@chrikee said:
The bitrate will depend on how it was set when encoded. You can check in Plex to find the bitrate of the movie…
Yup. I see it. Looks like 4K raw rips range anywhere from 40 to 70Mbps. That’s a big jump over the 1080p rips which range in the 25 - 30Mpbs range.
Let’s put AppleTV 4K aside for a sec. On my Samsung TV’s native Plex app, 4K MKVs stream perfectly (as long as I don’t choose the TrueHD 7.1 audio channel). I have confirmed they Direct Play with no problems.
I can understand the transcoding issue as soon as PGS subtitles are enabled since PGS are images and not text. What I can’t wrap my head around is why are simple SRT subtitles causing problems? When I play SRTs within the MKV container, Plex continues to report Direct Play; yet I get alot of stuttering. Just curious if you had any thoughts.
I am using wired gigabit on my network end to end for Plex to TV connectivity. I am also using fully managed switches, not unmanaged switches so I am even able to prioritize traffic on the network across all devices and set QoS.
In addition, if it were a bandwidth issue, I would also have issues with the Infuse client on the exact same device.
All of my other Plex clients on the same network, even additional wireless ones, are not running into this. All of these clients work without buffering: Samsung TV, XBOX One, multiple iOS devices, Kodi, PC client (windows, linux, osx), and Infuse TvOS.
The one thing that seems to be working for me right now is to Disable Direct PLAY in the Plex settings on my ATV4K which forces it into Direct Stream mode.
@adambahe said:
Apple TV is 100mbit. Many 4k remuxes hit over 100mbit. I have quite a few 4k HDR files that are 150mbit. I’ve been saying for awhile now Roku etc need to move to Gigabit chips. But they wont.
I am thinking of switching from the Roku 4 to an nVidia Shield. People say it handles anything you throw at it. It has like 25x the computing power and a gigabit link. I think I’ll get it when I switch from my VT60 to something OLED 4k this year.
The one thing that seems to be working for me right now is to Disable Direct PLAY in the Plex settings on my ATV4K which forces it into Direct Stream mode.
I can confirm that having tried this it seems to work great. 4K is direct streaming with no buffering regardless of bitrate. Switching Direct Play back on and the same file was buffering within 2 minutes. Direct streaming also removes the need to convert from mkv to mp4
@sharpie00 said:
I can understand the transcoding issue as soon as PGS subtitles are enabled since PGS are images and not text. What I can’t wrap my head around is why are simple SRT subtitles causing problems? When I play SRTs within the MKV container, Plex continues to report Direct Play; yet I get alot of stuttering. Just curious if you had any thoughts.
Maybe try turning off Direct Play on the Apple TV to see if Direct Streaming works with the subtitles without buffering?
The one thing that seems to be working for me right now is to Disable Direct PLAY in the Plex settings on my ATV4K which forces it into Direct Stream mode.
I can confirm that having tried this it seems to work great. 4K is direct streaming with no buffering regardless of bitrate. Switching Direct Play back on and the same file was buffering within 2 minutes. Direct streaming also removes the need to convert from mkv to mp4
@sharpie00 said:
I can understand the transcoding issue as soon as PGS subtitles are enabled since PGS are images and not text. What I can’t wrap my head around is why are simple SRT subtitles causing problems? When I play SRTs within the MKV container, Plex continues to report Direct Play; yet I get alot of stuttering. Just curious if you had any thoughts.
Maybe try turning off Direct Play on the Apple TV to see if Direct Streaming works with the subtitles without buffering?
Are you guys playing raw MKV 4K rips? I tried turning off Direct Play and it’s still buffering. I checked PlexPy and it confirmed the video was transcoding instead of Direct Streaming. However, the audio channel was Direct Streaming. This is without subtitles enabled and selecting the 5.1 Audio channel in the MKV container.
@sharpie00 said:
Are you guys playing raw MKV 4K rips? I tried turning off Direct Play and it’s still buffering. I checked PlexPy and it confirmed the video was transcoding instead of Direct Streaming. However, the audio channel was Direct Streaming. This is without subtitles enabled and selecting the 5.1 Audio channel in the MKV container.
The ones I tested yesterday were around 25GB in size so they will almost certainly be re-encodes rather than ‘raw’ rips. I’ll ‘get hold’ of a full remux and see how it works…
@chriskeens said:
The ones I tested yesterday were around 25GB in size so they will almost certainly be re-encodes rather than ‘raw’ rips. I’ll ‘get hold’ of a full remux and see how it works…
@chriskeens said:
The ones I tested yesterday were around 25GB in size so they will almost certainly be re-encodes rather than ‘raw’ rips. I’ll ‘get hold’ of a full remux and see how it works…
Thanks bud.
This one works great with Direct Play turned off on the Apple TV
@chriskeens said:
This one works great with Direct Play turned off on the Apple TV
The Direct Stream option has been removed on the AppleTV app, correct? We can only turn Direct Play on/off. Whether I leave it on or off, it transcodes. If I can force it to stream, that may resolve my issue. Or did I miss something?
Thanks for posting the screenshots. That definitely helped.
@chriskeens said:
This one works great with Direct Play turned off on the Apple TV
The Direct Stream option has been removed on the AppleTV app, correct? We can only turn Direct Play on/off. Whether I leave it on or off, it transcodes. If I can force it to stream, that may resolve my issue. Or did I miss something?
Thanks for posting the screenshots. That definitely helped.
Yes I believe only Direct Play can be turned off. With it off it should automatically revert to direct streaming as long as the codecs are supported (the one I used… the 10-bit HEVC video stream goes direct but the audio was TRUE HD and therefore required a transcode). I think if subtitles are involved then it transcodes anyway (maybe).
@chriskeens said:
Yes I believe only Direct Play can be turned off. With it off it should automatically revert to direct streaming as long as the codecs are supported (the one I used… the 10-bit HEVC video stream goes direct but the audio was TRUE HD and therefore required a transcode). I think if subtitles are involved then it transcodes anyway (maybe).
I think I may have solved my problem!
I updated my Plex Server to 1.11.1.4730-6967ec0b1 from the Plex Pass downloads.
Using MKVToolNix, I stripped out all the audio channels except the main AC-3 track. I wasn’t concerned with 7.1 since I don’t have a 7.1 setup
I removed all the PGS subtitles and replaced it with a single SRT file.
I repackaged the MKV
Upon testing, both my video and audio direct streamed even with subtitles! The movie loads quickly as well. I did notice there was a slight stutter (only to the discerning eye) in certain spots. I remember reading someone had this issue as well so I’m hoping it’ll be fixed in the next Plex Pass build. I can always re-rip the 4K movie to see if it resolves it.
Leaving Direct Play on or off didn’t make an impact. Both times the video and audio Direct Streamed with subtitles enabled.
So it looks like I don’t need to convert to mp4 after all.
