Direct Play

General Discussions
1

Whenever I look for an answer to Direct Play, I find discussions on how it varies based on what your client can support, the media has to be compatible, and there is no way to set this on the server.

With that in mind, how do you know what is “compatible”. For example, when playing on a Roku 3, is 2.0 Direct Play, or will 5.1 Direct Play, or it doesn’t matter…MKV, or .MP4?. Both TV shows and Movies are H264, TV is typically 2.0, Movies 5.1, TV .MKV, Movies .MP4.

My TV Shows will Direct Play, while movies Transcode. So…is there a set format that I can covert my media to so that it will consistently Direct Play?

Are there settings in the Plex app on the Roku that need to be changed, i.e., Original Quality

thanks…
Mark

2

For the Roku, here is an old thread that describes what can be direct played. The info is still basically correct. https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/776603/#Comment_776603

3

Awesome…thank you.

4

Me again…
What determines “Quality”?. In the Plex Roku app, I can select a movie, select the settings for that movie and under “Playback” see the Quality. My Plex server is remote, if this quality is less than 4 Mbps, with AAC 2.0 audio, the movie will direct play.

5

One additional detail: Any modern Roku that supports 4K should also direct-play HEVC. I don’t believe I’ve had any issues with MP4 or MKV containers.

6

This is how I solved my problem and can Direct Play each and every time. As with everything, there is a degree of personal preference with all of this stuff.

  1. On the Plex Server Settings>Users>Remote Access. limit remote stream to 3 MBps (720p)
  2. On the Plex Roku Client Settings>Video>Remote Quality>Original

*You can set the client to “Original (not recommended)” as the server is limiting the stream to 3 MBps

  1. For each movie to Direct Play, I use AVCONV (FFMPEG) to change my .MKV’s to .MP4’s, lower the bitrate to 2000K, and convert to AAC 2 channel audio.

*Script is below (if i knew how to change it to write the file out to a different directory right from the start instead moving later in the script I would) :slight_smile:

find /videos/movies/_pending/ -type f -name “.mkv" | while read f; do avconv -i “$f” -format mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:v 2000k -c:a aac -ac 2 -strict -2 -sn -movflags +faststart "${f%.}.mp4” < /dev/null; done