I have a Plex Server running on a Windows 10 x64 Machine (i3) and a Nvidia Shield as the client.
I’ve noticed pretty poor performance when skipping through Recordings especially, but movies as well. I started looking through logs and it showed that I was transcoding everything, which would explain what I’m experiencing. I also noticed that when I try and play .mpg (MPEG2 recordings with my TV tuner), I wouldn’t get video unless I played them through VLC. So I’m missing the MPEG2 decorder, right? I tried to get the MPEG 2 Video Extension in the app store but that didn’t do anything. I eventually got FFD show and directed it to decode MPEG 2 videos only. Now they work in Windows, but i’m still getting the same behavior in Plex.
The logs show Direct Play is disabled.
I tried forcing Direct Play on the Shield, but every time I skipped, it went back to the beginning of the video.
I’m stuck. Help please!
Jonathan
The shield should actually have one of the broader video support ranges. The best way to see what is happening is to look at your Plex Media Server.log and look for the MDE: lines before video playback. They will state exactly why the shield thinks it needs to transcode.
This support article explains how to find your Plex Media Server logs:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250417-Plex-Media-Server-Log-Files
I have had this happen before after an update.
Go to plex setting on the Nvidia shield and turn direct play to auto.
turn local quality to original quality.
see if that fixes it.
**jmckee: **This is what the log says …
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.117 [8148] DEBUG - Codecs: testing mp3_mf (encoder)
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.117 [8148] DEBUG - Codecs: testing aac_mf (encoder)
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.118 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: received PLEX_PROTOCOL_ANY from client, selected protocol hls
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.118 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 6864
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.118 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: E12 - Mercy: Direct Play is disabled
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.119 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: E12 - Mercy: media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.119 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: E12 - Mercy: no direct play video profile exists for http/mpegts/mpeg2video
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.119 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: E12 - Mercy: no direct play video profile exists for http/mpegts/mpeg2video/ac3
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.119 [8148] DEBUG - MDE: E12 - Mercy: no direct play video profile exists for http/mpegts/mpeg2video/ac3
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.120 [8148] DEBUG - Codecs: testing mp3_mf (encoder)
May 04, 2017 11:56:34.120 [8148] DEBUG - Codecs: testing aac_mf (encoder)
So it looks like mpeg2 video with ac3 audio can’t Direct Play.
buba013: I checked and those are my settings on the Shield.
I was informed that mpegts files will not direct play because of the container. This was a change made because with the direct playing ts container seeking caused issues. So to give users the ability to seek through a file direct play was turned off for the ts files.
