EAC3 causing video + audio transcoding

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.23.6.4881
Player Version#: 8.26.2.29389 (fdca424e)

I’m having an issue where any media with EAC3 audio will result in both the video and audio being transcoded.

The first issue with this is why EAC3 is forced to be transcoded at all. Plex on my Nvidia Shield (2017) is set up to play everything at maximum quality with HDMI passthrough. Additionally my setup should support EAC3 as my TV (un65ku6300fxza) seems to show it supports DD+ and I have things connected Shield > TV (HDMI) and TV > Soundbar (ARC). If it matters, my soundbar is SB4551-D5 and it doesn’t list DD+ support.

My second issue is why EAC3 causes both video and audio to be transcoded. I mainly have an issue with 4k media as my server can’t handle 4k transcoding but it might survive if it were only transcoding the audio. My server can handle 1080p transcoding so EAC3 forcing video + audio transcoding there is fine.

Lastly I noticed something weird: Plex on the Shield will always transcode, but Chromecasting to the Shield will begin with direct play and then quickly switch to transcode. Would anyone know why this might be happening?

I’ve also attached logs of attempting to play from Plex on Shield and Chromecasting:
Plex Media Server Logs_2021-11-27_20-35-02.zip (4.8 MB)

Thanks!

1 Like
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I came into this issue before, then found out if manually set the video be “origianl quality” instead of “auto…”, it will only transcode the audio.

Now most of the time playing normally, sometimes randomly skip some seconds. not sure hw or sw errors, still trying out the new version.

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