Choppy playback with VC-1 encoded BD rips

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.25.9.5721
Player Version#:

It seems when playing a movie encoded with VC-1 it buffers every 5 seconds or so. Watched Back to the Future and Big Lebosky. Some questions:

  1. Do they ever re-release these movies in different codecs?
  2. Is there anything I can do other than re-encode the file?
  3. If not, can anyone recommend a free encoder and settings I can use? Quality is priority over file size.

I play BD rips to mkv served from my Diskstation running Plex to my Sony 900h Plex app on the tv → ARC to receiver.

Thank you!

2

VC-1 must die. Seriously.

The Plex transcoder only runs decoding of VC-1 in single task mode. If your system doesn’t have hardware support for decoding VC-1, its CPU can be overloaded by this task. Considering your server hardware, this is the explanation for the issue.

Unless you are using only Plex clients which can decode VC-1 on their own (there are not that many), there is no alternative to recoding the file. If you do it right, you will end up with a file that looks as good as the original with far smaller file size and bitrate.

3

It’s shocking to me that after using plex all this time, I am just encountering this. Ok, so encode it us. Can you help me with settings? I have a dvdfab license and am somewhat familiar with handbrake. I’m just ocd with the settings. I get too much in my head. But I own the discs so I guess I can just experiment at will.

4

There are no universally applicable encoding parameters.
The type of movie and its quality are a big variable here. e.g. cel animation, feature movie, lots of grain all play a role here.
The size of your screen and the type of client hardware you use on the largest screen is also of importance.
You want to keep it compatible with the majority of clients, without wasting too much storage space.

In Handbrake, start with the “HQ1080p30 surround” preset.
Then modify it by

  • turning off deinterlacing if not necessary (i.e. if the source file is already progressive)
  • disabling the denoising filter if the source is clean
  • set the encoder preset to “very slow”
  • set the Encoder Tune to “Animation” if you have a traditional cel animation movie (NOT for 3D computer graphics animation)
  • lower the Constant Quality to 19 or 18, depending on the graininess of the source. (lower number=bigger file size – lots of grain=pick a higher number)
  • check the audio tracks and subtitle selections

There are a lot of ways you can vary your process. If you want to go crazy, use Topaz Video AI to denoise and sharpen older movies (requires a hefty computer and lots of testing).

You can also use MKVtoolnixGUI to combine the recoded file with untouched original audio tracks from the source file.

Or employ Subtitle Edit to convert PGS and VOBSUB subtitles into SRT format, which is much more compatible with many client types.

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