I’m looking at Plex as a way to watch my Blu-Ray content without fiddling with discs, but also without any loss in quality. I’ve used MakeMKV to rip a movie to an MKV file. (I also tried converting to MP4 via ffmpeg.) When I watch it in the Plex client on either Apple TV or Xbox One, it transcodes on the server, which is awfully hard on my poor Mac Mini server and results in long delays when fast-forwarding or starting. If, on the other hand, I connect to the Plex server using the Apple TV VLC client, no transcoding occurs—and that means everything is a lot more responsive, too.
I’d rather use the Plex client as it’s a better experience, so that leaves me with these questions:
How can I avoid transcoding what I’ve got and just watch it directly?
Or if that’s not an option, can I store the uncompressed Blu-Ray content in a format that avoids transcoding?
Does this transcoding reduce video/audio quality in any way?
@dfeldman said:
I’m looking at Plex as a way to watch my Blu-Ray content without fiddling with discs, but also without any loss in quality. I’ve used MakeMKV to rip a movie to an MKV file. (I also tried converting to MP4 via ffmpeg.) When I watch it in the Plex client on either Apple TV or Xbox One, it transcodes on the server, which is awfully hard on my poor Mac Mini server and results in long delays when fast-forwarding or starting. If, on the other hand, I connect to the Plex server using the Apple TV VLC client, no transcoding occurs—and that means everything is a lot more responsive, too.
I’d rather use the Plex client as it’s a better experience, so that leaves me with these questions:
How can I avoid transcoding what I’ve got and just watch it directly?
Or if that’s not an option, can I store the uncompressed Blu-Ray content in a format that avoids transcoding?
Does this transcoding reduce video/audio quality in any way?
Thanks in advance!
I cannot say I have used either of those clients but I can say the majority of my media is MKV remuxes and rips via Make MKV so identical to yours.
Its possible that your clients are not set to play at original quality in which case it will transcode to whatever the client is set at. Hopefully in the clients you will see a setting for “original quality.”
Its a good place to start while you wait for someone else to come along.
The only way to avoid transcoding is to have a version that the ATV can play natively. Plex uses the native player, VLC uses their own.
So, according to Apple It is this:
H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower
H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
But I guess the big question is why is it so hard on your Mini? I have a late 2012 mini and can transcode 3 streams at once, one stream barely makes its fan turn on.
@rsava said:
The only way to avoid transcoding is to have a version that the ATV can play natively. Plex uses the native player, VLC uses their own.
So, according to Apple It is this:
H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower
H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
But I guess the big question is why is it so hard on your Mini? I have a late 2012 mini and can transcode 3 streams at once, one stream barely makes its fan turn on.
@rsava said:
The only way to avoid transcoding is to have a version that the ATV can play natively. Plex uses the native player, VLC uses their own.
So, according to Apple It is this:
H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower
H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
But I guess the big question is why is it so hard on your Mini? I have a late 2012 mini and can transcode 3 streams at once, one stream barely makes its fan turn on.
So the ATV doesn’t support MKV at all? Wow!! ^:)^
Well, since MKV is just the container, what is in the container is what is important for Plex. If it is something the ATV can play then Plex will just remux it, and remuxing is not the same as transcoding (as you know).
But no, I do not believe the ATV will play anything in an MKV container., even if it supports the video/audio stream inside of it.
So, OP I guess that is a slight clarification. As long as the video/audio stream inside the container is compatible with the ATV then plex will just remux which is a lot easier on the CPU.
So what I’m hearing is that regardless of container (MKV or MP4), a direct Blu-Ray rip (without conversion to, say, H264 with compression and all) can’t play without transcoding. Is that right?
@rsava My Mini seems to be older than yours (mid-2011) so perhaps that’s part of the problem. Regardless, the transcoder is using 250-300% of CPU while the movie is playing, and I see periodic errors in the client suggesting it can’t quite keep up.
My other reason for being leery of transcoding is that I want to preserve the full quality from the Blu-Ray. Maybe if I’ve got the quality set to Original (and @davehobson, I checked and do) that’s not something to worry about—I just don’t know enough to be sure.
So, I’ve run a whole bunch more tests and the big problem seems to be the audio encoding. If I simply pass through the DTS 5.1 track from the Blu-Ray, Plex ends up transcoding. No transcoding occurs with AC3 or AAC.
I thought perhaps this was due to a lack of DTS support on Apple TV, but the Xbox – which I know outputs DTS – also causes Plex to transcode when faced with DTS audio.
The good news is that this audio-specific transcoding seems much easier on the server’s CPU. The bad news is it’s still doing something, in a situation where it seems like it shouldn’t be. Any ideas?
