Cannot direct play through Plex app on LG OLED TV

Plex Players Smart TVs
1

Server Version#:1.16.3.1402 (latest)
Player Version#:2.1.3 (updated 08/21/2019)
LG TV Model: OLED55B6P-U
webOS TV Version: 3.3.4-4315 (latest)

From the Plex app settings:
Plex for LG: 4.11.1
webOS: 3.3.0

I recently set up Plex on my Nighthawk X10 router. Setup was a breeze, a few clicks, and everything seemed to be working. I only have a single TV series I tried downloading/playing, but it appears no matter what I do it always transcodes from 720p down to 480p. The Plex dashboard also shows a duplicate/phantom client (both supposedly the LG Plex app).

When I first start playing through the LG Plex app, the first client shows up in my dashboard (no transcoding), but a few seconds in, once the show starts playing, a second client shows up with transcoding. I’ve attached a picture of what my dashboard looks like.

My router has a direct ethernet cable to my TV, and the hard drives for the server and media are directly connected to my router. I’m a first time Plex user, and I simply have no idea what’s going on. Based on https://support.plex.tv/articles/203810286-what-media-formats-are-supported/, the content I have should indeed be supported for direct playing. It’s an MKV container file, AAC audio, and H.264, but “Is Direct Play” is always false. No subtitles and only a single audio track.

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2

Check for any bandwidth restrictions in the Plex app on the LG TV. Set the bandwidth for local playback to maximum/original.

Please attach the Plex XML for the video. Save the info as a .txt file and attach to your reply. The forum does not accept .xml attachments.

Also, for comparison, try a video that is not H.264 Hi10p format (i.e. 10-bit video). Try one that is High@4.0 or lower (8-bit video).

3

There something not right here.

The Panel specs are suitable.

4

I might be wrong but I’m unaware of any non-computer platform that supports direct play of h.264/10-bit format… h.265/10-bit yes, but not the other.

5

Attached XML for one of the episodes. I also verified in the app I have local set to original. I don’t have any other content at the moment to test. On a side note, although I doubt it would affect anything, does it matter than I have the Plex Media Server running on an SSD and the content on a second traditional HDD? Both are connected directly to the router.

If you had a test video by chance, I’d definitely be willing to load it up and try it out.

episode.txt (2.5 KB)

6

Are you saying the Plex Support article is wrong? I was always under the assumption that H.264 was more commonly supported while few things could direct play H.265, but like I’m said, I’m a newbie to all of this, so I might have just misunderstood something along the way.

7

8-bit yes, 10-bit no.

From:
https://av.community/guides/10-bit-h264/

Currently, you have the following options for playing such content:

  1. MPlayer2 (cross-platform, Windows builds at http://mplayer2.srsfckn.biz). You might want to use SMPlayer as GUI (http://smplayer.srsfckn.biz)
  2. VLC (cross-platform, use the nightly builds at http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/last/). It’s not as bad as it used to be, seriously.
  3. CCCP Beta (http://www.cccp-project.net/beta/) Note that this is currently a CCCP exclusive feature, so you will not get this by simply installing the most recent ffdshow-tryouts.

So, Smart TVs? Not so much.

8

Is there a simple or recommended way to convert from 10-bit to 8-bit and then have it direct play? Or is that not possible without hurting the quality?

9

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