Like the topic say,
why use slow, heavy on hardware, energy wasting, time consuming transcoding to get media data when there’s MediaInfo which is free? (if not there are tons of other alternatives that will get you what you need) https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo ???
I think there is a misconception.
mediainfo is an excellent tool to inform you which codecs are used within a media file, how many tracks of which type it has etc.
However, it cannot do anything to solve incompatibilities between playback devices and the file or even reduce the bitrate.
I think you misunderstand the question here. Transcoding with Plex is also used to get media info 
Right now Plex is transcoding some episodes that will not be streamed or has any issues with my current hardware.
ffmpeg (which is what the Plex transcoder is based on) can also be used to determine all the infos which you can get with mediainfo as well.
In fact, mediainfo used to be within Plex, but was discarded because it had some flaws and ffmpeg could deliver the same information.
The fact that ffmpeg is used to collect information about your media files does not mean that this information-gathering process constitutes a ‘transcoding’.
Why Plex transcodes something or why it doesn’t, has nothing to do with the choice of tool that is used to determine certain media informations.
Well, tell me what takes so long right now, this is the command
PlexTranscoder.exe -codec:v h264 -i “pathToMediaFile”
What is the context here?
Where did you see this command line?
When does it appear?
What kind of file is this?
This happens everytime a new file is introduced to the database. The command line you can see in Task Manager. It’s a mkv file, an TV episode.
You need to enable debug logging in the server settings.
Then inspect the Plex Media Server.log to see what is being done at this moment.
There could be 2 potential reasons:
Hmm, I thought the “video preview thumbnails” was the video preview thumbnails you see when you browse your media library? I have no use for anything other.
So if I disable this open I will still get video thumbnails of movies and episodes, YES?
You will get stills from a video, not video thumbnails.
The difference is explained in the article I linked to.
Besides, you can tell Plex to only generate those video previews during server maintenance, so it doesn’t slow down your server while you are using it.
If you read the description anywhere else, these u call video stills are referd too as video thumbnails, there go the misunderstanding 
If you disable the video thumbnails, you won’t get video thumbnails.
You will only get stills - i.e. photos.
And these are call video thumbnails, not stills 
No, they’re not called video thumbnails.
You were saying?
We are talking about Plex here.
There are certain terms which have been adapted to refer to certain features in Plex.
Right now, the term ‘video preview thumbnails’ in Plex means exactly what is described in this article https://support.plex.tv/articles/202197528-video-preview-thumbnails/
And not what wikipedia says.
How about ?
I said, anywhere else, video thumbnails is this, not referred to as video stills. No reason arguing, this is how it is.
I will say due, Video Preview Thumbnails is the right reference as it is just that. For me it was confusing either way, now I know.
Again, what we are talking about here is how other developers, other ppl reference what is, and what is not a video thumbnail, thnx for playing have a good day.
Plex is not Office, Plex Inc is not Microsoft.
