Topic, please update clients (Android, Android TV, FireTV) to allow native AV1 playback without transcoding if they have chips (IE. S905X4) that support it.
PMS now supports it, we need clients to also (I thought that other request would handle both PMS and clients… guess not, they closed that other feature request)
Yup. A number of clients have beefy enough CPUs that they can do software decoding if even if they don’t have dedicated hardware. dav1d runs pretty much everywhere.
The web client also doesn’t support it, which is a shame because pretty much all the browser vendors do.
Here’s to hoping this is already planned and getting ready to roll out progressively in 2023.
I’m waiting on Plex to support AV1 in the clients before I start using AV1 in my library (duh), so it would be really cool to get this feature!
The crazy thing is that my client CAN do it already. If I change it to FORCE direct play on my TV, Roku will happily play every AV1 test file I’ve thrown at it. It just doesn’t do it automatically.
That seems like a relatively easy thing to fix, doesn’t it? (NOTE: We aren’t asking for transcoding … fail the play if the client doesn’t support it!)
+1
So they implemented serving an AV1 file, but didn’t implement any support for the clients to play in an AV1 format (even if the client natively supports it)?
So as of current, if you have an AV1 file it will ALWAYS be transcoded unless set to force direct play?
Direct play doesnt even play them natively consistently. Ive read some people saying it worked, then others saying it doesnt. Then in a thread a plex employee said it was a bug. Frustrating if the client device can play the files but Plex servcer still wants to transcode them.
Seems new iPhone 15 supports AV1 hw decoding now. What does that mean for AV1 support now on Apple devices? I assume they could add native support and on apple devices it would leverage hardware and on others it would use software decoding? Any ETA on this support? Would love to switch to AV1 for everything but looking for broader support before making the switch…
Vote added, with the A310 gpu’s being so cheap, there is now a perfect chance to add AV1 encoding/decoding to your plex server hardware.
I really hope this gets looked at now
AV1 is already supported in Youtube, so it should be possible to enable hardware decoding in Plex too.
Here is an article with a list of all apple devices supporting AV1 decoding:
It’s about time to support this awesome codec!
This comes down to what device u use and if it supports av1. I can direct play av1 on my onn 4k pro but not on my shield tv
Using Google TV streamer, which include hw decoding for AV1. However Plex Android TV client doesn’t list AV1 as a supported direct-play codec… ?
I would be very grateful if this could be implemented. I have Plex on a number of devices on Windows and Android, and the Android apps are inconsistent and want to transcode all AV1 content
AV1 → Plex App Windows → Direct Play
AV1 → Plex App Google TV Streamer → Direct Play
AV1 → Plex App Google Pixel Tablet → Transcode
AV1 → Plex App Google Pixel 9 Pro → Transcode
The transcoding shouldn’t be necessary on the Android app as all the above devices have AV1 hardware decoding. In fact, I can get AV1 to play with Direct Play on the Pixel Tablet and Pixel 9 Pro by installing the Kodi client and installing a Plex add-on in Kodi, but this is a very clunky way of doing it.
The extra bandwidth needed for the transcoded stream is a big problem streaming to reduced bandwidth environments like airline wifi as well. AV1 Direct Play would solve most of these issues.
Would it be possible to add this feature?
Plex currently only supports AV1 Direct Play but not Direct Stream. So if the audio is not supported by your device, both audio and video will transcode.
My Pixel 9a has no problems Direct Playing AV1 when the audio is supported.
The bigger question is when Plex will add Direct Streaming for AV1 so only the audio transcodes and not the video.
Google added a software decoder via the Play services about a year ago. Even if you didn’t have a SoC that supports AV1 you should be able to direct play it now on your devices. There is probably some other reason you’re getting transcoding in those cases.
