So I have a question, not sure if anyone can answer. My movies are all stored in MKV containers, H264 video with AC3 audio. When I watch an HD mkv, it Direct Streams to my XBox One, but when I was an SD mkv it transcodes the H264 video, which doesn't maky any sense. Is it trying to upscale the video to HD? That's the only reason I could think that this might be happening.
Actually, now that I've started ripping my BluRays this week, I've noticed this as well.
My dvds (h264/ac3 in MKV) have the video transcode and direct stream audio.
My blurays (h264/ac3 in MKV) have the video and audio both direct stream.
These were all done with the same settings in handbrake so really the resulting file should have no difference other than resolution/bitrate which seems like I should have the bluray transcoding before the dvd needs too.
Some of my BluRays (mainly older ones) were 4:3 and if left to its own devices handbrake set them to ever so slightly more than 1080 to keep the AR correct.
Plex sees this as a 4K video and transcodes
Maybe something similar going on here?
The reason is because its Transcoding the MKV file. I use mp4tools to convert them from MKV to mp4 and it does direct play. Looks amazing!
Yea, I hate to say it because I sound like a broken recording but stop using mkv or anything else with Plex. Remux/transcode everything to Mp4 and your life will be much better all around.
The reason is because its Transcoding the MKV file. I use mp4tools to convert them from MKV to mp4 and it does direct play. Looks amazing!
This is untrue, it should not be trancoding the mkv, it should be remuxing. If the file is remuxed it will show "direct stream", not transcode. So no, this is not the reason. I'm not saying this because it's causing issues, it just seems odd that my bluray rips direct stream and my dvd rips transcode using the same container and video/audio codecs.
I'm also not saying it's a problem, maybe there is a reason for it, I really don't care about direct play right now, but direct streaming (which takes nearly no cpu horsepower anyway) is relatively important. I refuse to remux my entire collection when it's unnecessary. I have my reasons for choosing mkv over mp4 and with Windows 10 it's very likely to be fully natively supported.
You have to look at the encoding of the file. Is it x.264 at 20mbit or less?
The xBox will sometimes still transcode when it should direct stream. There is something not quite right in the profile settings.
Could you provide the XML output shown when you click the INFO link for a file that transcodes?
All my MKV files that I have transcode (direct stream) but still transcoding!
When its MP4 file it "Direct Play"s without a problem! again this is just for mine.
That is to be expected. MP4 is directly supported by 3rd party clients on the xBox and MKV is not.
So what plex is doing is just repackaging the file. It's not very CPU intensive as long as it's showing "direct stream" since the video isn't being transcoded which is the CPU killer.
You have to look at the encoding of the file. Is it x.264 at 20mbit or less?
The xBox will sometimes still transcode when it should direct stream. There is something not quite right in the profile settings.
Could you provide the XML output shown when you click the INFO link for a file that transcodes?
Here's the XML from a DVD Rip (480p) where it's transcoding the video (though Direct Streams the audio):
And here's a BluRay rip (1080p) that Direct Streams both Audio and Video (both where made with the exact same Handbrake settings as far as video goes, other than the resolution of course).
Oddly, I just noticed that the DVD rips try to Direct Play on my Google TV, but there's actually no picture unless I force it to transcode, where as the BluRay rips will direct play on it just fine. So something IS actually different in the files. Very odd.
You have to look at the encoding of the file. Is it x.264 at 20mbit or less?
The xBox will sometimes still transcode when it should direct stream. There is something not quite right in the profile settings.
Could you provide the XML output shown when you click the INFO link for a file that transcodes?
As requested.
Edit: Main difference I'm seeing that could make a difference here is that the anamorphic flag is set on the dvd rips I've done and it's not present on my bluray rips. Maybe that's it?
topgun.xml (4.44 KB)
As requested.
Edit: Main difference I'm seeing that could make a difference here is that the anamorphic flag is set on the dvd rips I've done and it's not present on my bluray rips. Maybe that's it?
now convert it to mp4 with mp4tools
now convert it to mp4 with mp4tools
Wow, did you read my post?
