2 parts for a movie are grouped but only first part plays

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Hi All,

   I have a 2 part movie that sits in a folder inside of the movie folder on my Synology DS411+. The parts are named :

THE_HOBBIT_AUJ_PART_1.m4v

THE_HOBBIT_AUJ_PART_2.m4v

 

It shows up fine in my library, but if I play it I only get part 1 to play then it ends. I have noticed this for all my 2 part films.

 

The movie files are ripped from my own dvd using MacX DVD ripper pro (to create .mpg) then Handbrake to get m4v.

 

Anyone know why this isn't playing correctly?

 

DS411+ DSM 5.0-4528

Plex app 0.99.10.459-008ea34

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Jason

2

There are two possible causes for this:

  1. You are not following the naming conventions (although it seems that PMS is grouping them)
  2. Your Plex client does not support multi-part movies

Please post the question in the forum applicable to your Plex client.

3

As the movie is recognised as 2 parts, the naming convention is not the issue. As for the Plex client, that also seems unlikely as I have the same result from Google Chrome and Safari on my Mac, as well as my Roku.

Any other thoughts?

4

Here is said that not all Plex clients support multi-part movies.

I have an AppleTV with PlexConnect and I can see such movies, although with some differences (compared to single-part movies). Have you tried with PHT ?

6

Why do you create movie files in two parts?

Would it not make more sense to make them a single file?

And why .m4v? Why not .mp4?

My DVD collection includes two films (Lawrence of Arabia, Novecento). Each of these has 2 DVD's. I also have "Live Aid" (4 DVD's). That's why I have some multi-part movies in Plex. All in M4V. They are not a problem in PHT, and also not a problem in AppleTV/PlexConnect, but I was aware that other clients can have problems. If / when I have such a "problematic Plex client" in the future I will rename the parts. Until then I'll stay with multi-part.

The OP may have other reasons to have multi-part movies.

8

Multi-part is pretty common. In Plex, they're referred to as stacked, and I have a lot of them. Plex supports stacked media quite well, BUT not all Plex clients can play back the entire set.

VOTE for this feature to be completed (it's been a couple years in the making) here:

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/47265-feature-request-android-stacked-file-support/

(Click on "Like This" on the first post to add your support!)

9

Thanks Maronism but that's not the issue for me as it does not play anywhere. Unless it's the Plex server on my Synology that is the problem? My iPad can't play it, my Roku neither, nor Chrome on my iMac.

Anyone else have an idea?

Thanks,

Jason

10

I can play my stacked films in Plex Home Theater and in PlexConnect. I have PMS 0.9.11.7 installed.in a Syno that cannot transcode (DS411slim).

11

Old post, but I landed here in 2018 looking for information on this topic, so maybe it’s worth posting this…

I bought The Stand from Amazon for something like $10. It came on two DVDs. Since I started using Plex a couple years ago I rip EVERYTHING to disk to not have to deal with loading disks, the opening crap and commercials, etc…

There are tools like mkvtoolnix to join the parts of a movie, but The Stand comes to about 7GB .MKV files for each part and I think that a 14GB joining wouldn’t work and/or that a HandBrake conversion to .MP4 would still leave a final file size that’s too large to properly play.

Ideally, it WOULD be a single file, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to fly with such a huge file size.