[improvement] [Open] Enable av1 playback for browsers

Plex Players Desktop Players
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1

Server Version#: 1.23.1.4602
Player Version#: Version 4.57.4
Hello,
I have a file that is AV1 Video and FLAC audio. It plays fine in firefox and chrome. I uploaded it to a server i controll and pasted the link in HTML5 audio/video tester - File type player - MIME type tester. to confirm this.
Yet if i upload it to my plex Server the file will not be played and I get the error “This server is not powerful enough to convert video.” I turned video transcoding off because my clients are direct play capable, also in this case but plex thinks otherwise.
I searched the forum for av1 and found a feature request to add transcoding to av1 but I don’t think my case does fit this because I don’t want to transcode anything for me this is more a bug than a feature request. Everything would work fine if I could plex somehow tell that it doesn’t need to transcode anything because the client can direct play the file.
So my question is how can I do that and could plex push that change for everybody, because this is clearly a limitation because plex tries to be smart but is out of date with it’s knowledge of what clients are capable.

Here the mediainfo output maybe it is helpful somehow

General
Complete name                            : av1_flac.mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/av01/iso2/mp41)
File size                                : 160 MiB
Duration                                 : 2 min 0 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 11.2 Mb/s
Writing application                      : Lavf58.49.100

Video
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : av01
Codec ID                                 : av01
Duration                                 : 2 min 0 s
Bit rate                                 : 5 138 kb/s
Width                                    : 3 840 pixels
Height                                   : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 23.976 FPS
Minimum frame rate                       : 23.810 FPS
Maximum frame rate                       : 24.390 FPS
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.026
Stream size                              : 73.5 MiB (46%)
Menus                                    : 0

Audio #1
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : fLaC
Codec ID                                 : fLaC
Duration                                 : 2 min 0 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 059 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 29.5 MiB (18%)
Title                                    : Deutsch FLAC 5.1
Language                                 : German
Default                                  : Yes
Alternate group                          : 1
Menus                                    : 0

Audio #2
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : fLaC
Codec ID                                 : fLaC
Duration                                 : 2 min 0 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 3 979 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Stream size                              : 56.9 MiB (36%)
Title                                    : English FLAC 5.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Alternate group                          : 1
Menus                                    : 0
1 Like
2

I have also encountered this bug.

3

If I use

ffmpeg av1_flac.mp4 -f hls -hls_segment_type fmp4 -c copy -strict -2 playlist.m3u8

I get a m3u8 playlist and the m4s contain AV1 video and FLAC audio and it plays fine in chrome and firefox, so a ffmpeg limitation is also not the reason it seems.

4

For me it seems like plex doesn’t handle AV1 currently at all because I wasn’t even able to play av1 with a custom profile.
If you want to test AV1 playback yourself, works in Chrome and Firefox (only chrome does tone mapping currently), in Edge for some strange reason not yet, here is a test file HTML5 audio/video tester - File type player - MIME type tester

5

There’s already a feature request for this.

6

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