Server Version#: 1.24.3.5033
Player Version#: 4.66.1
Hi, I’ll try and describe my setup and a few areas where I could use some help. I have read the great post about the rules of 4K.
Setup: I have a 2016 LG OLED, I mainly used LG Smartshare & Plex that can be accessed via “Photos & Video”. These apps had virtually no settings I could fiddle with when accessed this way. But I rarely needed to, I believe I was direct playing almost every file. Rarely, I had an “unable to play” pop up, I’d check the video/audio codecs and usually a remux of the audio (XMedia Recode) would solve the problem. Main reason I rarely used the PLEX standalone app (meaning not the one via Photos & Video) was browsing thru my folders was not as clear and I wasn’t sure my LG OLED video settings were being applied when I used the PLEX standalone app.
Questions:
Could someone explain the main difference between the Plex in Photos & Video (the one I cannot change settings on, also can’t get info on playback etc.) vs. the standalone app (the one where I can see if I’m direct playing, turn subtitles off etc.)?
The reason I’m trying to improve my understanding & setup is lately I’ve been having trouble playing more and more 4K HDR files. I cannot play them via LG SS or the Plex that I access in same way. I have after a lot of research and trial/error figured out that I can get these files to play via standalone Plex, by turning off subs! My question here is, when I had subs on, even the standalone Plex would just say “cannot play file”…it didn’t give me any clues as to why, luckly I had read about subs often being an issue. How could I better troubleshoot this if it comes up again and its not subs at fault?
Last question, when I used LG SS & Plex via Photos & Video, I felt the playback was inline with my OLED settings (for ex, I turn off Tru Motion aka soap opera effect) but I get the feeling when I playback via Plex standalone, it has it’s own settings or it just does not follow some or all of my OLED TV settings?
Thanks in advance for anyone that can help…also if you have any tips for my setup please share!
1 - That is the TV’s built in DLNA player. This is accessing Plex’s DLNA server, which is just a basic file server.
2 - Sounds like that DLNA player doesn’t like HDR files. For the Plex app, not sure what the issue is. Sounds like you might have the setting enabled to “disable transcoding”. Check your server settings using the Plex Web client.
3 - Plex uses your TV’s settings, it doesn’t change anything. Plex uses your TV’s hardware while the DLNA player is mostly using software so it may do something different from the TV’s hardware settings. i.e. The true motion effect actually scales up the refresh rate of the playback from their normal 24 or 30 frame per second to the faster setting your TV can handle. Turning it off just plays the video back at their regular speed. With Plex, if you play a 60 fps file, it will likely still play at 60 fps so you may notice the difference. The DLNA player may not support 60 fps so is reducing it to slower rate.
If you see a difference with 24/30 fps video, then I have no idea why you would see a difference.
Thank you for this very helpful reply! Just a couple follow up questions…
Actually the DLNA player can play 90% of the 4K HDR I throw at it, the files that were not playing were from the same series. Also, interestingly I compared the MediaInfo details of the file to 2 virtually identical 4K HDR files that do play on the DLNA…all the key codec, bitrate, etc. details were identical or very close. Only a few differences, one was “maximum content light level”, they were much higher in the file that did not play but since I’ve managed to play that file in the Plex app, doesn’t seem to be a real issue. Anyway, I checked my transcoding settings and I definitely do not have anything disabled, I recall testing a non-4K HDR file and the info was saying it was transcoding. One question here, I noticed in my Transcoder settings I do not have some settings available like I see other people have in their screenshots, for example “Enable HDR tone mapping”…I thought I had the latest version, can I update somehow to see these other settings (I am viewing advanced settings btw)?
Thanks for this, good to know. I’m happy with this…I was remembering some initial testing when I got the TV, I’ve tested more now and everything looks good.
In the Plex app, there is an option to enable logging to your server. Enable this, try playing back a file that causes the error, then grab the server logs and post them here for me to check.
Thanks again! I turned on subs, then tried to play this 4K HDR file…I got “unable to play” as before. I found the server log called “Plex Transcode Statistics” at 1:52pm (when I did the test). I’ve attached it.
I scanned thru the log, seems like having subs on forces an Audio & worse Video transcode? Anyway, I’m sure you will understand the log much better than I can.
That is not the correct log. I need at minimum the “Plex Media Server.log” file. Or just get the zip file using Plex Web as shown in the instructions and just post that entire zip file.
Your file has EAC3 audio. Looks like your TV doesn’t support that so it has to transcode the audio. When it has to transcode the audio, subtitles are no longer supported so they have to be burned in. That’s what is causing the transcode.
tl/dr - Text based Subtitles are only supported without being burned in, if the video and audio can be direct played.
Edit - Looks like the app first tried to direct play the file but fails, so it has to transcode the audio, which triggers transcoding the video. This should work, not sure why the error appears.
Hmm, I suspected this as well for EAC3 audio, but I have similar 4K HDR files with that audio codec and they play in the DLNA Plex and LG SS. Also for the subtitles, I tried both versions the burn in and the non-burn in, both led to a fail.
Anyway, there’s enough complexity here that it may not be worth any more time spent on this…I’m very greatful that the non-DLNA Plex can play these files, that’s the key. Also, thanks for all the helpful info to give me an overall better understanding of streaming! We can close this case I think, Plex is definitely a great piece of software!
