I’ve just installed Plex and started to stream some movies on my PS4, using the English subtitles. I noticed the video quality gets quite bad when there is same action going on, no matter if I use the PS4 client or the Safari browser. The same video played with Universal Media Player (UMS) via DNLA on PS4 looks much better.
To have a better idea of what I am getting here two pictures:
Quicktime
Safari with Plex
It was like that after a fresh installation, it didn’t change after changing few settings as suggested in other posts. Any idea if I am doing anything wrong and/or how to fix it?
These are the video’s parameters just in case:
Container MP4
Has 64bit Offsets 0
Web Optimized Yes
Video Profile high
Codec H264
Bitrate 949 kbps
Bit Depth 8
CABAC true
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Range tv
Color Space bt709
Duration 2:18:06
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
Frame Rate Mode cfr
Height 536
Level 4.1
Pixel Format yuv420p
Profile high
Ref Frames 5
Scan Type progressive
Stream Identifier 1
Width 1280
1st you should use a proper client for your computer, like PHT or OpenPHT until PMP is released to the public. The web client is really not good. Watch from work (sneakily) or just check a file from the web browser, but to properly watch something you should really use a better player.
Now for your PS4 I have no real idea as I don’t own one but surely there is something in your server settings downgrading the quality of the file to be streamed to your device. So you should check that.
I used the web player just to produce high quality screenshots. I get the same pixelation in the exact same points with all clients I have (Web/PS4 and also PS3).
I see now that if I disable the .srt subtitles the quality on web client seems to match the one from Quicktime. This is on web with subs off:
It’s still pixelated garbage on PS4 though (subtitles is “none”):
For many clients the server needs to create a new video stream when subtitles are requested. In the original file the video data and the subtitle data are separate streams if not even separated files. Many clients can not handle that. Hence, the server creates a new data stream with the subtitles “burned” into the image. That is a complete decoding/encoding process and, hence, taxing on the server.
I think Safari on a Mac (PC ?) belongs to these clients. I do not know anything about Playstations.
I order to ensure that the server handles this request in real time, PMS used settings which compromise quality. That setting is called a preset and the used value is “very fast.” If your server is powerful enough, you might consider to change the value to “fast” or even “medium.” On the support pages you will find instruction for doing this. You will need to edit the Preferences file.
Moreover, subtitles come in different formats. Yours is apparently a “.srt” file. An alternative is called “TX3G.” I heard that clients such as e.g. iOS devices are able to handle these. Hence, you may want to convert your data file. Subler is an application capable of doing that with ease and very fast.
I don’t know, there is something with the PS4 going on. I just wiped out Plex from my Mac with appCleaner (yeah, now I have to rebuild all libraries) and via web the quality with subtitles is fine. With the PS4 it’s like before. But I must also say that the wiping didn’t clear all previous server settings.
Still, since on web it’s working I’d say this is now more a PS4 client issue. Could any mod move the thread?
And thanks everybody for answering!
PS: I deleted and reinstalled Plex on PS4 already. Just in case.
The issue seems to be present, although to a lesser degree, with many other videos. Especially the ones with a low bitrate (Less than 1Mbps. Which, yeah, they are already compressed a bit too much themselves but they look better with other players).
