I’ve converted mkv movies to mp4 and VLC and MediaInfo both show the audio track titles correctly (e.g. “Director’s Commentary”), but Plex Info (and then Plex players) how all of the audio track titles to be the same (e.g. “AC3 (5.1)”.
I’ve tried running ffmpeg on the mp4 to set both the tracks’ title and handler to be correct, but it makes no difference.
I’ve tried adding a .xml with the correct info, but that makes no difference.
OK – How do I get Plex to use the correct audio track titles???
I’ve tested this some time ago with mp4/m4v and mkv files. For mp4/m4v I’ve been using Subler on macOS; for mkv I’ve been using MKVToolNix and IIRC the manually changed track header showed up after re-analyzing the items in Plex.
As long as when I’m viewing the movie using a Plex app (e.g. on AppleTV or iPad) the “correct” track titles show up, I’m ok. Haven’t tried subler yet… hoping to make the time later today.
I figured that ffmpeg should have worked, but setting “title” and/or “handler” does NOT show that track title correctly in Plex. ffmpeg should be setting the same metadata that subler will…???
I installed Subler and tried it setting each the name of each audio track (regular, director’s commentary, and writer’s commentary). Bzzzzt… Plex still shows just “AC3 (5.1)” for all audio tracks. VLC does show each track’s title correctly.
Does anyone know:
(1) What metadata fields are being used by Plex to display an audio track’s name of an mp4 movie?
(2) Is there a way to have an XML file override the metadata used by Plex within the mp4 file?
But of course… Actually, better than just re-analyzing, I removed the mp4 file, scanned the movies, put the new file in, and re-scanned the movies library.
Looking at the movie in Plex Web on the server or using AppleTV Plex, both show the “generic” audio track names.
The Apple TV should at least show the names for audio tracks. Plex Web should show both, audio and subtitle track names.
I have existing items in my library where this seems to be working. Let me review if Plex will still recognize this if I add new media (e.g. ruling out some regression). Most of my files are MKV; I need to check if that makes a difference… though I’ll only get to do that tonight after work.
As long as the streams in a mkv file are compatible with your device(s), there is no advantage anymore to use mp4 over mkv. Apple devices can use mkv natively nowadays.
(1) I thought that sending to AppleTV, Plex had to convert it on the fly… No longer?
and
(2) Most of the mkv files I get are 1080p and then I just convert 'em to 720p (from 2-4G down to 800M-1G to save space) and most media isn’t worth the space
New player hasn’t been doing this for a few years; so definitely no longer the case.
If you have the space, there’s no benefit of transcoding/optimizing your files as Plex for Apple TV will play them directly. Even if you need to optimize for space, there’s no need to transcode to mp4 for compatibility.
If you want to save storage space, there is no way around transcoding. But you can pick the MKV format as target.
Just keep in mind that mkv can accomodate more various codecs than mp4, so keep an eye on those. They need to be compatible with your devices, or the server will start to transcode during playback.
If you keep it at 720p, I think restrict yourself to H.264, Level 4.0 and audio to AAC stereo. This should direct play practically anywhere.
And you can use the stream titles for audio and subs, and the ‘forced’ flag for subtitles in mkv.
