I have a big library of movies and tv shows with 5 or 6 family and friends that remote view. I have always downloaded my content as mkv, ac3 or e-ac3 5.1 Audio for my home theater system. That format works great for me but ALWAYS transcodes to my remote viewers. Searches online always bring back “its hard to direct play remote because it depends on everyone’s else’s hardware etc”
Well I Direct Play makes everyone’s life much easier as far as your equipment, connection etc so I finally figured it out. Takes a little more time on front end but worth it
Download movies as usual. Open that movie file in handbrake. Keep or change the container to mp4 bc mp4 is the universal container that will play on all devices. That’s the video part. If it’s mkv, it will not “direct play”
Now for audio, keep it change the FIRST audio on line 1 to aac. Always make the first one aac because that is the universal audio that is most widely accepted for devices. Now click “add” and add ac3 or e-ac3 , and change stereo to 5.1. This allows you to let your remote viewers watch your video as mp4 w/ aac 2.0 Audio and allows you to pick ac3 or e-ac3 5.1 Dolby at home if you have a surround sound. Mp4 containers can hold more the one audio source.
Last, importantly if your file is 1080p, make sure you allow your remote viewers to view your content in 1080p and make sure they go in their settings on the plex app they are using and select 1080p. This is bc is you download 1080p movies but you only allow them to view 720p content, it’s going to transcode down to 720p.
Thanks for this. I was just going to post a question re this.
I am a new user (non plex pass ATM) and have noticed that my family is viewing remotely (via Plex Samsung smart tv app) and I can see via the dashboard that the file is transcoding. The source file is SD MPEG4 .avi and it seems to be transcoding to H264 and to aac from mp3. The media info for this file is (media bitrate 1056 kbps) and (codec bitrate 902 kbps).
I have about 4Mbps upload. This file shouldn’t need to transcode right ? My net connection is not busy ATM. Can I not control this as I am a free plex user ?
I have set a max upload of 3Mbps but I think this is only for the web interface as it was under: Web client > Quality. Not sure this would have any effect on the Samsung tv app streaming.
there are 2 places that control quality and bandwidth
the server @ Plex > settings > remote access
– upload speed
– limit remote bitrate (set to maximum, this will still be limited by upload and client settings)
the client @ settings (tap top right initial) > quality
– automatically adjust = on
– remote streaming = maximum (for direct play) (if on mobile with limited internet, this may be adjusted as applicable)
– home streaming = recommended
– music streaming = original
Forgot to ad that you cant “ up encode” a file if that makes sense lol. If your original file is ■■■■… don’t try to make it into a flower.
My original downloads are always 1080p dts Audio mkv and I turn them into mp4 aac, e-ac3 Audio.
For example… if your original file is only aac 2.0 Audio, you can’t encode it to magically be ac3 5.1 Dolby. Make sure your original file is at least 5.1 Audio to begin with
as far as converting your files, it all depends on your clients
in many cases, the default quality and bandwidth settings are what causes transcoding
once the quality/bandwidth settings are set appropriately on both the server and the client, then most clients can direct play back most content that fits within a server’s upload.
obviously you cannot direct stream full bitrate bluray or 4k’s over mobile, but if you have fiber+ upload speeds you could stream them to other high speed download clients (that can play back full bluray/4k).
my file in question was: “The source file is SD MPEG4 .avi and it seems to be transcoding to H264 and to aac from mp3. The media info for this file is (media bitrate 1056 kbps) and (codec bitrate 902 kbps).” file 640x272
well for an SD quality file, I would think that would direct play within the 3-4 meg upload bandwidth.
at this point I would guess that either the tv doesn’t like mpeg 4 files and/or the plex quality settings are set really low.
see my first post above and see if they can adjust the quality settings on the plex tv app.
this issue (remote streams transcoding) is an on going problem with plex, because the default client setting for remote streaming are set very low, and unless changed will almost always cause the server to transcode.
since the server can’t force the client to adjust quality, it has to transcode down to the quality requested by the client
basically, it works like
your source file has an ave bitrate, container type, video codec and audio codec
your server has a maximum upload bandwidth, and a maximum allowed bitstream allowed for the file
the client has remote (and local) quality limits
whichever of those exceeds the limit of the server or the client for the file being streamed, or the client is not compatible with a certain container/codec, the server will transcode to make it compatible and/or fit within the quality/bandwidth limits of both server/client.
some clients suck (a lot of ‘smart tv’ are actually pretty stupid) and are only compatible with limited settings like you have in your first post.
other clients can already direct play most things, including mkv and ac3 etc, and if you have those clients then you don’t need to convert any files.
further, perhaps you could just download files that are already in a more compatible format instead of trying to convert other files. (ie don’t download mkv files if they don’t play on your clients, download mp4 files instead)
And even if the file comes already in ac3 audio format… you still need to send it to handbrake
The reason is… you want to encode aac first, then ac3 or e-ac3 second. So you remote clients will see only aac first. You don’t want them clicking on ac3 or the file will transode
So in this case, there does not appear to be any server upload bw or quality settings to limit transcoding, in which case the client must be causing transcoding (either incompatible with container/vcodec/acodec, or client quality/bw settings).
