The DVR feature has been working flawlessly for months then something changed.
I am not sure when it started but i noticed the other day that a show i was watching was being transcoded even though my HD Homerun extend was set to highest quality. When i had it show me the overlay details it stated unsupported file container. This was weird cuase i had set it when first configured to already put it into a .MKV container. When i looked into it further the video file itself was already H264 but for some reason it was still in a .TS file container. Why was this changed and when will this be fixed.
I am currently running the latest PMS 1.8.1.4139.
The file format was originally ts. When Plex released I believe 1.7.0 they changed the container to mkv. This change introduced issues with closed captioning and subtitles for users that required them for disability reasons. In 1.7.6 the default container was switched back to ts.
I am unclear as to whether you were watching a recorded show or Live TV as all you stated was you were watching a show. I am not sure if the transcode settings are utilized when Live TV is being viewed or whether it is only used for recordings. I do not own an Extend so can not verify myself.
I am watching recorded shows not live. I understand that ts is the default but there used to be a setting to allow me to force it to save in .mkv files.
i do not need the closed caption and subtitles, but just wish to save recorded/DVR Not live TV to a .mkv file for best compatibility.
At the current time there is no method I am aware of to get recordings into a mkv format other than by implementing some form of post processing on the recorded ts file. Could be a simple process to use ffmpeg perhaps to convert the ts file to mkv. There are plenty of threads on the forum discussing post processing for various operating systems. I an running on Windows and use mcebuddy myself to remove commercials and convert to mp4.
Thanks johnm_ColaSC for the feedback.
I have now found an additional issue not being able to have plex store the DVR files in MKV.
For some reason about 1 in 3 files recorded will not play back on my XBOX one. If i manually convert the container to MKV using FFMPEG there are no issues. The problem i have is that i am running PLEX as a Docker on Unraid which is a bit more complicated when trying to implement post processing scripts.
I would really just like the option to set the container to MKV turned back on in the server for my DVR HW. There are screenshots If others need TS dont make MKV the default and display warnings for them. When i was able to save in MKV containers there were never any issues for me.
On PLEX’s Own website it talks about using MKV containers but this feature is not available or not working correctly with my HDHR Extend any more.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/225877347
Wow this thread has been going on for a while.
As of the 1.7.6 release Plex no longer has the option for mkv files. There were some issues with using the mkv file container and Closed Captioning/Sub Titles. Plex has updated that web page to reflect this change.
I do not foresee the mkv container option coming back as far as I know. You will probably need to investigate setting up a post processing script to use ffmpeg to remux the recording to an mkv or mp4 container. This should not be a heavy processor utilization I would not believe since you are just changing the container object not the underlying h264 codec.
