Just “Liked” it again, because this is by far the most pressing issue for me. So much so, that I find myself looking at different solutions.
The first solution is to replace (or complement) my NAS by a full-blown computer. Tempting as it is in some ways, it just feels wrong to me. I currently have all my mkv files stored on the DS214play, and only have installed Plex and a download manager on there. This setup is just so simple, elegant and energy-efficient that I don’t want to give it up. Furthermore, I can play all my files (containing dts and srt) via the Samsung Plex client without any transcoding required. The TV experience is basically a dream come true. I’d have to shell out hundreds of bucks and lose all elegance just to get subtitles on an iPad.
The second solution is to use an app with a custom player on the iPad, like Infuse. It’s a really nice app, and it works, but I’d also lose the elegance of using one media manager for all my devices. I’d be using different solutions for different devices, and that’s a dealbreaker. Of course, I could ditch Plex all together and go for the Infuse solution. Although this would work, I’d be making a lot of sacrifices. Since Plex is server-based, it’s way more powerful than Infuse. Besides, I’d be losing on the TV side of things. I’d have to Airplay video from Infuse to an Apple TV. This would mean that the DTS track is transcoded, and that all the heavy work would be done by the iPad instead of the TV. This is also far from ideal.
The third solution, would be to pre-transcode all the files. This would be continuously a lot of work, and I’d have to give up on the DTS track. This would be fine for the iPad, but a real shame when you have excellent speakers next to the TV. Not ideal either.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I just have to stick to my current setup and hope for the best. It’s an inch away from a perfect solution. When I play video on my iPad, the DTS is transcoded to AAC, and the container repackaged to MP4 - all on the fly. This is relatively light, which means my NAS can handle it. (In one my of my earlier posts I was misinformed and thought that the NAS would not even be able to handle an audio transcode.) The subtitles require a video transcode, which would require me to buy a computer.
All that atrus said in the first post still holds true, unfortunately. All that we’re asking is that PMS on-the-fly transcodes the srt to tx3g, that’s it. I just hope someone at Plex reads this and takes the feature into consideration.
