Hi all,
I’m unble or unsure which settings I should use to turn transcoding of movies off on the plex server. I want my TV to do all the processing and transcoding and let my server just simple stream the movie to the TV!?
Any suggesting which settings I should use on plex server level? Or any papers of links on this?
Thanks guys 
Your TV can’t transcode anything. If it can’t direct play the content you’re trying to play on it your server will have to transcode it. If your server can’t transcode it - you’re done.
In player options run video in “Original”
Make sure the client is set to direct play original quality and make sure the files you put on your Plex server are properly formed to direct play and you shouldn’t need to worry about it.
In a nutshell Plex won’t transcode a file unless the client settings tell it to OR the file itself doesn’t meet the requirements of the client itself. Examples that will cause problems:
Client has a setting to limit playback to 4Mb and source file is 12Mb
Client can’t natively play the codec in the source file such as VC-1
There are many reasons but first make sure the client is set to direct play with original quality and start from there.
And if you want to start investigating the reason for a transcode look at the Media Info to discover what’s in the file:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201998867-Investigate-Media-Information-and-Formats
(post the XML information - copy, paste to a message, highlight, click ‘the backwards P’, select ‘Code’)
Then compare what the TV will Direct Play and what you have, then create Direct Play material by:
@cayars said:
Make sure the client is set to direct play original quality and make sure the files you put on your Plex server are properly formed to direct play and you shouldn’t need to worry about it.In a nutshell Plex won’t transcode a file unless the client settings tell it to OR the file itself doesn’t meet the requirements of the client itself. Examples that will cause problems:
Client has a setting to limit playback to 4Mb and source file is 12Mb
Client can’t natively play the codec in the source file such as VC-1There are many reasons but first make sure the client is set to direct play with original quality and start from there.
Hi @cayars,
I have issue with Apple TV direct play remotely, locally is fine. All files are m4v, H.264, ac3 5.1, the only way I can get them to play remotely is to turn off allow direct play in the Apple TV Plex app. and I set the remote quality to something above the bit rate of the source file, then it will direct stream. This is across various PMS’s and Plex app’s. any help would be much appreciated. PS, other app’s (MrMC, Infuse, Catch), iOS, PMP(OS X), WEB, all direct play remotely fine. PMS is running on QNAP TS-251+, 64bit.
Thanks
I’ll have a look into that guys. My tv has the power to play all types of movie files, even 4K 10bit etc. I intent to buy a synology nas that basically streams the file to the plex app running on the tv. Thanks for the info so far, great forum
@x64Man said:
I have issue with Apple TV direct play remotely, locally is fine. All files are m4v, H.264, ac3 5.1, the only way I can get them to play remotely is to turn off allow direct play in the Apple TV Plex app. and I set the remote quality to something above the bit rate of the source file, then it will direct stream. This is across various PMS’s and Plex app’s. any help would be much appreciated. PS, other app’s (MrMC, Infuse, Catch), iOS, PMP(OS X), WEB, all direct play remotely fine. PMS is running on QNAP TS-251+, 64bit.Thanks
On the remote side are they using pass through in order to support the AC3 5.1 sound? If not you’ll have to direct stream the file to get audio their system can understand and use since their isn’t a proper usable audio track in the file. If you add an AAC 2 audio channel as the default along with your AC3 5.1 sound as the 2nd track in the file it should direct play for them and you with a choice of stereo or 5.1 sound depending on system.
Carlo
@cayars said:
On the remote side are they using pass through in order to support the AC3 5.1 sound? If not you’ll have to direct stream the file to get audio their system can understand and use since their isn’t a proper usable audio track in the file. If you add an AAC 2 audio channel as the default along with your AC3 5.1 sound as the 2nd track in the file it should direct play for them and you with a choice of stereo or 5.1 sound depending on system.Carlo
Sorry, forgot, there is a AAC audio track as well, the only device having issues are the apple tv’s with the Plex app. If I enable direct play in the Plex app, on the Apple TV, I get the spinning wheel of death and it comes back to a pre play screen, after a period of time. If I disable it, it direct streams fine, never can I get it to just direct play remotely, like it does on my local network.
Steve
Sounds like something is off. Can you post the XML of a file in question? Gotta be something different in that file causing a problem.
