# No Direct Play to Chrome on Linux?

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Tags:** plex-web\
**Created:** [September 12, 2019, 10:36pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714 "2019-09-12T22:36:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![plex\_user\_99111](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58f4c7/32.png) [@plex\_user\_99111](https://forums.plex.tv/u/plex_user_99111)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 10:36pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714/1 "2019-09-12T22:36:12Z")

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For a long time I assumed the reason I was always transcoding when playing back on my ubuntu 18.04 machine was due to using chromium and not chrome from google which adds some extra 3rd party stuff for added compatibility.

However, I finally install Chrome (because Chromium for linux always plays SD transcode for some reason and wont give me an option to change it at all) and while Chrome fixed the no HD bug, it still trancodes to 1080p. Is this normal?

Thank you.

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**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 5:35am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714/2 "2019-09-13T05:35:47Z")

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You need at least post the media info of the played video. Because web browsers are not very capable video players. There is a lot in high quality video files which needs the help of the transcoder (or you wouldn’t be able to play it at all).

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**Author:** ![plex\_user\_99111](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58f4c7/32.png) [@plex\_user\_99111](https://forums.plex.tv/u/plex_user_99111)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 6:28am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714/3 "2019-09-13T06:28:38Z")

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Sorry, its DVR recordings so MPEG2 video MPEGTS container, ac3 audio. both video and audio are transcoded.

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**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 6:44am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714/4 "2019-09-13T06:44:24Z")

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That is just as expected. Web browsers ususally cannot decode either.  
You’d need a player with a much more capable A/V engine, to play these directly.

> [@Plex Media Player packages for Linux](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-media-player-packages-for-linux/198091/1):
>
> Hello Plex users! Because there is no official packages of Plex Media Player for Linux desktop I have decided to create one. Instead of building multiple packages for all different packaging systems (DEB, RPM, Snap, Flatpack) and even different distribution releases (separate DEB for Ubuntu Trusty, separate DEB for Ubuntu Xenial,…) I wanted to make things as simple as possible for us Linux users. So I’ve used an AppImage format for this. AppImage is universal package format that runs on any m…

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 6:44am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/no-direct-play-to-chrome-on-linux/460714/5 "2019-12-12T06:44:25Z")

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