I don't care if it direct plays, it would be nice to have it direct stream (remux) though. What part of my post where I said I wasn't remuxing my entire collection didn't you get? My question is simply why it is doing a transcode and not direct streaming. On top of that, I'm pretty sure I answered my own question (anamorphic flag, which the OP also has in the file he posted), but was hoping Carlo would comment back because it seems he has some pretty good knowlegde of how the transcoder works.
:ph34r:
ok... will not say a word after this :)
Anamorphic.. I hadn't even thought of that. I completely forgot BluRays are natively Wide Screen but DVDs aren't. I may have a few full screen vidoes that I'll have to test.
Wow, did you read my post?
I don't care if it direct plays, it would be nice to have it direct stream (remux) though. What part of my post where I said I wasn't remuxing my entire collection didn't you get? My question is simply why it is doing a transcode and not direct streaming. On top of that, I'm pretty sure I answered my own question (anamorphic flag, which the OP also has in the file he posted), but was hoping Carlo would comment back because it seems he has some pretty good knowlegde of how the transcoder works.
I would have said the same thing as Zerolim1t to convert this ONE file to MP4 which will only take a minute or two.
There are a couple of differences that "could" cause it to transcode via direct stream. However, I think that file should have direct streamed and Plex is being overly protective and is trying to make sure it will play and is sending it through the transcode process. By remuxing it to MP4 we knock out one big test.
So could you try that for us please?
Also if possible if you could cut the first 5 minutes of the file and post it online using any of the file sharing networks. I'd pull it down and test it to figure out exactly why it's forcing the transcode vs direct stream. It could be the anamorphic flag, the video size (upscaling), headers, container or combination of things.
Carlo
I would have said the same thing as Zerolim1t to convert this ONE file to MP4 which will only take a minute or two.
Seriously wasn't trying to be a jerk, I took what Zerolim1t said as I should just convert my whole library and get it over with. Sorry if I took it wrong, you know how the internet is.
On the other note, I'll remux and clip the first 5 minutes. Like I said, pretty much every DVD I have ripped with handbrake does this. Maybe it's just some setting (use the defaults for video). I'll try to get it posted up in a few hours.
Seriously wasn't trying to be a jerk, I took what Zerolim1t said as I should just convert my whole library and get it over with. Sorry if I took it wrong, you know how the internet is.
On the other note, I'll remux and clip the first 5 minutes. Like I said, pretty much every DVD I have ripped with handbrake does this. Maybe it's just some setting (use the defaults for video). I'll try to get it posted up in a few hours.
I posted something similar in another post but thought I would leave it here to kinda help out a bit. But, basically we have no idea what the MDE (media decision engine) actually looks for on the Xbox One App as that is protected code. However, looking at the System profile we get the following limitations when the transcoder runs (The system profile is usually reflective of what the App side does):
The way the MDE works, is that if something has been decided not to direct play then it runs through the transcoder. As long as the file doesn't hit any of the above limitations it can be copied (direct streamed), but if you hit any of those flags then it will be transcoded.
But as I mentioned we don't know for sure what the MDE is doing, just the hints left in the profile. With other apps (I haven't tried it on the Xbox One) you can modify the limitations to change what the server transcodes into if you really want to try and get it to direct stream vs transcode. I have no idea what will happen though, normally if they limit something on the app side it is for a reason. And normally the decision to direct play is the app side so changes in the profile for that will not do anything.
Here's a link to the file on my onedrive: [Test File](https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=7AD5A8CC4EEF775D!59820&authkey=!ACGRt8qzNrxpzP0&ithint=video%2cmp4)
It's the first minute in an mp4 container. I used the same settings as I use for mkv in handbrake, just changed the dropdown for the container type.
The mp4 container direct plays as expected, which means both the audio and video from the mkv file "should" direct stream. Like I said before, this isn't an issue for me, the file plays fine and looks as it should. It's not taxing my system in anyway either so whatever it's doing isn't much. This is more of a curiosity that I'd just like to know the why of it and the OP made me think of it. I'm going to try a few variations in handbrake and see if I can narrow down what it is.
Edit: Well, that was easy. It is indeed the anamorphic flag, which I believe is what J_McKee was pointing out, if I change the anamorphic setting in handbrake to "none" it direct streams the video and audio. So I guess that answers that part of the question, but the next would be "why"?
