EAC3 transcoded when too many subtitle tracks!

[lachancp]

Server Version#: 1.23.4.4775
Player Version#: 5.18.1 Platform 5.5
Samsung 2020 q80t (QN55Q80T)
EAC3 is being transcoded when there are too many subtitle tracks!

I have some Movies and TV shows that transcode EAC3 and some that don’t on my Samsung TV (I am using the TV speakers - nothing attached). Couldn’t figure it out!

Latest test was to remove all but the English srt - and amazingly the EAC3 now direct plays. One of the titles had over 30 subtracts, another had 20. Not sure what the minimum is for directly play to still happen - but I guess I’ll just remove unneeded tracks going forward.

I still think this is a bug and have left the Logs attached and referenced one file that Direct Played and one that didn’t. I did not include an updated log - figured the issue was pretty clear.

• Aquaman direct plays both audio and video. Server Log around 22:11:55.476
• Jupiters Legacy trancodes audio. Server Log around 22:11:13:531 (after removing unwanted subtitle srt the file now direct plays - no logs showing this attached)

Noted in Server Log there are lines stating the Player decision was to Direct Play (or Not in the case of Jupiter’s legacy).

Not sure when this started - believe its fairly recent
Plex Media Server.log (471.9 KB)

[FordGuy61]

Jul 06, 2021 22:11:13.615 [0x7f0f84ca3b38] INFO - [Plex for Samsung] [lachancp:unsrqde2y15q1oqwnlgacgbo] Cannot direct play with protocol: http, codec: hevc. Reason: Stream count exceeds 30 streams.

The limit is 30 streams total: video + audio + subtitles.

Remove the unnecessary streams using MKVToolNix or similar tools.

@lachancp

I still think this is a bug

Samsung limitation. See this thread:

Issue with direct play / direct stream if "stream count exceeds 30 streams" always transcodes

Tizen 5.5 devices have some bad player issues. Specifically, files with more than 30 streams fail to direct play and must be direct streamed, and DASH playback stutters like crazy and must be played over HLS. However, if a video is direct streaming over HLS, direct playing subtitles causes issues with drift, so the subs need to be transcoded. Congratulations, you’ve hit the bug jackpot! Your best bet, is to drop some streams so there’s less than 30 in your file, and that should allow you to dir…

[lachancp]

Thanks for the reference to the issue.

I removed all the non-English srt streams with mvtoolnix and is well.

I had one show with less than 30 streams causing the issue as well. Haven’t done any further testing on it - but in general, I’ll just remove in-needed streams going forward.