I recently acquired a lovely new TV (LG E6V 2016 OLED). It has a built in Plex client based on WebOS 3.0, which seems functional enough. Sadly it doesn’t have any Cast support which I really miss, so I’m looking at potentially adding a Chromecast Ultra or Shield to the mix. I was pretty much sold on the Shield as a"do everything" solution, before finding it didn’t support YouTube HDR and had weak support for UK channels which was frustrating.
I’m also taking the opportunity to shift to Direct Play as much as possible. I have a pretty solid server that will handle a 1080 transcode or two, but its clearly less ideal, and if/when I start pushing 4k content I really need to be using DP.
I figured it would be relatively simple to work out which clients support what codecs etc, but it looks to be a bit more of a minefield that I expected. As such I’m looking for some feedback on what should work. Based on the content I have today and what I’m likely to have in future, these is the priority in order:
From the Plex support info I’ve read it looks like MKV may be an issue, with MP4 having much better support. However I’m hoping that’s not insurmountable without me switching everything over to MP4.
So will Plex running on any of those 3 clients (WebOS, CCU, Shield) support Direct Play on those 3 combinations above? If not, what’s likely to give me the best support requiring the least changes to my library?
Thanks in advance - I really figured I’d be able to sort this out easily, but with a newborn and toddler my brain ain’t what it used to be…
I think the x265 codec, rather than the container, will be the main issue. Remember also that the audio codecs has to be in a compatible format. If I am not mistaken Plex still can’t transcode just audio and keep x265. If it transcodes audio, it will transcode both audio and video. PMP (on a NUC or such) and the Shield are the two best options in terms of codec support.
Thanks Peter. That’s a subtlety I think I had read but forgot. I can see that being a major factor. Does that mean that getting Direct Play of MKVs isn’t a problem after all? The baseline requirements are for MP4 what what I can tell, but it seems like different clients add further support, though couldn’t see anything that confirmed MKV support on CCU or Shield.
Its annoying that if I install XPlay on the TV its significantly better at DP than the official Plex client.
i think the shield is great; can direct play mpeg2 and VC1 in mkv too. As well as support direct play of VOBSUB and PGS subtitles in MKV (so no transcode when you turn on subtitles). Passthrough of almost all audio formats.
You might find this useful to see what the shield can and cannot do:
Afaik, there should be no issues per se with MKV and x265 on Android TV. The support should be there and has been for a few years. With that said… I am sure there are nuances to this, as with all in life. Issues might happen due to 8bit vs 10bit and a myriad of other (audio codec another as prev mentioned). Sadly, as you’ve encountered, 4K and x265 is still in its infancy. In a few years time you will look at this thread and wonder why it was so hard.
The discussion regarding Plex client and why other clients work better (on the same device) is a slippery slope in to deep technical stuff I am not the person to make perfectly clear. The gist of it is that Plex often uses the player that ships with the device and is often put under limitations that it has (or other limitations that manufactures such as Microsoft puts it under). Other client developers might create their own engine which comes with its own subset of software codecs, thus it might seem as if that client might be ‘better’ but in reality they can’t really be compared.
edit: The little I know of the CCU is that Plex has not (yet) taken full advantage of it. Plex is still aimed for the old standard Chromecast. Thus the result for using that might vary. I would read the subforum of Chromecast carefully before buying one.
I gather from a few threads that the CCU doesn’t have a separate profile, so really isn’t taken full advantage of without some manual effort - a shame. Seems like there’s not a single perfect solution, and as you note there are numerous factors that can throw a spanner in the works.
It seems like Shield would be a good bet in terms of having strong codec support, as well as seemingly good Plex support as well. I’ll likely go that route, but still a shame that it has some specific shortcomings, given that its a good chunk more than the CCU.
@Afullmark said:
i think the shield is great; can direct play mpeg2 and VC1 in mkv too. As well as support direct play of VOBSUB and PGS subtitles in MKV (so no transcode when you turn on subtitles). Passthrough of almost all audio formats.
You might find this useful to see what the shield can and cannot do:
Thanks for the positive feedback. Sadly that link says I don’t have permission - not sure why. Any ideas?
One Shield related query if I may. Whilst on holiday I used a Panasonic TV that had built in Cast support. One key difference from the standard CC was that when casting, it seemingly utilised the TV’s relevant built in apps. As such the TVs remote worked in terms of pause, fast forward etc. This was surprisingly awesome - it meant I could launch a video via Casting as normal, but then control it using the TV remote once it was actually playing. I’m guessing that Shield may well work the same - can you confirm? If so its a major plus point for me over the standard CC, which as we know demands that all interaction be via a phone or tablet.
@Afullmark said:
i think the shield is great; can direct play mpeg2 and VC1 in mkv too. As well as support direct play of VOBSUB and PGS subtitles in MKV (so no transcode when you turn on subtitles). Passthrough of almost all audio formats.
You might find this useful to see what the shield can and cannot do:
Thanks for the positive feedback. Sadly that link says I don’t have permission - not sure why. Any ideas?
One Shield related query if I may. Whilst on holiday I used a Panasonic TV that had built in Cast support. One key difference from the standard CC was that when casting, it seemingly utilised the TV’s relevant built in apps. As such the TVs remote worked in terms of pause, fast forward etc. This was surprisingly awesome - it meant I could launch a video via Casting as normal, but then control it using the TV remote once it was actually playing. I’m guessing that Shield may well work the same - can you confirm? If so its a major plus point for me over the standard CC, which as we know demands that all interaction be via a phone or tablet.
Ah, it’s in the android tv beta forum. You’d have to join the beta program to get access.
MKV and MP4 are just containers, they are completely irrelevant when it comes to transcoding, since if I’m not mistaken Plex will remux on the fly, which requires very little CPU power. What matters is the codec (aka h.264 or h.265) support of the client.
If you have an MKV/H.265 file and the client supports MKV and H.265 then it will direct play. If the client supports H.265 but not MKV then it will direct stream, which remuxes to a different container but doesn’t convert the video. If the client doesn’t support H.265 then it will transcode it, which is what you want to avoid.
