Server Version#: 1.22.3.4392
Player Version#: client version 5.41.2
Platform version 5.4.1
I’m sure this issue wasn’t present before but I can’t be 100%
I have a variety of media files.
My server is installed on a Synology NAS that won’t do video transcoding.
If I playback a file with DD or DD+ I can turn on srt subs without any problem.
If I playback DTS I can’t. I understand this is because for some reason the server attempts to transcode video even though it doesn’t need to. Transcode audio + subs = bad.
However, for some reason I also can’t playback aac with subs. I believe the TV can decode AAC but I’m guessing the reason I’m getting the same playback error is because this is trying to force video transcode too.
I can’t see anywhere that I can tick to confirm the TV accepts AAC (DTS is unticked).
When you play the media with AAC audio and subtitles disabled, is Plex Media Server direct playing or direct streaming? You can verify via Plex Dashboard → Now Playing.
If direct streaming, then enabling SRT subtitles will result in a video transcode to burn the subtitles into the video stream.
The problem is really with direct streaming, not transcoding audio. However, if the audio is transcoded, then Plex will be direct streaming the file.
It is a limitation of the streaming protocol between the server and TV. If Plex direct streamed the video + audio + subtitle tracks, the subtitles would slowly become out of sync with the video and audio. To prevent this, Plex burns the subtitles into the video stream.
Subtitle burning uses the CPU, even when using hardware accelerated transcoding. Systems with low power CPUs, such as Celerons, will struggle to burn subtitles in real time.
I have to confess and say the files I was trying this with must have been DTS even though in my head they were AAC.
I haven’t changed anything and when I try AAC files now it’s working perfectly.
That’ll teach me to troubleshoot with a headache and after a day at work lol
It’s frustrating I can’t get around the issue with DTS files but I know that’s an LG licensing issue. I’m slowly re-ripping my movie audio tracks to DD+ which seems to be a happy medium that the TV and AV amp like.
