I fully agree with you MovieFan.Plex. There are different situations for different users (and devices like mobile).
I’m NOT saying to not take these things into consideration, just to be smarter about it. The client SHOULD have an overide for just such needs as you just mentioned. HOWEVER:
I think (could be wrong) that this is normally GEO based. For example in the US most Internet isn’t metered in a way we care about to the home. So typically in that GEO location both the server and the client will have similar needs (metering matters or doesn’t). So if besides the choices we have NOW there was an AUTO setting that that took more of this into account it would be the best of both worlds. Auto for example would start at highest quality if NOT on cell network or if user didn’t select the new OPTION/SETTING running on metered connection and would consult with the server to see if there was/is a connection limit. It would also test the local connection on startup for speed. It could then make much better educated choices.
This would stop the server from having to transcode all most all content to clients with the lower 720p/low bitrate option. The server having been setup with upload bandwidth and user bandwidth restrictions handles much of the rest.
Nothing wrong with client options until they work against the needs of the admin and his system. Clients that are “more tuned” to work with the server and the admin’s setting would make a more joyful experience to use.
we want it disabled for one pure and simple reason:
vps hosting, the margins are razor thin
we dont care about codecs 99.99% play fine.
we dont care about pretty pictures, we have file names.
we dont care about bandwidth its almost 2019 not 1990.
we dont care about “enhanced features” just play the file.
we do care about bugs and clogging error logs
we do care about complexity for less technical users
we do care about cpu use because there is so little to spare
we do care about price, which increases substantially having to acquire a larger share of dedicated server.
So your basically ignoring rule 1 of engineering K.I.S.S = Keep It Simple Stupid, while loosing potential customers by the 100’s of thousands.
Let the hosts simply specify transcoding is disabled as part of the package description and offer bigger more expensive packages that have it enabled.
I have the same problem (movies pausing/buffering) that many here have. I dug into it. What I found is that all my mpeg4-encoded files were being transcoded to H264, on EVERY device I use. This was determined by hovering over the active sessions.
The CPU I’m using is a Celeron J3160 in my storage server (Asustore AS6210T).
I tried an experiment. I ripped a movie with H264 encoding. The movie ripped slowly (11FPS instead of ~45FPS for mpeg4), but it was directly played (very smooth). So, I have a solution, but it’s one I can’t use right now.
Solution - Step 1: I’ve got a new computer on the way with much more CPU power. This should make it possible to rip at higher speed. This should allow future movies to be H264.
Solution - Step 2: Buy a NUC8i5BEH1 with 16GB of memory and an M.2 NVMe SSD to use as my Plex server.
This solution should allow Plex to be much more responsive (that SSD is insanely fast) and it should be able to transcode real-time for 4-5 streams. I was considering a Mini-ITX solution with a Core i7-8700 (6-7 streams), but I see the 65W vs. 28W TDP as a potential problem. That’s too bad; I liked the dual GigE on that system.
This just leaves me with one problem. I’d like to bulk-transcode my movies from mpeg4 to H264. Is it possible to use the Plex Transcodeer to do this? Is there a better solution?
MP4 is a container, not an codec.
You can have your file need to be transcoded from the same codec to another. I currently have a stream being transcoded from h264 to h264 because the original file either has to high a bitrate (most likely) or it could be that the ref frames are too high.
What you need to know is why you are transcoding.
My guess based on your “experiment” is that the mp4 file has a high bitrate that the device you are using for the client can’t work with (or you have a bandwidth setting on the client that is causing the transcode because the overall bitrate for the mp4 file is higher than that limit).
When you ripped the movie with the h264 encoding, you did the transcoding ahead of time so the overall bitrate of the file was low enough that the device was able to direct play.
When you say mpeg4 are you referring to “AVI” or “H.264”?
The software I use to create the .mp4 files is WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. The format I use is “mpeg4 + AAC”. In Plex Server, when I hover my mouse over an actively playing movie, I see “Video Transcoding MPEG4 to H264”. I’m sorry, but that’s all the information I have.
That’s what I thought. You are using an old format codec that has “come and gone” and been replaced with better codecs like H.264. That is likely why Plex is transcoding all of this content.
You’d be far better off ripping to mp4/H.264 directly.
That’s planned for when the new computer arrives, as described above.
This still leaves me with one problem. I’d like to bulk-transcode around 1500 files from mpeg4 to H264. Is it possible to use the Plex Transcoder to do this? Is there a better solution?
I’d suggest the conversion scripts I have in the cayars thread. You can tune them to do exactly what you want such as pull subtitles to make them external (more compatible), exclude language tracks you don’t need, etc
It appears to be Windows-focused. I’ll be running my Plex server on Linux (CentOS). What I’ll probably end up doing is tossing together a BASH script to scan the directories looking for .MP4 files with mpeg4 encoding (using ‘find’ and ‘ffprobe’) , then convert and replace (using ‘ffmpeg’). I wasn’t aware of the ffmpeg tools - nice .
It will run on any OS that has python installed. Works on MAC, Linux or Windows.
It’s much easy to just query the DB for that info then to probe every file since Plex has already done it for you. I should have the SQL to do that in the cayars thread.
I USED to have it all indexed but after the forum change it went to sh*t. It’s made that thread less then useful for finding info now which is why I’ve stopped posting new info in it.
This thread has a lot of posts, to pardon me if the answer is in one of them.
I have an issue playing back video files on my Mi Box S. Essentially the majority of video files I use are 1080p 30fps out of my Canon T4i MP4 or Canon S110 MOV. Both are H.264.
Client is Mi Box S, on wired ethernet using a USB dongle. It’s not a wifi issue.
If I play these files through Kodi, they play at full quality, and look awesome, no stutter no delay, etc
If I play though Plex, the quality sucks. I’ve pretty much set all the client side quality setting to highest possible, max everything, play original quality, etc.
What is the issue here - why won’t Plex just play the full quality of the files? Both the video/audio is supported by the player, I don’t expect it to transcode anything yet it looks like it must force some sort of transcoding here which is very very annoying.
I run Plex on a Win10 system, have the latest plex build; and also the latest plex client on Mi Box (Android TV).
Would appreciate some advice on getting this resolved.
TY
There an issue when using an usb/ethernet dongle that I’m looking into. Basically, the app is treating this connection as a remote connection and droping the quality.
I really want to be able to completely disable transcoding. My main Roku player is a capable device, but Plex chooses to transcode video and severely degrades its quality whenever I switch subtitle on!
I just renewed my Plex pass for the second year, but now I’m testing with Emby for a possible switch. Plex in its current state is just not usable with Roku, which is my main playing device.
Depends on the subtitle type. Roku is only going to handle text based subs. Any graphic based subtitles will need to be burned in (transcoded). You can fix this problem yourself by downloading SRT subs for those movies/shows.
Yes, I know that. All my subs are in str format. I even converted them into utf-8 because I’ve read Roku can only display unicode text. But stil Plex burns subtitles for Roku no matter what!
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