No "Original quality" on desktop app, but available on web?

Plex Players Desktop Players
,
1

Server Version#: 1.22.3.4392
Player Version#: 1.31.1.2262-74fdc6b7

How come I can watch some videos in “original quality” using the web browser, but not using the windows player ? It’s supposed to be the other around.
It’s nothing fancy, just a .h264, no subtitles, nothing…

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2

Check the global quality preferences of the Desktop player. In particular, disable “Automatic Quality” if it is enabled.

4

Where is this “Automatic Quality” setting ?
Closest things I can find are :

  • “Plex for windows”->Quality->“Video Quality” : which is set to “Maximum”
  • “Plex for windows”->Quality->“Play smaller videos at original quality” : which is ticked
5

Enable the ‘Advanced’ preferences, then look under Plex for Windows - Debug
and verify that both “Direct Play” and “Direct Stream” are enabled.

6

Both are turned on

7

Is the server remote or local?

Please post the first ~20 lines from the Plex XML info of the video.

8

It’s a remote server (debian 10 buster).

Here comes the .xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="10" librarySectionTitle="Family Videos" librarySectionUUID="be72f702-7410-4785-bac3-2b9cb0332fa5" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1618841647">
<Video ratingKey="61515" key="/library/metadata/61515" guid="com.plexapp.agents.none://8a106f735b08477609aaaab0c60acb129628c404?lang=xn" type="movie" title="Visite9RueFredericFays" librarySectionTitle="Family Videos" librarySectionID="10" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/10" subtype="clip" summary="" viewOffset="333000" viewCount="2" lastViewedAt="1622451035" year="2021" thumb="/library/metadata/61515/thumb/1621260712" art="/library/metadata/61515/art/1621260712" duration="661432" originallyAvailableAt="2021-05-17" addedAt="1621260621" updatedAt="1621260712" createdAtAccuracy="epoch,local" createdAtTZOffset="0">
<Media id="57644" duration="661432" bitrate="6172" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" videoResolution="1080" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="NTSC" optimizedForStreaming="0" audioProfile="lc" has64bitOffsets="0" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="58502" key="/library/parts/58502/1621260535/file.mp4" duration="661432" file="/home/family/Library/Videos/9RueFredericFays/Visite9RueFredericFays.mp4" size="510954611" audioProfile="lc" container="mp4" deepAnalysisVersion="4" has64bitOffsets="0" optimizedForStreaming="0" requiredBandwidths="17958,15786,10609,8711,8711,8711,8711,8711" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="46544" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="6011" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1088" codedWidth="1920" colorPrimaries="smpte170m" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="smpte170m" colorTrc="smpte170m" frameRate="29.989" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1080" level="40" profile="main" refFrames="4" requiredBandwidths="17797,15624,10448,8556,8556,8556,8556,8556" streamIdentifier="1" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (H.264)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080p (H.264)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="46545" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="161" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" requiredBandwidths="161,161,161,161,161,161,161,161" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2" displayTitle="English (AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="English (AAC Stereo)">
</Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
<Extras size="0">
</Extras>
<Related>
</Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
9

Do you have access to this server’s configuration?
If you do, what has been set on
Settings - Server - Remote Access

  • Internet upload speed
  • Limit remote stream bitrate

?

I also wonder whether this has anything to do with the issue.

Could you optimize this file for streaming?
(You can use a number of tools to do that. One of which is mp3tag. Just drag the mp4 file into its program window, then perform a right-click on it and select “Utils - Optimize MP4”.
Then trigger a manual Analysis in Plex in this file and make sure that it now says “Optimzed for streaming: Yes”.)

10

I own the server, so yes I can pretty much do whatever I want with it. No upload speed has been set, and “limit remove stream bitrate” is set to “Original (No Limit)”

I guess I can “optimize it for streaming”. Althought it’s strange that I never had to do that and that it would be required to tweak the file for the standalone windows player but not for the web one. I’ll give it a shot for science even thought it kinda defeat the point of plex wich is for me “just drag and drop on server, set quality to original and forget about it”. Hopefuly we can find exactly what’s causing the issue.

11

Otherwise I need a sample file which reproduces the issue, so I can forward it to the developers.

12

Probably won’t be necessary. For some reasons now it can play in “original quality” just fine

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This is the same file, not the “streaming optimized” one. I’m at total loss. This video has been sitting on the server for about a month, so it’s not like it couldn’t “play in original quality” at first because it was being processed or something alike.

I can still provide a sample of the original video if you still think it’s necessary.

13

If you encounter this situation again, could you trigger a manual Analysis on the file and then try again?

14

I’ll keep that in mind. But it could take days, weeks, months, etc before it happens again (hopefuly). I’ll respond here (if I still can by that time). Thanks for your time, bye.

15

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