I understand there are many factors that go into why movies transcode and each player is different. But if my movies are normally 1080p, 11,000kbps, .m4v, 5.1 ac3. What would be the best setting for optimize that would cause the least transcoding. The people that i share with use default settings and have mainly roku, but also xbox or PlayStation, 1 fire stick, and web safari. If you were going to optimize your movies just once which optimize settings would you use to get the most direct play.
MP4, H264 with ACC audio.
@SiscoPlex said:
MP4, H264 with ACC audio.
Do you know which setting under plex optimize that is. They have optimize for tv, for mobile, custom, & original quality. Then underneath Custom is android, iOS, universal tv, and so on. Is there one setting that will take care of majority players.
I believe it would be the android one. I personally do mine before I add them to Plex using Handbrake.
I would optimize one file for android and then check the file to see that it matches the container(MP4), video format(H264) and audio format(AAC).
After that I would test the file by playing it on your clients to ensure it direct plays without transcoding.
After that is tested and confirmed to be the type… then start optimizing the rest if you want.
Can you not instruct them how to change the defaults?
My experience with handbrake, if I have anything I am going to do more than a few times (like optimize for a phone) I create a custom preset.
I then select it before encoding.
@cayars said:
Can you not instruct them how to change the defaults?
I can for handbrake… I do not use Plex’s built in optimizer though so, I know very little about it.
I could even show someone how to use MediaCoder if I felt inclined but they were asking about Plex’s optimizer which again, I know very little about.
I was referring to the player default. So if the users changed to “Original” would you still need to convert?
@cayars said:
I was referring to the player default. So if the users changed to “Original” would you still need to convert?
My apologies Carlo totally misunderstood that one.
50 lashes for SiscoPlex!
The problem with original is none of them have 5.1 sound so it would have to transcode just based on that alone. I know that doesn’t transcode much but my end result is all direct play so plex cloud can have many people watching.
Why don’t you create your media a head of time to direct play? You can create the media so it has an AAC 2 channel audio track as well as a 5.1/7.1 sound track so it can direct play for everyone (bandwidth considering)?
@cayars said:
Why don’t you create your media a head of time to direct play? You can create the media so it has an AAC 2 channel audio track as well as a 5.1/7.1 sound track so it can direct play for everyone (bandwidth considering)?
Because I have a pretty good home theater setup so I want good quality for when I watch. But I share with about 20 people through plex cloud but that only allows you to have 3 transcodes at one time. So even if there bandwidth can handle the bit rate it will transcode on audio, I know optimize for tv takes it down to 720p which may work but it keeps audio it at 5.1 which will transcode. So I’m trying to see if there is one of the other settings that would work better.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to use Plex’s optimize. I meant to do you own optimization before adding the files to plex.
For example you can convert or remux any AVI or MKV to MP4 format. You can create an AAC audio track, mark it as the default first track WHILE still keeping 5.1/7.1 audio as additional tracks.
Just doing that you now have files that will direct play on almost everything as long as the client hasn’t set a bandwidth limit.
I’ve got big screen TVs and sound systems and wouldn’t want to give that up either. But you can prepare your media to work for both you and most of your clients without a sacrifice. Check out the thread in my sig and you’ll find scripts to do just this.
Carlo
