With audio transcoding (even with it partially working, this thread on fully getting it functional) moving from PMS end to the client/PHT end, I have set the Local Media quality to Direct Play. Direct Play is the correct option now, as we no longer need audio transcoding done on PMS - it all happens on client/PHT now. Video quality is original from source on PHT and audio will be handled as needed or passed-through to receiver.
Original Post:
Hi folks,
Can we increase the LOCAL highest transcode limit to Infinite or something like 99mbps? Even 50mbps....?
Goal: To not transcode VIDEO anything over the 20mbps current transcode limit - Blu Rays are currently over that. Compressed rips are not.
Yeah, there is an option called "Max" that does this, at least it should do this.
I cannot seem to find this option called "Max" - are you referring to Direct Play option (which plays a media file DIRECTLY with NO transcoding whatsoever)?
Doesn't direct play do this?
Unforunately no. Direct Play allows us to play a file directly, no transcoding whatsoever.
The scenario I am trying to "fully" enable is to NEVER transcode video (at least not typical 1080p video - does 4K hit higher than 99mbps?) BUT when needed TRANSCODE AUDIO. Today this works great for videos that are under 20mbps video but the audio needs to be coverted - Plex literally combines native video content and transcoded audio (brillant btw)! I would like this to work for videos OVER 20mbps (for example a dump from one of my blu-rays is higher and forces the video and audio to be transcoding) - this seems wasteful of the CPU (when only audio really needs to be transcoded).
This is needed for when media has DTS audio track but user does not have hardware that is capable of playing back DTS audio, only Dolby Digital audio (and lessor PCM audio).
Perhaps a picture is worth a 1000 words. Here is desired result (as seen in the now playing screen):
The plex/web interface does indeed have a max setting of 20mbps but the other clients do have a choice of Max. I know the Android and Google TV apps do.
Maybe 20mbps is the highest that the web client can do…
I would like this to work for videos OVER 20mbps (for example a dump from one of my blu-rays is higher and forces the video and audio to be transcoding) - this seems wasteful of the CPU (when only audio really needs to be transcoded)
That does seem wasteful to store a 50gb bluray rip when really you can transcode it down to at least 5gb w/o quality loss. If you do transcode it you can then adjust the codec properties to be more compatible with the device it's being played back on
That does seem wasteful to store a 50gb bluray rip when really you can transcode it down to at least 5gb w/o quality loss. If you do transcode it you can then adjust the codec properties to be more compatible with the device it's being played back on
...... Disk space thoughts aside (the space is easily remedied with an additional hard disk) the request is regarding video bitrate. I understand we could convert every single media clip to Dolby digital but why when there is a on the fly transcoder.
I imagine this value would be rather easily updated for PHT... No?
...... Disk space thoughts aside (the space is easily remedied with an additional hard disk) the request is regarding video bitrate. I understand we could convert every single media clip to Dolby digital but why when there is a on the fly transcoder.
I imagine this value would be rather easily updated for PHT... No?
In PHT it is not labeled "MAX" like the others are, but it's called "Direct Play" in the quality settings. Make sure you disable "Always transcode subtitles" in there too, that'll always force the transcoder on.
In PHT it is not labeled "MAX" like the others are, but it's called "Direct Play" in the quality settings. Make sure you disable "Always transcode subtitles" in there too, that'll always force the transcoder on.
Direct Play is not the same as MAX setting (at least it should not be). Direct Play, to my understanding, will play back a item without any transcoding whatsoever.
Use case: Have hundreds of blu rays in physical format. I transfer them to a MKV format and the physical media goes into storage. When transferring to MKV no transcoding is done - its just a simple RIP (dropping some language tracks, etc). When attempting to playback some of these MKV blu rays (for example, the newer Tron) both the video and audio will transcode. This appears to be because the video bitrate is over 20mbps. But what I am looking for is only the the audio transcodes, the video stays native (direct stream). This appears possible - if I try a typical reencoded 1080p copy of Tron it will playback video as direct stream and audio as transcoded. I believe some of my smaller Blu Rays actually have lower bitrates and achieve the result I am hoping for.
The MAX or mythical "99mbps" I am requesting would transcode as needed (in some cases audio will need to be transcoded, but video will not need to be transcoded). My audio hardware is limited (see first post, has link to separate thread) and cannot playback the traditional DTS audio streams (Sonos couldn't get DTS certified or wouldn't). I would like to have keep DTS tracks (for some day I will again have DTS capable hardware) but for today Plex fills a nice niche in playing back audio for limited hardware.
Using PHT keep quality set to direct play and change the settings for your audio output instead. PHT will do the conversion of the audio.
