How can i force transcoding off so it can only direct play? For over a year now you have a major bug where even though you set it to default to origional quality every time you play a file Plex will transcode it to a lower resolution or bit rate, even though the chrome cast supports playing it nativly in origional format.
you have to manually tap the gear cog and change the quality back to origional every single time you play a show/movie or you get transcoded on… very ugly when you have a 75" TV and see how bad the transcoding is.
how do i hard turn it off so it can never transcode and only direct play?
Its present in both windows and linux server version for all versions for past year or so, I first noticed it around the time that the look was all changed. The bug is also present in brand new installs using latest versions.
only reason i want to disable it is because plex dont seem to fix this bug that everyone has been reporting in other threads. seems to be the only solution to save having to manually select origional quality every time it does it.
They are always addressing issues with the transcoder.
There is nothing anyone can do but wait.
Most of the time, we find media issues which have nothing to do with the actual transcoder.
It does get blamed for a lot of ills which aren’t really its doing.
That all said, Engineering will only address the issues you have. They will not entertain disabling the transcoder and turning Plex into effectively a DLNA player.
The issue is the Chromecast Ultra is capable of direct streaming the movie/show but plex decideds to downgrade it to a lower resolution and transcode… so you have to manually tap on the gear cog and then tap origional quality, then plex sends the direct stream and the quality jumps back up to normal
yes both Windows Server and Linux server has this bug, also on the Synology NAS
its a bug in the server/client not a fault with the end user.
I also note if i use a different client like a DLNA client and connect to the plex server that way it direct streams everything first time fine to the chrome cast ultra, its only when you use the “plex” stream from the server
In order for me to investigate, which I will gladly help you do, I need the following
XML of the item you’re going to play when you recreate the problem for me.
Any settings you have in the player (client) app which aren’t set to “Automatic”
Logging set to DEBUG (do not enable VERBOSE)
Then
Start Playback
Let PMS decide and do what it is doing (incorrectly)
Let it play for 30 seconds
Stop playback
Wait another 30 seconds for processing to end and the logs to flush out
Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs
Attach the ZIP it gives you here, with the XML (Get Info -> View XML)
My thinking is that if it’s a bug with the ChromeCast client. That’s what the server logs will show. If the client is forcing the clampdown, it will show there.
So when i played this it started playing in 720p in low quality, I had to tap on my phone on the gear cog, tap on the quality and set it to “play origional quality 1080p” then screen reloads on TV and its in nice high quality.
Your XML shows the media is 1080p.
What are the Playback settings in the TV app? Is video quality set to “Play Original Quality” ?
Your description of your actions imply it is not.
I still need the log files ZIP you collected above.
thats exactly what im saying, the chrome cast supports this media, its set to play origional/maximum quality but half the time it transcodes it. so every time i watch something i have to always tap the gear cog to make sure plex hasnt decided to transcode it in lower quality again.
This is not just me, it does it on all existing and new installs. and all my friends have the same issue.
you still havnt told me how to send you the log or which one you want
When you are able to recreate PMS incorrectly transcoding that movie, capturing the ZIPped log files, and attaching them, I will look and see why PMS made the decision.
Thank you for that. If you wish to provide the logs in this manner, kindly rewind to the beginning of the actual playback request and be certain to include the lines which denote [MDE] .
This is the Media Decision Engine. Its tells us what PMS has decided to do and, most importantly, why it has decided to do it.
