I have a MybookDuo 6TB Hard Drive ethernet connected to my router.
I want to force direct play for all movies. It seems that with my direct play settings enabled, the video is going through my laptop to my Samsung TV (also ethernet connected).
I can play movies under 40 GBs with no issue. If they are bigger than 40 GBs, they won’t work due to speed. If I have my laptop wirelessly connected I couldn’t barely play 15 GB movie files.
How do I force direct play, so no bandwidth or transcoding goes to my laptop?
You cannot force Direct Play.
If the media file you are trying to play is not compatible with the client then it needs to be transcoded, or playback will fail.
If you want to completely avoid transcoding, you need to make your media files compatible beforehand,
either by transcoding them with e.g. Handbrake
or using the Media Optimizer https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/sections/202670117-Media-Optimizer
(requires additional storage)
I have a Samsung 2016 which can play MKVs with subtitles but Plex with subtitles turned on does not direct play. TV supports it so why Plex transcodes the file? Plex for Samsung (2016) fails to direct play any file with subtitles turned on. I’ve tried MP4 and MKV files. When subtitles are turned off all files play directly. Clearly TV supports does formats it’s the Plex that doesn’t. I had to buy Roku player so that I could direct play all my media.
I second that!!! Same, with a Samsung TV. Sometimes it even refuses to play videos stating that the server is not powerful enough to play it, but when I access the same media via Samsung’s standard player, it plays it without problem… I looked at all the configs in the Plex app (3.0.9[2.12.6] on Tizen 2.4.0) and found nothing that can help, including the “enable direct play”…
@OttoKerner said:
You cannot force Direct Play.
If the media file you are trying to play is not compatible with the client then it needs to be transcoded, or playback will fail.
If you want to completely avoid transcoding, you need to make your media files compatible beforehand,
either by transcoding them with e.g. Handbrake
or using the Media Optimizer https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/sections/202670117-Media-Optimizer
(requires additional storage)
That’s a false assumption. I have tried and those exact files on my NAS can be directly played if those files are on my phone or tv but it just won’t play directly through Plex. It’s definitely Plex’s problem, not the client/device.
I have a 70 inch KU6300. All my media play direct play because of pre transcoding. I also tried to just download media and leave it as mkv with ac3 and and a file as big as 11 gb. And then boom my plex will transcode the video part but direct stream the audio. As OttoKerner mention it really depends how you download your files and how your client wants to read it.
I had to revert back to v6.0.1.523. I think this was the final release where Direct Play and Audio stream without any transcoding is working properly on Nvidia Shield devices.
I tried all the newer version, but I cant play my 4K files from my PC, without buffering and error messeages due to “pc not powerful enough bla bla bla”.
At least now I can enjoy 4K files perfectly.
Also Nvidia Shield does not allow volume adjustment with this release when playing DTS and ATMOS files, which is the correct way. Nvidia tells me to use Surround System remote instead. Perfect!
I am bringing this old post back to life because this is one of my biggest complaints with Plex Server right now.
Plex was developed when we all had relatively poor uploads. Now it is more common with fiber connections to have synchronous download and upload speeds which can handle high bit rate direct streams. We need to be able to specify that remote clients first try to stream content directly and then fallback to transcoding as secondary if either the client device can’t handle it or the bandwidth is not available. Continually transcoding places unnecessary load on my server and reduces the quality of the streams. Any chance Plex developers can put this request on their radar? In reading through the forums, this is a common request from Plex Pass users.
Did cancel my Plex pass because of this. Very annoying for us running Plex on a Nas. I dont need this transcoding and it makes 4k hdr look like ■■■■. I have clients and fast internet that play everything I have including 4k hdr blueray.
Is it so difficult to just add a check box with the option to turn off transcoding??
Really annoying to not be able to control the way my streams go to other users. Explaining the settings is something I tried many times, but the interface differs on various platforms. This together with most people simply not understanding what to do makes it something I wish I could control server side (as it should in my opinion).
Could not agree more.
I am going to cancel my subscription if this is not implemented when it ends.
This has been asked for ages and nothing have been done by the developers.
Bye bye Plex.
I’ll have to pile on here. I have a 100Mbps connection, so no faults there, but I have friends streaming from around the globe and don’t want to be transcoding 265 to 264 unecessarily, when the original is 0.7Mbps and the transcoding makes it 8Mbps, wasting CPU and bandwidth for no reason (as far I understand, given the research the led me to this thread.)
Same here, my television (Panasonic 2018) can direct play x264 and x265 (and subs) perfectly through DLNA without needing any transcoding, but transcodes at least all x265 files and burns-in subs, leading to picture degradation.
Im pretty sure the issue comes from outdated (or generic) compatibility profiles. But first, I wish it was clearly stated what’s transcoded and what’s not (instead of discovering it in the middle of a film because of a beautiful scene looking like Netflix stuff although it says “original” — and the file isn’t faulty there), and second, if Plex can’t keep up with all the hardwares available today (which is something I can understand), then just let the community handle that, by letting us switch to a “untested direct mode” and very quickly we’ll have exhaustive profiles for every receiver out there.
Right now, I can’t trust Plex as it’s dishonest about what’s being direct played and what’s being transcoded, not taking full advantage of my hardware.
Biggest problem for me is this, I can’t figure out when/why its transcoding. Some movies it direct plays with srt, others when its ‘external srt’, and some just refuse to play directly even though I’m on a Nvidia Shield that supports everything.
I have configured client to only transcode when its image format subs; but it transcodes with srt and I just want it to not touch video.
I’m on a 600/600 Mbps server, with a 1Gbps Nvidia Shielf client, and its transcoding too much and killing my server.
Turning on the “Direct Play” Feature on my Devices (AppleTv, iPad and Mobile Devices) solved the problem for me. At the end of the day it boils down to the Device used as a player and if it supports the video format or not.
