HiRes audio (dsd/iso, dsf, flac up to 24bit/196khz) along multichannel sources (wav/dts, flac) will be streamed already (onto iOS)
but seems to be converted to a lossy playback format.
Now I get the point that iOS itself might not be able to nativly play these fomats,
but a Mac would and very capable Android based HiRes Audioplayers emerge more and more,
I am curious …
Would Plex actually play these files nativly if the underlying device would support it (like my Mac ie.) or would there still be work to do, to make it happen ?
Unfortunateley I have no idea how to check if plex/web plays these files on my Mac as HiRes or downsampled.
All audio tracks, whether music or as part of a video are subject to the player’s limitations (what they support).
If using a browser, what formats does it support natively? The same is true for all devices.
All Plex apps first attempt to play the media as requested by the client app (Web or device). The media decision engine (MDE) knows what the device can do. It communicates this to PMS (the server) which knows what the media is/has. It then figures out the best match it can. If this means DirectPlay (no transcoding) then it is played as-is. If formats are incompatible, conversion is required. The client-asserted quality settings (bit rate, etc) are then used and the media (audio and/or video) is converted to comply. This is where DirectStream (video direct play, audio converted) and full Transcode (convert both) come from.
In order to play DTS on Mac, you need Quicktime (or the Safari plug-in) IIRC which should be already setup.
Getting back to DSF (and DTSWAV):
These files are provided by PMS alread (another thread said that this is no implemented - but it is), but you are saying, that PMS most likeley transcodes these files (at least for iOS - since I guess a current iPad is not capable to play that natively).
How and where could I check on weather a file gets transcoded right now ? … logs ?
If I set “Remote Audio Quality” to “original” is that adaptive towards the available datarate (of the current mobile connection) and falls back to lower bitrates (transcoding if conn. gets bad) or would I always need to adjustnthe setting if needed ?
I’m not certain where this question should be directed, but I have a very large uncompressed (AIFF) music library stored on a Synology NAS that I currently play through JRiver’s Media Center using a Mac Mini. The AIFF files are at various bit rates and I’m just wondering if it’s worth my time to bother with Plex as a music server. If the system is going to transcode them to a lossy format, I won’t. Does anyone want to chime in?
I really want to believe that Plex plays native as long as the playing container (Safari, etc.) is capable to do so.
How ever, I do not see, how I would ever be able to check whats happening (logging, etc.).
I mean, how would I be able to judge lossless playback through my MacBooks loudspeakers …
in my quick test jriver playback is much better for flac lossless files than plex … I’m contemplating a combo use case for the best of both as plex is so nice for video files. It would be great to use plex as the controller but jriver as the playback entity on music if that’s even possible
@tutenchamun said:
I really want to believe that Plex plays native as long as the playing container (Safari, etc.) is capable to do so.
How ever, I do not see, how I would ever be able to check whats happening (logging, etc.).
I mean, how would I be able to judge lossless playback through my MacBooks loudspeakers …
Check the status page on Plex Web. If it ways direct play, then it’s playing your files as is…
@transatlantic said:
Plex really should display what audio format/bitrate is being streamed in the app or web browser.
Many of us have been begging for Hi-Res support for years but no love so far.
Again, support just depends on the client you use. If your client device natively supports HiRes audio, then it will play it back.
We could get into the discussion of why plex doesn’t use a custom software decoding player, sure, but for now that’s not what they do, so ios devices are very limited as far as codecs go.
Again, support just depends on the client you use. If your client device natively supports HiRes audio, then it will play it back.
I see this comment made all the time in these forums and it’s very misleading.
My Onkyo DP-X1 supports DSD (eg .dsf) files, but I can’t stream my .dsf files via Plex to the DP-X1. Why not? Well for one, Plex doesn’t actually show my .dsf files in my Plex library.
I was getting ready to post a related question and found this thread instead. My PMS is running on unRAID and my client is a nVidea Shield. I’m trying to play high res multi channel audio.
When I converted to high res multi channel FLAC, the first time I tried to play on the Shield I got broken up garbage. After that the FLAC files would crash the transcoder and wouldn’t play. I restarted the server and the Shield, same result. Note CD’s ripped to FLAC playback fine, though I have never looked to see if it was transcoding.
When I converted to WAV, they play but it is transcoding to AAC (I think, would have to double check). I don’t think an AAC file is near the resolution of the WAV. Wouldn’t a .WAV file be pretty generic? I can’t believe the Shield won’t play a WAV so why is it transcoding at all?
I have not tried .dsf files but can work on that attempt tonight. I think they are supposed to be recognized by PMS but will not play without transcoding, and that lead me to the flac/wav solution as I figured they would at least not need to run through the transcoder engine (but seemingly not the case).
As far as this being driven by the client’s playback ability, here is the only thing I could find on the shield website: SHIELD supports 7.1 and 5.1 surround sound pass through over HDMI. It also supports high-res audio playback up to 24-bit/192 kHz over HDMI and USB and high-res audio upsample to 24-bit/192 hHz over USB. On SHIELD controller, the 3.5 mm headphone jack supports a mic and stereo headphone combo.
I can’t believe the Shield won’t play a flac or wav file natively.
Any thoughts on how to get either of these formats to play at high resolution would be appreciated.
I would like clarification on this too. Is there a “specs sheet” for the various plex clients out there (Android, Roku, Android TV, Apple TV, etc) that lists the various formats and bitrates that are able to be played without downmix or transcode?
The biggest tragedy for audiophiles wanting to use plex is the lack of player advertised quality/bitrates playing at any given point. How hard would it to just share that your FLAC is achieving 96khz and 24-bits at that given moment. If anything that would just make people who are very particular very happy
My Onkyo DP-X1 supports DSD (eg .dsf) files, but I can’t stream my .dsf files via Plex to the DP-X1. Why not? Well for one, Plex doesn’t actually show my .dsf files in my Plex library.
… thats strange, mine does ! Just so … I did nothing special.
