Yeah, I have used Plex media server on windows and on linux.
But making a second library with pre-transcoded files doesn’t really solve my problems, since I already have invested 2 harddrives of 8tb each, which are now full of media, and a laptop with hw decoding support for 4k transcoding worth almost 500 euro. So, in total that’s a 500 euro laptop, and harddrives at 220 euro each, whilst I am in need of a new one. I am in no way able to afford more money then this.
So, that said.
I just want a way to share library’s with others over the internet, a feature that commonly isn’t working when using ISP ‘‘ziggo’’ from dutch location.
Basically I want to disable transcoding support when needed for local network, but that is not possible in Plex. And kodi is not an option, since I cannot use kodi on an Apple TV 4. Also I want to be able to access the hardddrives connected to media server while streaming media.
My laptop connected to the TV with hdmi supports 4k playback, but when I use Plex, 4k playback is impossible.
This is all so frustrating, that I am looking for an alternative, that’s so far does not exist.
Sounds like you want your system to act like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime but don’t want to put the time in like they do.
The Netflix’s of the world prepare their media so it is direct playable. They also create many additional versions of the same media so that real-time transcoding isn’t needed.
Even with all of their money and resources they still have the same obstacles as you and I. Not all media is always going to be correct for every player. Some will be able to play the file as is while others will need a different version.
No different for us. Format your media properly and it will play back directly in your home environment and then you only need to worry about transcoding for remote users.
Again for the hundredth time: Turning off Transcoding if possible won’t make your media playback. It would only give an error “Media can’t be played” or similar. If your server isn’t fast enough to transcode you’ll get an error as well just not as clear or nearly as fast.
Point is that if your media isn’t in a stream-able format that can be played by the device then you need to transcode or just don’t get to play the file.
You could always give DLNA a try. The fact of the matter is Plex was built around transcoding. I don’t see it giving up that ability easily. Now there are occasions where Plex will chose to transcode even when it doesn’t need to. I think there could be some work done to improve the selection of reason why to transcode or not.
The point I think many are trying to make, is they would rather choose not to transcode and have an understable error message displayed, than modifying their media to fit some particular client that cannot direct play a particular media.
A simple message stating something to the effect of ‘server admin has intentionally disabled automatic conversion and your player is unable to stream it directly’.
they have users with either misconfigured clients that always forces transcodes
they have content of different qualities, that direct stream on most clients
they have 4k content that they never want transcoded, most likely due to lack of hardware acceleration support on their particular server
since they (the server owner) can direct stream most or all of their own content, they do not particularly care if if aunt jemima 3 states away can’t play certain content due to being unable to direct stream.
This would all be solved if the server admin could set the transcode streams to zero.
Upgrade the MEDIA SERVER or use a better media format.
Fix the setting on the client once and be done with it
Standardize your media as has been said numerous times
Don’t share the 4K library to anyone who can’t/won’t direct play it
Don’t share to people who can’t direct play your media from an under powered server. You need the “juice” for your own use!
Next?
Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.
Seriously I do get the request. But since there hasn’t been movement by the authors on this, sometimes you just have to try and take matters into your own hands and due what you can.
Yes yes all your response involves the additional cost and/or hundreds of man hours and/or cpu work required for the hundreds/thousands/millions of media and/or server admins affected, versus the the addition of one simple drop down selection, which no doubt would take all of 30 seconds to find and add. (insert armchair development smirk here)
The saddest part about this whole saga, is that there is already an option to limit the transcoder.
All there needs to be is a zero or disabled option added to the list.
Although for more flexibility, I’d personally like to see both a ‘allow only direct play’ and ‘allow only direct stream/play’ modes.
And/or ‘allow only audio transcoding’.
Welp, like all product forums anywhere, this is the official or not spot for customer feedback, and obviously people will continue to ask for things, and devs will either listen, or not.
If you (meaning anyone) don’t agree with other people’s requests or desires, that’s really ok.
They still have the right to express them, as well as you have the right to express yours.
I know that this is old but I thought I would reply anyway. I actually discovered the solution to this issue as well but for some reason I forgot. So when I saw your (old) comment it reminded me. I am playing 4k H265 HVEC files over my LAN. The problem is that the Dolby TrueHD was being transcoded and not the video. Once I changed to AC3 everything works.
