HVEC/H265 files play fine but sync fails

General Discussions
1

Hi,

I’m reencoding some h.264 files with FFmpeg to h.265. The h.264 version would both play to any device and sync to our iPads just fine. The new h.265 version will play everywhere, over plex, on a Mac, directly on the iPad when copied there, but when I try to sync the files to the iPad it errors out.

Server is 1.12.3.4973
Clients are the latest

Sample FFmpeg command:

./ffmpeg-3.4.2-64bit-static/ffmpeg -I test.mp4 -map 0:2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -map 0:3 -c:v libx265 -crf 26 -preset veryslow -tag:v hvc1 -movflags faststart -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy -c:s copy test.h265.mp4

Any pointer on things to to look at?

Thanks

3

@trumpy81 said:
Most iOS devices do not support HEVC (H.265) and will not play it, so I am not surprised that Sync is failing for you.

Stick to H.264 as that is the only format that all Apple devices support, the only exception to that is the new Apple TV 4K which does support HEVC but only in an mp4 container.

All due respect, that’s ridiculous advice. The whole point of Plex is to play any file anywhere thanks to transcoding. The file should be transcoded for sync, and apparently it’s not happening so there’s a bug. So sick of Plex telling users we’re doing it wrong when clearly the product is buggy.

5

@trumpy81 said:
And since when am I considered to be Plex?

You do realise that I am a volunteer here and I am NOT employed by Plex, right?

It does not make any sense to me wasting time and resources to encode a H.264 video to H.265 only to have Plex transcode it back to H.264 again.

Whether there is an issue with the transcoder or not, it can be avoided by not re-encoding to H.265 in the first place.

And how exactly did you determine that the issue is in fact the transcoder? There are many possible reasons for a failed ‘Sync’ session.

You might be a volunteer, but you still represent the first line of support for this company…which is an issue in itself.

I like h265 because it saves storage space and I have plenty of transcoding power when it’s required.

Didn’t decide it was a transcoding issue, I was answering to your advice. Sync should work no matter if the source file is h264 or h265.

6

Starting in iOS 11 iOS supports HEVC. As the OP stated, it plays back just fine, it just doesn’t sync. Not all iOS devices support decoding HEVC in hardware, so on older devices, performance of HEVC playback may suffer.

Is the file a 4K file by any chance? iOS devices will play them back just fine but won’t sync it because the transcoder engine thinks it’s too big. I found that editing the iOS.xml file in the /plexmediaserver/Resources/Profiles directory of the server and restarting it allows me to sync them without issue. My edited iOS.xml file is attached. YMMV with it.

Also, until Plex corrects it the file need to be manually replaced every PMS server update.

8

@kclimie no, not a 4k file. Some 1080p and other 480p

Just tested again with latest plex server, 1.13.1.5063 and ios client, still no worky.

@trumpy81 due to plex’s inability to fix the AppleTV buffer size issue, I can choose between the features of files syncing to the device OR having playback on the AppleTV work consistently (smaller h.265 files fit more data into the same small buffer size). Its a crappy choice but give all the other benefits of h.265, giving up syncing and periodically dragging files into icloud drive then downloading to iOS device is at least a workaround, though a really crappy one.

9

Maybe you’ll find the following info useful in your case: Allow sync without transcoding