I feel that it would be incredibly useful if Plex Media Server could inform me which of my video files are Direct Play or Direct Stream compatible for the clients I specify that I’m using.
I want to avoid transcoding if at all possible, and I would like a way to easily make sure which of my files still needs encoding so it will Direct Play to an Android Phone, Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, or iOS device. It bothers me when I play a movie or a show and it tells me it must transcode because the .avi container is not compatible or some such.
It can also depend on the setup, not just the client…
Ex; Roku connected directly to TV won’t direct play MKV if audio is DTS but will if it goes to an Amp that supports it…
So it could work but maybe not 100% reliable information…
But Plex could specify that. You could tell it whether you had one, and so it could alter its verification status accordingly.
@chyron8472 said:
But Plex could specify that. You could tell it whether you had one, and so it could alter its verification status accordingly.
There are way too many video / audio codecs / scenarios so it’s not practical at all.
Bumping this, since a mod linked a different thread to this one.
It is practical to know what devices support which codecs/containers, and whether a given file is encoded with one of them or not.
What do you mean “there are way too many”? All Plex would need need is a database entry for one of your devices, which contains its compatible video/audio streams, and compare a media file’s codec metadata to that database entry. Then they could outright tell you whether the file was Direct Playable/Direct Streamable.
Finding out what a given device supports is not difficult.
What device is suppose to support and what it actually does are 2 different stories. We’ve run into many devices that claim to support something, but then doesn’t. Or it varies depending on the exact model (i.e. US version vs European version vs International version).
A lot also depends on if the device is connected to something. i.e. a TV connected to a receiver, a phone connected to a bluetooth headset, tablet casting to a Chromecast or Sonos speaker, or a set-top box connected to a 4K tv vs a 1080p TV vs a 720p tv. Lots of these aren’t known until the moment of playback because and that info may be different from the last playback attempt so it can’t just remember what was used.
Even if a device should support direct play, that could also just fail and PMS would end up having to direct stream or transcode.
tl/dr There is no way to guarantee something will direct play.
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