It would be nice to be able to set the default audio centrally.
This is an excellent idea, if the client/server where smart enough to communicate which video and audio were available, then serve the most compatible to that particular client.
automatically select most appropriate source and substream for client
then transcode or remux only if needed
This could help resolve both 4k transcodes, and audio transcodes, particularly when there are multiple versions of a media file available (ie 4k+720), and where multiple audio streams are available.
So in my situation, I built a new PC server primarily for Plex, so it can handle multiple transcodes without any issues. BUT, when I’m watching my media locally on my own LAN, I want the best audio/video streaming quality and don’t want it to have to transcode anything. I had a few Rokus, smart TVs and a Amazon FireTV as clients. It was hit or miss as far as transcoding goes sometimes, but the bulk of the time it was just a remux to a different container which uses next to no CPU effort. But I wanted no transcoding…
So I bought an Nvidia Shield TV, hooked it up to my 4k TV, and never looked back! It direct plays everything I have through Plex, including some 4k HEVC DTS-HD/Dolby TrueHD movies with or without subtitles. No more local transcoding, everything I have direct plays just fine. It even direct plays the LiveTV streams from my OTA tuners.
Then came my external friends and family trying to watch some of my hosted 4k content. That killed my server CPU! So what I ended up doing is creating 2 movie libraries, one with the 4k movies, and the other without. Then shared the movie library with 4k content only with my “Home” users locally, and the other movie library with everyone else. This has worked great so far.
Ultimately, I get everyone’s points on this thread, and this does seem like a completely valid enhancement request. While waiting for it to (possibly never?) come, there are usually things that can be done to try and get around the issues though.
I have used another laptop, with direct play 4k files. In plex media player for windows it stutters, and in plex apps it doesn’t play without transcoding. My laptop supports 4k playback, but it stutters. In VLC I can playback without issues… It is plex that is in the fault here
Adjust your settings on the laptop so it doesn’t need to transcode. With 4K any transcoding is a deal breaker. You loose far to much quality to even consider it 4K.
I was playing around with many of the settings trying to figure out how to disable transcoding in my Win10PC Plex Server (currently using two servers - Nvidia Shield and old 4-core Win10 PC because Plex does not agregate TV listings from my two - different- HDHOMERUN Tuners…
Is nice to have the transcoding feature for outside the home viewing, but I do not really use that feature because it becomes a futile exercise due to poor reliability connection that makes video watching unusable for me outside the home.
I basically use Plex exclusively at home as a DVR replacement, but the Win10PC chokes during transcoding and cannot reliable display HDHomeRun mpeg2 vídeos because of the transcoding applied to the original files during transcoding (mpeg2 files pay just fine with VLC but why should I use a separate program just to see my recordings?)
I’m not a developer and will not estimate if disabling the transcoder is an easy task, but your marketing department is missing an opportunity because you can sell the feature of being able to run the PlexServer/DVR on low end hardware (rPI, NAS) for those with LAN connections and ability to handle the mpeg2 streams.
The inability of not being able to disable transcoding on the Win10PC (and lack of basic DVR wake from sleep to record programs in Win10) makes my Plex Lifetime Pass purchase seem like a bad decision now.
How about when the server is transcoding when it genuinely does not need to because the client can indeed directly play the file in question? I’ve got many files that my Roku TV (not Roku box) will play just fine with Roku Media Player if I serve it to the TV in some non-Plex fashion, be that a USB stick or any other method. The TV happily passes through the dts audio to my receiver and my receiver plays that dts audio for me. But if I serve up any of those files to the TV via Plex Media Server & DLNA I get transcoded AC3 audio. My TV knows what to do when it sees dts audio. What is happening between it and Plex to make Plex think that it needs to transcode the audio, I do not know, but it is an unnecessary step because the playback hardware handles it just fine when Plex is removed from the equation. This is a perfect example of why we should have a toggle to turn off transcoding. This is a perfect example of Plex exhibiting unwanted behaviour that does not, in fact, need to happen. It’s entirely possible that something is being communicated to the Plex server to make it think it needs to happen, or it wouldn’t be transcoding, but this is unfortunately an incorrect choice.
Well there is switch. It’s DLNA. Unfortunatelly You will need to use another GUI to play files via DLNA. I recommend kodi (either with plex addon, or plexconnect).
