Need help to send movie untouched to TV and only transcode DTS audio to ac3 as I want HDR to SDR mapping?

Plex Media Server
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Server Version#:1.21.1.3830-6c22540d5
Player Version#:Plex for smartTVs 3.13.21

Just bought a tv, panasonic hz2000 which had a plex app. Interested in playing 4k HDR.
From research it seems I should disable transcoding of video to achieve HDR to SDR mapping. This doesn’t work however. Get an error: “plex server is not powerful enough to convert video” which seems strange. I have maxed all quality settings. Plex server is being run from win10, i7,16gb ram, nvidia gtx1060.

I would like plex server to stream video untouched and only transcode DTS as this is the only filetype my tv cannot decode…

Ant ideas?

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Tone mapping is a kind of transcoding too.
The error message you get is supposed to indicate that the server cannot transcode your input… which is to be expected considering you disabled transcoding on the server side. From what I remember there’s no “plex server is not allowed to transcode this video but the client cannot direct-play it”.

Also… tone mapping is currently still a Plex Pass only feature.

There can be numerous reasons why even 4K TVs will not direct play certain combinations of 4K media as-is.

3

Thank you for reply
Yeah I kind of figured this might not be possible.

I guess I´m back to building a powerful htpc with mpc-be + MAdVr to achive HDR…
What a pity

4

Plex no longer supports Panasonic TVs. The existing app cannot direct play HEVC video and will not be updated. If you want to play 4K HDR video using Plex, you’ll need to use a streaming device such as a Nvidia Shield Pro, Apple TV 4K, Roku Ultra, etc.

See the “No Longer Supported” section of Which Smart TV models are supported?.

It was announced in December 2019. I cannot find the formal announcement, but it is mentioned in the product release notes.

Reading through an old thread, the existing version of the Plex app does not support direct playing HEVC video. Note that the thread pre-dates the Dec 2019 announcement, so any discussion of a new version of the Panasonic app is moot.

5

I second that. Get a Shield, particularly if you also want the latest surround sound to bitstream to your AVR. It can perform the HDR to SDR conversion itself.

Keep in mind that a color space reduction from HDR to SDR is always a compromise. You will never get optimal colors this way.
IMHO, get a HDR-capable display or stop collecting HDR files.

6

Thanx for reply guys…

Ahh ok.

I most certainly have a HDR capable tv. Actually the best tv money can buy right now.

I have read enough about shield to never want to buy it.
I will build a HTCP and feed the tv true HDR using mpc-be and madvr

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