Just curious how many people have a post processing task of transcoding the TS file after the fact. I have HDHR Connect, and I like it in TS format so I can extract the closed captions.
My current setup has TS > MKV taking about 60 min, closer to 100 min to de-interlace as needed. (maybe my ffmpeg needs tweak). But I was curious how others handled it.
Your post is missing information around what Plex clients you use. Some de-interlace better than others (nvidia shield seems to do it well). Anyway, I do post process but I do it outside of Plex so that I can still watch the show immediately after it is done recording if I want to. I use MCEBuddy and I do all transcoding from midnight to 6am. This usually gives the server enough time to transcode that day’s recordings (sometimes not). As you said, I do extract subtitles from the TS and add them to MKV and also save them as .srt. I also commercial flag (I don’t cut though). My server is a 5 year old core i5 lenovo laptop running windows 7 and it seems to do just fine for 99.9% of the use cases. I also ‘shared’ my plex library with 3-5 people and I have not heard them complain about streaming performance etc.
I have plex clients as well as non plex clients which read my files. (Kodi). I have a hybrid system. But my plex server makes a copy of the original file, transcodes it, extracts subs, converts to srt, adjusts for a time sync issues which occurs, then embeds it in a MKV. I have notices that the 1080p shows end up looking weird after transcoding. I may look to start marking commercials, but frankly, comskip filters in the past weren’t doing it well, so I said screw it.
I rarely watch the content that evening, so a 1-2 hour delay isn’t bad. But it can leave a queue on busy nights.
By “missing information around what Plex clients”, I meant what Plex client do you use (Plex on Roku, Plex on Apple TV, Plex Media Player, Plex for Android TV on Shield, Plex for Fire TV etc). Based on the plex client and what the capabilities of the underlying software and hardware, there will be less or more need for the server to transcode.
