4K movie being transcoded suddenly after resuming

General Discussions
1

Dear all

I’m new to the Plex community and I have a curious issue that occurred earlier today

I was viewing a UHD file with a TrueHD sound track fine from the beginning via direct play. I had to stop the film to go out.
When I returned to the film it has now decided to transcode the audio to dolby digital and as my server doesn’t have 4k transcode ability the playback obviously isn’t the best.
My question is why would it suddenly decide that it needs transcoding when it was playing direct for 2 hours before I had to take a break in viewing?

Has anyone experienced similar behaviour?

Plex Media Server v1.12.3.4973
Samsung UE55JU6800 Plex app v2.008 UE
Onkyo TX 414NR via HDMI ARC

Thanks in advance

B.

2

TrueHD will always transcode when using HDMI/ARC.

HDMI/ARC does not support lossless audio such as TrueHD & dts-HD. It doesn’t have the bandwidth. It supports lossy audio such as Dolby Digital, DD+, & dts, and PCM, up to 5.1 channels.

Transcoding audio is not a big CPU hit. You do not need “4K transcode ability” to transcode just audio, even if for a 4K movie.

Look at Now Playing status while watching. It will show you if things are Direct Playing, Direct Streaming, or transcoding.
https://app.plex.tv/desktop#!/status/playing

Tom’s Guide has a decent article on HDMI ARC. An included chart, courtesy HDMI.org, provides a good visual on things.