Getting "This server is not powerful enough to convert video" despite server being powerful enough

Plex Players Smart TVs
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Server Version#: 1.19.3.2764
Player Version#: Vizio Plex app 3.13.13

I am using the Plex app built into my Vizio smart TV. When attempting to play 4k content on my 4k smart TV. I receive the following message “This server is not powerful enough to convert video”. The specs of the server are as follows: i5 7600k 16gb of ram and a GTX 1070. I receive the message as soon as I select 4k content. This is an issue I have not experienced before and would appreciate any help.

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Hi 999moon9999,
It’s possible that your 4K video uses a codec that’s not supported by your GPU:

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In this case your CPU needs to do all the work and transcoding 4K usually overwhelms even pretty decent processors, although 4 cores/threads are slowly becoming too few cores for more demanding application. So you’d need to look for the codecs used in the video and see if the GPU can handle it. And did you check if Hardware transcoding is activated?

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Thanks for the reply. Why would it need to transcode if other 4k content direct plays to my tv? I was trying to check the dashboard and see if it was transcoding, but I can’t because it doesn’t even play a second of the movie. As soon as I hit the movie is receive the message. Also could you link the website you used to find the nvenc support?

Thanks

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So this is starting to happen to me as well. Even with a GTX1080 and an Intel i9 9900k. What happens is that the video card spikes to 100% and it only buffers for 5-10 seconds before giving the error. This only happens when a 4k videos is being transcoded down from 4k 10bit H265 to anything else and any other transcode operation is happening. But this is dumb. The i9 has built in H265 decoding and the GTX1080 (with the session limit removed) should be able to handle multiple decode and encode tasks no problem. Why not have the first two sessions hit the video card then “failover” to the 9900k. I’m guessing since the transcoders are 32bit single threading operations. So basically, unless you have an NVIDIA shield (which I use at home) or an Apple 4k (only two devices with gigabit network and therefore can handle full 4k 10bit HEVC streams), your Plex server can only transcode one 4k 10bit stream at a time, regardless of hardware. Does anyone know of a random setting or something I’m missing? Also, the video I’m decoding is not in B frame.

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without logs (plex web > settings > troubleshooting > download logs > drop zip into reply), not much anyone can do to help except try to guess.

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Thanks for your help. Is there a particular log file(s) you need in the zip? They have ip and other PII that I would not rather share online. Possible to redact the logs that help. Thanks again, not trying to be difficult, just smart.

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Checked out your profile. Agreed, at home I have a wired in Shield Pro. No problems. So I always add 40-50GB 4k videos (when available). Have about 15 people that I share with. Happen to be at my parents and wanted to watch a video that is in 4k, they have a Roku ultra (which as you know can’t handle more than 100mbps) so must be transcoded. Fist time running into this issue. Just don’t understand why it doesn’t take 30 - 45 seconds to start the NVDEC session and load the first chunk in to the GPU memory? Once the video starts, the NVDEC./NVEC job sits at about 15-30% GPU usage combined. There has to be setting somewhere that allows the GPU to catch up, cuda works best after the initial memory load.

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