Server Version#: 4.84.1
Player Version#:5.44.6
Good evening.
I own a 2021 Samsung Q80A tv. I searched the forum and I see many users encountering the same issues I have. I tried multiple combinations of files using the MKVtoolnix in order to determine what cause transcoding.
At first I thought that having pgs subtitles in the mkv file caused the issues. I was wrong. The issue is the audio. It just happens that every DTS/TRUEHD file I played also include pgs subtitles - but they do not cause the problem.
So, if the file contains a DTS/TRUEHD stream , plex transcodes it to AAC because apps do not support them. So far so good.
Most movies include a second aac 5.1 dolby digital plus stream. It is fully compatible with the TV because , playing the file in a USB stick works flawlessly.
Plex however seems to not fully support switching audio tracks. It always “sees” the first one in the MKV file. It does choose the second stream(you can check it by enabling commentary audio or even check the plex dashboard) , however it transcodes it even if it fully supports it. So the only solution to this is remuxing the mkv file and moving the compatible stream to the first position.
This unneeded transcoding bring us to the second issue, subtitles. Whenever transcoding occurs , even if it is audio only , subtitles lose sync when skipping forwards etc. When no transcoding occurs , even pgs files play correctly and I have to admit this is pretty impressive because the native samsung player does not support them.
