OK, so I’m a long time Windows Media Center user and still am. Been using Emby as it’s a nice platform and also works with my XBox 360 devices which fits into my current setup. As part of this of course all my content is WMV HD content so WMV video and WMA audio. All works, and at 1080p and 5.1 audio with AC3. Basically what the XBox would support fully as far as formats.
So now I am still using WMC for my recorded shows right now but want to watch all my new videos and recorded shows thru my NVidia Shield Pro TV that I just received in the mail. So couple questions:
What would the best container/format audio and video, be that PLEX supports and would play natively on the NVidia Shield Pro TV?
What is the best software, paid or otherwise, for encoding my content in those formats? Not going to assume audio and video are the same.
Note right now even though I’ve been doing ac3 at 5.1 that’s because of the XBox 360. I’m fine with DTS or THD audio if it can be played natively. Also some of my original content is HEVC 4K content.
EDIT: Should also mention native playback not transcoding.
Thanks. Would these all play natively? I edited my above to specify playback without transcoding as I’ve heard thru Plex and NVidia some things like MKV aren’t listed as natively supported but don’t recall how far back that was.
So I’m guessing perhaps MKV (not sure if MP4 is better?) container, a HEVC x265 video and TrueHD audio would be a good way to go? I’ve heard people saying TrueHD 7.1 doesn’t work but 5.1 does but not sure how true that is. Hoping with the above if people things that makes sense, it will not transcode.
The mp4 container doesn’t support HD audio codecs (such as TrueHD), so an mkv container is better suited for that kind of media. The Shield has audio passthrough, so you can have HD audio and pass it through to your AVR or sounder
I have all my media in mkv containers, and have no issues locally. Remote, I’ll usually get a transcode, but that’s due to bandwidth constraints.
This is good to know so will have to go with MKV for my content. Now that I’m getting a more capable device by today’s standards, want to make sure to keep my audio content as original as possible. Brings up some other thoughts.
So trying to figure out my workflow and a thought to chenks comment:
Trying to figure out my workflow and normally it goes like this.
Take my source Blu-ray and extract it with Blu-Ray Ripper.
Now I have the source video, audio, and the subtitles.
If the audio is good, just leave it, else use eac3to to convert to a different format
With the subtitles those are tough. I want to do worst case here. So I sometimes have shows that have forced subtitles but aren’t listed in the files or maybe they don’t exist but people make them in the forums. So I create my own forced subtitles and tweak their placement and look with aegisub and save as ass files.
So now I’m left with the video file. Trying to do two things, first find the best tool free or paid to encode H264/H265, not sure what the cost is at this point until I see it. Second, find the best encoding average for all my movies. So what I did for my 1080p content with WMV was do a constant bitrate of 8,000 kbps.
only other part missing here now is how to put then all back together into a single MKV plus label the forced sub as forced either during the process of putting things in the container or after.
Also note I traditionally use NeatVideo to clean up my content. Removes the grain and reduces the file size. Like to keep this in the mix. Right now I have it for Adobe Premiere Pro and VirtualDub.
With only using HEVC x265 for 1080p content is there any reason not to? Like to create consistent media so I’m not troubleshooting different ways of encoding based on different content. I hear x265 will create smaller media so is there a reason to flip between the two depending on content?
I host all my media remotely on a Gsuite drive and recently started to convert all my new recordings from .ts container to .mp4 with H265. Although .ts direct plays fine on the Shield, the files in H265 are much more “responsive” when played and especially when FFed or RWed, where I can nearly instantly can continue to watch the respective episode, while before with .ts it took some seconds to buffer again. I don’t know if this is related to the mere file size which is lower with the H265 files and the remote location (although I now have Gigabit) or if this has to do with the containers and how they are treated with Plex, but I am much happier with the way things are working with the H265 files.
When I use Blu-Rays, I always only Remux them to mkvs with makemkv without touching anything. This creates H264 mkvs then. I don’t recall them as being as snappy as the H265 recordings I was talking about before, but here also file size is much different, normally a factor 10 larger.