BTW, when you have direct play enabled what is the remote quality setting on her Apple TV?
@cayars said:
Sounds like something is off. Can you post the XML of a file in question? Gotta be something different in that file causing a problem.BTW, when you have direct play enabled what is the remote quality setting on her Apple TV?
I run all my files through iFlicks to get them into Apple friendly format. When I have direct play enabled, I would ideally like to set remote quality to original, but no setting works. Soon as I enable direct play, it’s toast…this is the same for all of my files.
What server version are you currently running?
I didn’t see anything obvious in the XML files to keep them from direct playing but your XML files don’t contain as much information as mine do which is a bit strange (why I asked about server version).
On the Apple TV has someone switched the audio stream? By this I mean has someone by accident chosen to use the AC3 over the AAC track causing it problems? Try playing it again making sure that the AAC track is selected.
Can you try again and this time upload the server logs zip file with a direct play attempt?
I would like to disable transcoding as well. The idea of Plex being able to play anything on anything is great.
But on a Synology NAS transcoding video is simply not possible. Therefore I would like to force direct stream.
Please include this option!
@ilmtr said:
I would like to disable transcoding as well. The idea of Plex being able to play anything on anything is great.
But on a Synology NAS transcoding video is simply not possible. Therefore I would like to force direct stream.
Please include this option!
Check my reply to your other post. In a nutshell, you can’t disable transcoding because you can’t force a player to accept formats it cannot support.
For you guys wanting to avoid transcoding I doubt this will ever happen as it’s the strength of Plex.
Best you can do is make sure your files are in a format that is direct playable and streamable such as MP4/H.264/AAC audio.
Then don’t share to anyone who can’t direct play.
If you don’t have the hardware to transcode the user is going to get an error either way
@kegobeer-plex said:
@ilmtr said:
I would like to disable transcoding as well. The idea of Plex being able to play anything on anything is great.
But on a Synology NAS transcoding video is simply not possible. Therefore I would like to force direct stream.
Please include this option!Check my reply to your other post. In a nutshell, you can’t disable transcoding because you can’t force a player to accept formats it cannot support.
That is not entirely true. Kodi can play the files without transcoding it, so why can’t Plex?? In my case almost everything gets transcoded by Plex and my 2009 Mac mini is not fast enough to do that. Kodi plays the files right away without loss of quality and no stuttering. It is a total shame that Plex can’t play the files. I reinstalled Plex for a while now and I miss it. I used it for years and it worked great. Now it is total s*** in my opinion.
Sometimes maybe Plex could play some files back like Kodi but not always. Kodi works by accessing your files via the local file system. It’s quite different to stream files and have to use specific protocols to do so which can change things.
Kodi also has it’s own player which also changes things.
But if you like the way Kodi plays your files then just load up the Plex for Kodi addon and you can use Kodi to access your Plex server via the addon.
@cayars said:
Sometimes maybe Plex could play some files back like Kodi but not always. Kodi works by accessing your files via the local file system. It’s quite different to stream files and have to use specific protocols to do so which can change things.Kodi also has it’s own player which also changes things.
But if you like the way Kodi plays your files then just load up the Plex for Kodi addon and you can use Kodi to access your Plex server via the addon.
That is exactly the problem. All my files are stored on an external HDD, directly connected to my Mac Mini. When i play the files with Kodi, i cannot use the Plex media server unless i use the Plex plugin. Every file plays fine on Kodi. On Plex media player with the media server installed locally every video is stuttering. Plex does not have to stream the videos because they are on the installed on the same disk…
The Plex Server streams the media to the Plex client. The client doesn’t just go straight to the drive and play from it. That’s the difference between Kodi and Plex - Plex is a media serving system, Kodi is not. The Plex client knows what the host system can support, and then it asks the Plex server for a format that will fit into that requirement.
The thing with having the setting in the client is that if I’m hosting the Plex server on a HW that can’t transcode, or that it can only transcode one stream, I would like to be able to set on the server which users are allowed to stream media that the server is foreced to transcode.
The rationale for this is that I want to be able to set which users are allowed to tax/load my system.
Is there a setting that would allow users only to stream files without any transcoding what so ever ?
This would be useful for OP also as he could set up such a user and disallow transcoding regardless of the settings in the client.
