I also have issues with the transcoded videos - they do not play correctly neither on Android phone nor Ipad. I wonder if anyone has experienced something similar?
The source is MKV 1080p, no HDR. I select “Optimized for Mobile” quality (tried also to set up Custom 4Mbps 720p), conversion uses HW encoding (4x - 5x speed). When I sync the optimized version to both Android phone and Ipad, they do not play. Clicking “Play” starts the player, I can hear ~ 5 seconds of sound, but no video, and then the playback freezes. I’ve produced the device logs and the sample files (original and converted) that reproduce the behavior
Plex Media Server Version 1.27.2.5929
Android device - starqlteue, model SM-G960U1, Android 10, latest Plex app from Play store.
Ipad 8 gen, IOS 15.6, latest Plex app.
How did you do this? There is no option to select a “version” to Download.
I did not express myself clearly, sorry) I ran optimizing for the show with “Optimized for Mobile” settings, and on the devices I select Video Quality 4Mbps 720p HD (High) to download. When I start sync on devices, I see that they download the episodes quickly without conversion, so I assumed that the optimized version is being downloaded.
Actually, that’s still not right. It has to do with the transcode process itself, not playback. Its playing fine. There just isn’t any video info to play. Its a server issue and I’m looking into it.
After the update of the Plex Server to version 1.28.0.5999 I see a different behavior. When I try to download the un-optimized episode, Plex transcodes it on-demand, and the downloaded video can be played normally. Maybe this scenario was also working before, I haven’t tested it. But if I try to download the optimized episode - download fails right after start. I believe the issue is related especially with the optimizing process. plex-log-Vivisector_new.zip (1.3 MB) PlexServer.log (94.9 KB)
Here are the new Plex server log and Android app log
No, I am not able to reproduce the problem. My Shield will transcode that video fine so when I try to download it, it also works fine.
Have you tried re-optimizing the file? It’s possible the files were created with a broken version of the transcoder so downloading them gave you a bad file. Since the transcoder seems to be working now when you download the original, it should be able to create a valid optimized version.
I tried. On my end, it looks like that on-demand transcoding as part of download - works fine, but the transcoding triggered by optimizing (for the same quality) - produces unplayable files. Here are the latest files produced on Version 1.28.2.6151 :
Original: 1080p - S02E10.Original.1080p.mkv - Google Drive
Optimized versions (with different settings, all unplayable):
Not sure if it’s related to whatever was causing the transcoder to not work properly for you, but there was a HW transcoding bug that was fixed in the latest PMS 1.30.0.6486 beta.
Optimizing on Shield produces unplayable files