H264 has the advantage of being the standard today, H265 produces smaller size and direct plays fine on the Shield. So if you only serve to the Shield (or other Android devices), there should be now issues with H265. If you serve to other devices which cannot direct play H265, you will get increased transcoding which might or might not hurt your server depending on the specs of it.
rip with mkv, uncheck any unwanted audio/subtitle streams
rename/move to applicable folder/file structure as needed
???
profit
also, regarding hevc and/or 4k you may or may not find this useful @ Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you, read the whole thread there is a lot of discussion.
Thanks for the link, reading away. One question as I read it, right now I have a 1080p television set so if I take my 4k content and keep it as 4k content on PLEX, will that be transcoded or will the TV just resize it as it plays? So technically the NVidia Shield knows what kind of TV you have in the settings, so does it react to the size difference or just pass it thru as long as “it” can play it?
I am pretty sure the plex server will transcode it, because the tv cannot display the 4k, and as far as I know, the shield will not downscale itself.
unless you have a 4khdr tv and a 4khdr receiver, there really isn’t any point to collecting any 4k content other than to ‘stock up’.
you won’t be able to play it on non-4k devices without transcoding (which takes a lot of cpu or gpu+plexpass), and it will look poor (colors washed out) on non HDR screens.
Yeah that’s the part I’m trying to figure out. So will the PLEX server know what the TV is because somehow the PLEX client on the Shield will tell it so or does the PLEX server just know what the client is and says “oh this client can accept 4k content so here it is”?
generally, the plex client app will query/determine what the local device is capable of playing, then the plex client/server will communicate the media details and determine whether to direct play/direct stream (remux)/transcode as needed.
the device itself will generally determine capabilities (ie compatible video/audio) of other connected devices (ie tv/receiver) via HDMI.
Thanks a lot chenks. This is super helpful. So where is the video being converted to 1080p? Is the TV doing this then? Also with the 4K HEVC content do you see any wash out others have seen?
Also why is the TRUEHD 7.1 content being transcoded? My home receiver is a Denon x2200w. I have only 5 speakers but it is a 7.2. Says supports Dolby TrueHD content. Guess asking a similar question to my video one, just the audio side now.
Hey folks. Update. So finally got my first 4k encoded HEVC MKV file. Didn’t have the same luck as chenks with playback on my Shield.
Not only is it transcoding the video but only using one CPU. All 12 cores (hyperthreaded) but just the one. So when you jump forward in the video have to watch it spin for a while. Display is nice but not ideal with the lag transcoding can cause moving around the video.
Note playing this on the Windows 10 version installe doesn’t transcode and my monitor for example is less than 4k by a long shot and only have two speakers but both direct stream.
Thoughts?
Also any help with finding the reason for transcoding? Is there an easy way to find this in the logs?
It’s… complicated.
ASS supports some very advanced text formatting and animation features, which are not all supported by the current implementation on Android. Plus there are still some bugs as well.
Very few subtitles (outside of Anime fan-subs) actually call for these features. So I’d rather avoid them.
There is no need to purge the ASS version from the file. Just convert it into SRT format, then place the srt file beside the MKV. Name it exactly the same as the video file, apart from the name extension.
If you are using Handbrake, avoid pointing it to SRT files. Because it will convert them into ASS format, without asking.
So I just have the HEVC file in the MKV and that did not transcode so that’s good. I also put my DTS audio file by itself back in (original I created also had a secondary AC3). That also didn’t transcode. Before i change the ASS which if works won’t be happy with as I have special formatting and placement which sounds like will vanish, but does it matter if it’s internal to the file or sitting next to it how Plex would react? Transcode or not? Assuming it just won’t auto transcode for a force subtitle.
Note I am going to try the SRT but don’t think it’s going to work. Right now the SRT files are placing the subtitles half on and half off the movie, part on and part in the black borders for the standard subs which are SRT already. This just doesn’t have less formatting looks like it has none or it was all stripped out.
