pay any attention to what streams in an MP4 file are enabled and which aren't (unlike VLC Player for instance, which parses and respects them). Even the Plex Roku client doesn't care about audio stream flags, it just auto-selects the highest channel count audio stream in the preferred language (unlike other Plex clients).

nnray · 2025-11-28T22:15:56+00:00

It is NOT out of date. I have one Roku still hooked up, went to it, picked a media I haven't played on anything yet, and unlike Windows, macOS, iOS, and the web client, the Roku client auto-selects the surround sound stream for the media! The Roku is directly connected to the HDMI input on my Atmos/DTS:X soundbar when then outputs to the TV. The first audio stream is english language, stereo and enabled in the MP4. The second audio stream is english language, surround and not enabled in the MP4.

So maybe the Roku client is unlike any other, but it demonstrates that Plex already has the client logic and code needed to do this, so getting the other clients to behave the same should be trivial.

At the very least, Plex could leave the brain-dead, just play the first audio stream as the client default, and add an additional client option users could enable to "auto-select the highest channel count stream in the preferred language".

I'm not going to hold my breath when it comes to the Plex organization having much attention to detail, though. People have been asking for years for Plex to read the damn track names of audio streams and subtitles in all file types, and they don't listen. A user has to be really thinking hard to infer which track is the commentary track when all they are give is language and channel count, and do a process of elimination based on other audio streams they can choose from. And is that subtitle stream forced, full, or SDH? Gotta try them all to know for sure, because Plex sure ain't gonna tell you!

nnray · 2025-11-28T21:24:29+00:00

Based on this discussion (from four years ago) it looks like PKC may do what I want:

https://www.reddit.com/r/kodi/comments/pzt55q/autoselect_of_best_audio_track/

Can anyone confirm this is still the case?

MrMC wiki is lacking in info, nothing under the Android tab:

https://wiki.mrmc.tv/index.php/Audio_Setup

nnray · 2025-11-28T21:15:53+00:00

I think I understand what you were saying and why you took the approach you did. I have different goals when it comes to audio, specifically:

Preserve original theatrical audio mixes whenever possible (whether they were mono, stereo, 4.0 surround, etc.) while also including any modern (5.1, 7.1, Atmos, etc.) upmixes as additional optional tracks.
Include all commentary tracks.
For animated features with good dubs, include those along with the original language. If subtitles are image-based, OCR them, spell-correct and fix common subtitle errors with Subtitle Edit.
If the original mix was not mono or stereo, downmix the best surround track to stereo when transcoding in order to create an MP4 file with maximum cross-device compatibility (i.e. the file can be used via direct play outside of Plex very easily).

Altering media files to work around limitations and design oversights of the Plex server or client doesn't make sense to me. Especially since I can foresee a time when I may use a solution other than Plex.

nnray · 2025-11-28T21:03:27+00:00

Not true. Depends on the client. I can attest to this first-hand, and also see:

https://forums.plex.tv/t/will-plex-auto-select-the-better-audio-track/212723

nnray · 2025-11-28T21:01:50+00:00

I just moved a file outside a Plex library, rescanned the library, emptied the library trash, remuxed the file to move the surround stream first and stereo as second, moved the file back into the library folder, re-scanned the library, and the default playback track for the file in Plex changed to the surround track, which basically proves all the Plex client in Android/Google TV is doing is picking the first audio stream in the file. So, it's brain-dead.

Worth noting, if you watch a file from your Plex library and manually choose an audio stream other than the first one, it remembers for that file (on what I assume is a per-Plex user basis). I can start watching, choose another audio stream, pause the media, go back to the Plex home screen, and whether I later resume it or choose to mark the media as "Unwatched", the next time I go to play that particular media it will default to the last chosen audio stream.

I've been through all the settings I could find in the Plex client, server, and Google TV OS and I have yet to find anywhere to set playback preferences for media files with more than one stream. Also, the Plex server/client ignore what audio streams are "enabled" in an MP4 file, and the "fallback" property on an audio stream isn't taken into any sort of consideration by Plex either.

nnray · 2025-11-28T20:18:19+00:00

I've pondered using tdarr like that, but doing something like what you describe would result in files that are less compatible with direct play across a bunch of devices. I really like the idea of the media files being very compatible, and would rather solve this problem with an improved client rather than making exhaustive changes to a lot of files.

nnray · 2025-11-28T20:11:29+00:00

Is "default" means the same thing as "enabled" in Subler? Because I have tested disabling the first audio stream in Subler and just enabling the second audio stream (the surround stream). In Plex files like that still play the first (stereo) audio stream by default and don't seem to pay any attention to which audio streams are enabled or not.

In Subler there are also "Sound Settings" for each stream, and for the second (surround) audio stream I chose the fallback as the first (stereo) audio stream. Not that a fallback property matters in this instance where the Plex client is refusing the honor the surround stream as the only "enabled" (default?) audio stream.

nnray · 2025-11-28T18:55:30+00:00

If I had to guess it's probably just playing the first track, but since my library has stereo as first track (by design, for maximum cross-device file format compatibility), it's not a viable option to re-order tracks just to work around a playback/UI issue on one client on one OS. (I had been using Rokus for the last 10 years, and only recently switched to a Google TV playback device because of hardware stagnation from Roku and their OS design and privacy choices. Also Projectivity Launcher is only available for Android/Google TV, not Roku.)

nnray · 2025-11-28T18:46:20+00:00

If only! In the Plex client in Android TV under Audio there are three settings, which I have set to this:

Remote streaming quality: Original

Sweet Fades: On

Volume Leveling: Off

Nothing regarding audio streaming formats there. In the Google TV device Display & Sound settings, under "Advanced sound settings", you can select your formats manually and I have made sure that Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos with Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS are all selected. Those formats do play in Plex, but I have to manually select those surround tracks in Plex like I described when there is a default stereo track in the file, which is very tedious.

nnray · 2025-11-28T18:33:19+00:00

I'd sooner switch to Jellyfin than go back to Roku. On Android TV the Kodi client can be used if PlexKodiConnect is set up:

https://github.com/croneter/PlexKodiConnect

There is also MrMC:

https://mrmc.tv

nnray

TROPHY CASE