Thats not a terrible idea and I believe i tested it in the past but it had somes issues I encountered:
1. PHT transcoding is not as robust (or supported) as PMS is. Not sure if this is "technically true" but suffice to say my beast mode CPU is on the PMS box, not the client.
2. The client devices dont always have the horsepower to do conversion on PHT, offloading transcoding to PMS is really big reason why my low power devices (AppleTV, RasberryPi, low power x86 boxes) are able to "just work" without needing the client boxes to be more powerful than a simple render box.
3. Last I tested I couldnt get the conversion to work in a reliable manner (I dont recall if CPU was extremely high or if audio was stuttering - i think the stuttering was the issue).
I believe #3 is what kept it from being a vaible solution for me at the time, but #2 was a laudible goal to maintain.
Thats not a terrible idea and I believe i tested it in the past but it had somes issues I encountered:
1. PHT transcoding is not as robust (or supported) as PMS is. Not sure if this is "technically true" but suffice to say my beast mode CPU is on the PMS box, not the client.
2. The client devices dont always have the horsepower to do conversion on PHT, offloading transcoding to PMS is really big reason why my low power devices (AppleTV, RasberryPi, low power x86 boxes) are able to "just work" without needing the client boxes to be more powerful than a simple render box.
3. Last I tested I couldnt get the conversion to work in a reliable manner (I dont recall if CPU was extremely high or if audio was stuttering - i think the stuttering was the issue).
I believe #3 is what kept it from being a vaible solution for me at the time, but #2 was a laudible goal to maintain.
-domura
In your second post you write "The scenario I am trying to "fully" enable is to NEVER transcode video"...
Regardless, transcoding audio-streams is not CPU intense anyway and PHT uses the same codecs as PMS.
To add a perspective to this, from my experience with the RasPi;
Decoding multi-channel DTS streams can actually be very heavy on low-powered CPUs.
We now have chips in many different devices that can accelerate x264 decoding (RasPI as a good example), but even at 700Mhz, there is just not enough horsepower to decode DTS.
It's convenient to say that audio decoding is trivial, but experience shows that it's actually a factor for higher-quality encodes.
@Plex dev/test/ninja folks - Would it be exponentially difficult to add the "max" value or "99mbps" value in PHT? I imagine its one variable..... or is there an underlying "this is a bad idea, wrong way to go about it" kind of thing that may not be aware of?
Pretty please? The actual code to change might be add one more line, by my guess.
It is not a one-line-change. But I have added a ticket to the internal ticketing system for this. It will most likely be considered low priority as a ton of other important fixes is in the queue. But at least it is in there now as I think that PHT should line up with the rest of the clients. A "Max" setting or "99 Mbps" would line that up quite good.
BUT. I am still very confused by why you would need it to be honest. You mentioned that you want this because your soundbar does not support DTS. Why don't you just disable DTS and enable "LPCM capable receiver"? I assume your soundbar supports LPCM right?
Why don't you just disable DTS and enable "LPCM capable receiver"? I assume your soundbar supports LPCM right?
(L)PCM, to my understanding, uses the software to do the decode on the playback device and spit out PCM streams to the speakers/receiver. The reasons why this is less attractive/didnt work in the past:
1. SPDIF/Optical does NOT appear to support LPCM - option is greyed out. The soundbar in question (Sonos Playbar) supports optical only.
2. This puts the conversion load of audio onto the playback device. Audio is not a big load, but ideally playback devices would just play and potentially conserve CPU cycles (if on a battery powered playback device). Ideological, yes.
3. Disabling DTS and attempting to play a clip with a DTS track results in no audio, but PHT CPU usage rises to about 25%. See this post (Problem scenario outlined is exactly this)
Thank you for getting this into the ticketing system, I'd love to see it added and report back what happens. Ideally with a "MAX" limited we will see direct video steam and transcoded audio.
Thank you for getting this into the ticketing system, I'd love to see it added and report back what happens. Ideally with a "MAX" limited we will see direct video steam and transcoded audio.
I'm afraid this will not solve the problem (at least anymore).
I recently noticed a different behavior of the MDE module in regard to my h265 content but this might apply to your situation as well.
For my understanding the MDE module analyzes the content and makes the decision to which formats the transcoder will convert the streams.
It appears to me that now it gets activated only if the value set in the quality settings is below the average bitrate of the file. If I recall well previously it was getting activated whenever the quality was set to anything different than direct play.
I noticed this change because I have several h265 movies with a low bitrate and to play them (forcing transcoding) I just needed to set PHT to 20 Mbps. Now I have to lower the quality setting to something like 3 or 2 Mpps or the transcoder will not be activated.
If I get it right in your case this would make it impossible to transcode audio without transcoding video as well even if adding an additional higher quality value to the list.
