For any linuxserver/plex (lscr.io) users who run into the same search-this-thread issue like me, searching for docker and not reading properly (my fault, obviously), this is wrong:
I tried this HEVC preview on my server and I noticed a couple of things:
The transcoding process is rather slow to start compared to x264. I know this is just a preview so I’m assuming there’s room for improvement. (My Jellyfin server on the same hardware is way faster for example). Maybe it’s just the client that wants to fill a bigger buffer, maybe not)
The image quality is stunning, especially the vivid colors. Finally no more tone mapping for HDR compliant devices.
I don’t know if this was the case before since I didn’t use plex for a long time but the PGS subtitles are rendered nicely on the iOS player; they do not seem to be scaled down with the video, great work for that! That’s something your competitors are not very doing well.
Nothing seems to work on the web player. I only get a black screen with sounds but I did not look into more details this issue.
Thank you for moving in the right direction again. Maybe when the transcoder will allow a quick seeking without having to wait for this yellow spinner to disappear, a switch back to plex could be a reality.
Plex doesn’t give the option to use transcoding other than the transcoding built-in to the tuner if you have an HDHR Extend. Please give us this option. I have it explained more clearly here
I think you misunderstand me. In the first post it explicitly states that HEVC encoding applies to DVR recording.
Please note the following: HEVC encoding is limited to hardware encoding only, and thus requires a Plex Pass. It can be used for streaming transcoding, DVR recordings (if Tuner settings setup and configured to transcode, see here for more info), and media optimizations.
Those with an HD Homerun Extend are not given the option to enable hardware encoding in the first place, and this are not able to test this feature of HEVC encoding. This needs to be fixed on the DVR Settings side, but it affects our ability to test the HEVC encoding feature.
@dtn25 since HD Homerun Extend previously did not have access to the plex transcoder this is considered new functionality. When this was first requested I filed a ticket for it, however it needs to be prioritized/scheduled alongside other features/bugs/user requests
I got hit by the “7M bug” again (I’ve since decreased the limit from 7.5Mb/s to 7.4Mb/s) but this time I can share more observations:
Neither the player nor the server/transcoder crashes; the transcoder will actually continue producing segments (until the buffer is full)
Therefore neither the server logs, client logs nor ffmpeg -loglevel verbose contain anything useful (no mention of a disconnect either, just that the state switched to “buffering”)
It does not happen when AVC hardware transcoding is used (before the backseat mods accuse me of being OT again)
It seems to only happen on my TV (Tizen app) or when MPEG-DASH is used for transport
It doesn’t seem to happen on my Android phone nor Kodi player, or the player is able to recover (both buffering and hitting the bug look the same but in the bug scenario the player does not recover); my phone was buffering a few times (maybe WiFi related) but it always continued playing
It may or may not be related to CPU usage (probably not)
It may be related to DTS: I tested two 4KHDR videos on my TV (DTS-HD and EAC3) and the DTS died pretty early while the EAC3 continued playing (tested for half an hour); in both cases the audio got transcoded to AAC (it could also just be a coincidence)
It has nothing to do with subtitles and probably also not output resolution
I have no idea where this magical 7.4Mb/s comes from and why it works. My current theory is that the server and client somehow lose the connection to each other / the video and audio lose sync and that the Plex Samsung TV client has some bad software that can’t deal with that. I just don’t get why limiting the bitrate to that specific number helps. Hopefully HEVC leaves beta soon so more people can check it out and we maybe get some reports similar to mine.
Is there a page which shows the experimental server changelogs and download links? I can’t seem to find them aside from looking just around the forums for users to post the link.
@JaceMayer Honestly, I have no way of testing AMD internally so my intention is to make sure the rest of HEVC is solid before spinning up a dedicated forum preview for AMD.
