The main problem is that UK Freeview (especially BBC1 HD) can switch content type at any point, even during a programme.
So it can change audio codec, aspect ratio, resolution and (particularly problematic) 1080i/1080p.
This causes mayhem for transcoding. The transcoder relies on knowing what content it’s dealing with at the start of the file. So if you have a file of a recording of a BBC1 HD programme that starts before the main programme, it may be 1080i, switching to 1080p at the beginning. Oops.
There seem to be only two solutions to this:
- Wait for Plex to implement multi-part files, where it logs the change in content type and flags this to the transcoder. Don’t hold your breath - it only seems to affect the UK and Plex have shown how little they care about the UK market.
- Use the Kodi Plex plugin which (for reasons I don’t understand - maybe native AAC_LATM codec support which means it doesn’t need to transcode) doesn’t exhibit the problem
