I’m having an issue with when streaming to both the IOS and Fire TV plex apps that doesn’t allow direct streaming on certain files on a remote server. I’ve confirmed all setting as for original quality and I’ve only disabled Direct Play. If I stream the same file from a local Plex server I get direct streaming with a straight copy of video and audio. If I play it from the remote server I get a high bitrate reported and both video and audio are transcoded. The file is a mp4 with h264 video and two audio tracks 1 aac 2 surround(dts, ac3, etc)
I suspect that this has something to do with the bitrate but I don’t know what setting is not limiting me on the remote side. I’ve attached my iOS log showing the two requests of the same file. 1st is remote and 2nd is local.
My remote setup is ACD+Plex Server+Plex Client. Direct Stream is much smoother than direct play in this configuration for some reason. Plex Web app through Safari does not have the transcode problem and direct streams properly.
I just ran a test with both servers now as remote. I’m running two different versions of Plex Media Server. The one that transcodes to remote clients is on 1.5.2.3557 and the other I’ve found performs a direct stream to remote clients is running 1.4.4.3495. I’m not able to get the server logs at this time but I’ll get them later today if needed.
I’ve confirmed that this direct streaming from the remote server is successful under 1.4.4.3495. I rolled back the Plex version and it is no longer transcoding. I’m not sure where to look in the logs to get the proper info to identify what the problem with 1.5.2 is. I see that there is a new 1.5.3 release so I’ll try that and see if the issue goes away.
Same here… new versions of PMS transcodes MP4 with acc audio and embedded subtitles… using only iPad and iPhone… previous versions of PMS didn’t transcode and direct play all movies… I have the same movies and now it transcodes … so something chance in the new releases of plex media server…
