I try to watch a 4K movie mkv on plex on my Xbox One S or directly by plex app of my Tv (Samsung KS9000) but the application crash or not launch the movie…
I don’t transcode. The setting is direct stream.
All movies in 1080p is really fast to play but not 4K movies… There are solutions ? Thank you
We would need to see what your logs say to say for sure.
But with Direct Stream selected (If you have direct play disabled) at a minimum your file is going to need to remux into a new container. Because HEVC isn’t supported in HLS (for streaming) the file will need to transcode the video to h264 which is only supported at 1080p currently on the Xbox Ones. (4K H264 was tested and issues were found and is currently waiting for a fix from Microsoft)
Direct stream won’t override a transcode, if the video still can’t play the app will still request a transcode even with direct stream selected. (IE it’s not going to kep trying to play a video file that the api is rejecting)
If Direct Stream and Direct Play are both enabled will the server default to Direct Play if capable? If so would that be the situation in this case?
@brianskinder@gmail.com said:
If Direct Stream and Direct Play are both enabled will the server default to Direct Play if capable? If so would that be the situation in this case?
Yes.
I’ve gotten 4k videos to work fine on my Xbox S using plex, I was actually surprised how well it worked. It looked 4K to me and was identified as 4K in the properties of the movie. Changing the quality settings it said original and 36Mb bit rate.
So if it is not actually displaying 4K it fooled me
Some 4K (ultra high definition) devices are recognized by the Plex app. We’re working to bring 4K playback support to other devices, too. 4K/UHD content matching the following will Direct Play on supported devices:
Container: MP4
Resolution: 3840x2160 or smaller
Video Encoding: HEVC (H.265)
Video Frame Rate: 30fps
Video Bit Depth: 8
4K content not matching the above properties will be transcoded to 1080p. Transcoding 4K content is a very intensive process and will require a powerful computer running Plex Media Server.
Interesting so the 4k .mkv files I’ve been playing were down sampled to 1080P when playing on my Xbox One S? They played fine and said “4K” in the description but I had no indication the actual output was not 4K since the quality designation said “original” in the settings for the vidoe, I assumed that meant it was displaying the original 4K resolution.
I’d suggest a better way of showing the exact output of the videos we are playing. I’d like to know the exact resolution of the content that is output after all the transcoding etc.
@swanlee said:
Interesting so the 4k .mkv files I’ve been playing were down sampled to 1080P when playing on my Xbox One S? They played fine and said “4K” in the description but I had no indication the actual output was not 4K since the quality designation said “original” in the settings for the vidoe, I assumed that meant it was displaying the original 4K resolution.I’d suggest a better way of showing the exact output of the videos we are playing. I’d like to know the exact resolution of the content that is output after all the transcoding etc.
If the file has any transcoding going on then it will be 1080p as the xbox has trouble with h264 and 4K. (And HEVC currently cannot be direct streamed into the HLS stream).
The information posted above yours is a general guide and is not reflective of the Xbox One app. Every device has it’s own quirks so apps designed to a specific device will more reflect that devices capabilities. (IE 4K HEVC MKV’s on the Xbox One, but not H264 4K material as that causes problems).
@shrekars@gmail.com said:
I try to watch a 4K movie mkv on plex on my Xbox One S or directly by plex app of my Tv (Samsung KS9000) but the application crash or not launch the movie…
Out of curiosity, how did you get a 4k mkv? I didn’t think it was possible to rip 4k blu-rays yet.
@mbarylski said:
@shrekars@gmail.com said:
I try to watch a 4K movie mkv on plex on my Xbox One S or directly by plex app of my Tv (Samsung KS9000) but the application crash or not launch the movie…Out of curiosity, how did you get a 4k mkv? I didn’t think it was possible to rip 4k blu-rays yet.
MKV’s are just a container so it is possible to take a 4K video from another container (IE MP4) and remux it into an mp4 while keeping the streams the same.
MP4 → Remux → MKV
HEVC → Copy → HEVC
AC3 → Copy - > AC3
The issue is when your MKV needs something like the audio changed because HEVC currently can’t go in the HLS stream used for a transcode which means the video then needs to transcode. And since the Xbox has trouble with H264 and 4K the video is changed to H264 and 1080p
Ah, ok, but where are any 4k videos coming from? Is there a way to get 4k TV shows and Movies saved to a PC? I can see 4k recordings from phone/video camera, but I haven’t heard of a way to get 4k TV Shows and Movies.
The main places I have heard of are files pulled from netflix/amazon. I only have 1 test 4k file that I used for HW encoding testing so not 100% sure on the sources for them.
I don’t believe I have heard of anything changing with actually ripping the 4K Blurays themselves either, but I haven’t been following it too closely myself.
@jmckee
Thanks, that makes sense. I may need a video card upgrade to see if I can also get 4k files from Netflix/Amazon. 