Various reasons why this is still happening: limited player plex sticks to, lack of updates on streaming devices (it’s beyond me how newsfeed is even considered in this situation as feature worth spending time on, or webshows…). Same problem with android shield tv, and up until recently with iOS. Guess unless we won’t vote with Our plex pass it will never change. Basically same problem with every single major platform apart PC.
And Your absolutely right. When You remove plex from this equasion it just works. Even with crappy native platform players. In my case I just switched to kodi… or use plex as and DLNA server serving files.
Well, I’ve been using Kodi for years. Just got the new Roku TV and figured I’d throw Plex on the unraid box to serve files to the TV and turn off the Kodi box (an HTPC I built years ago) for good. You know, one less piece of equipment using electricity. But I guess the Kodi box stays and I can just uninstall Plex from the unraid box since it doesn’t suit my purpose without being able to disable transcoding. Thanks for the reply. Have a good one.
Personally ive been using pms for years, kodi is just a tired piece of bloatware.
Transcoding is basically a must for multiple system types and its not that harsh on servers, unless you are hosting for many users.
In which case i just created purpose built hardware to powerhouse plex operations, i have no issues at all and i serve +200tb of media to pms.
Kodi just plays about everything on almost everything without transcoding. It looks ugly, I agree, but it’s years ahead of plex in terms of playbaack quality, which this game is all about right? I don’t want transcode x265 HDR or dolby atmos video to my UHD TV siting one floor below just because plex thinks it’s brilliant idea to reencode my video most of the time. This device is pretty much capable of playing this stuff straight away, yet plex decides to make my happy because:
it cannot recognize DTS on my receiver (virtually every other player on that device has no problem with it at all - kodi, emby, vlc etc).
I want to enable subtitles at the same time
Plex decides, because of those two reasons, it needs transcode video too. Which is completly out of mind. And starts reencoding original HVEC stream to crappy X264, and by the way, removing HDR
If this is what we are looking for then I’m done I guess. Is asking for having correct playback on high end androind tv too much? I prefer crappy kodi, or emby for that matter. I’m not here for collecting and having nice gui for my library, I’m for WATCHING this. I’m paid plex customer, subsribing montly fee for 1,5 year I guess. Now my evaluation period for emby ends on beginning of dec and I’m gonna switch.
The question should not be wether it should be debated or not.
The question should be if engineers have a respect for their paying customers and supporters, so many of whom look for this feature, continuously request this feature, and are basically told to go fish by engineers, and by you usually to do differently.
Sorry: a user should be able to do what s/he wants how s/he wants.
Let me make this clear: there are no bad reasons for wanting the capability to disable transcoding in Plex. There might be errors, and you might have helped people with your answers. But when you say “why do you want that”, the answer is: because it fits my needs way better. It’s not detrimental to other users, and if Plex is scared of potential confusion by the inexperienced, they can make it slightly difficult to find, like in an advanced tab with warning. Sending users to go fish, never gonna happen? Simply the worst possible answer.
Also, I would like to send a small jab here: Plex engineers have just been spending more than 2 years trying to get the Plex Cloud working, only to cancel the function a few weeks ago. Maybe it’s high time the Plex engineers descendes from their cloud and listen to their users first.
I have tens of examples of x265 mkvs that play without a hitch using Serviio with transcoding disabled. And no, I don’t want and don’t have to, take the time to send Plex the files or whatever. Because what I want is for Plex to allow me to disable conversion. Why why why would I help them, when they refuse to help me? On the exact same files with the exact same equipment (a Portege as server, LG TV as player) Plex’s transcoder would kick in. Absurdly. No need to “prepare” my files with Serviio, they just work. Without transcoding. And let me tell you this: if a file doesn’t work without transcoding, that’s my problem; I don’t mind switching to another file and identify the problem later. And that’s a much lesser problem than having my Portege transcoding when there’s obviously no good reason.
I realize: I make no mistake in the way I handle my media. I made a mistake when I bought a Lifetime Plex Pass because at the time it seemed like a nice project that needed support. I guess Serviio didn’t exist then. But certainly nobody knew how absurdly stubborn the Plex team is.
Overall: catastrophic PR from the Plex team.
