Noob and transcoding?

Plex Media Server
1

Hi all,

noob to media server setups etc so accept appologies for lack of knowledge.

I have plex android app on mobile devices and have plex media server setup on local PC. i have setup libraries etc.

I can play something in 1080p on a mobile device without stressing the PC’s cpu. (great!)
however if i try to play media through the firestick in 1080p through the plex app, it transcodes. bitrate exceeds maximum allowed and puts the 1080p file to 720p on the firestick.

I do not use remote access and is only accessed by family members over local network in the same house. is it possible to get the firestick to play the 1080p file without transcoding and hammering my CPU?
or… do i need to convert 1080p files I have into 720p MP4 to avoid transcoding?

thanks
rob

2

In the Plex App:
Set local quality to ‘Original’.
Set Enhanced Player to ‘Off’.
Set Maximum 264 level to ‘Disabled’ - or 5.2.

What happened?

The FireTV app is a disaster, but we might be able to make it work - maybe.

3

thank you for the very fast reply!!

I have just done what you recommended however i couldnt find the “set enhanced player” option?

but disabled the h.264 set local quality to original and attempted to play - info overlay shows
“direct playback attempted but failed and fallen back on transcoding”

Thanks!

4

found the enhanced player option and disabled it - gone back to what looks like an older version of the exoplayer?

showed video overlay and states directplay in top left and then reverts to transcoding video and audio. reason - bitrate exceeds maximum allowed?

thanks again for your help

5

And local quality is ‘Original’ or ‘Maximum’ can’t remember the wording…

Also make sure Adjust Automatically is off - for now.

6

yeah, set to original.

only option to convert all 1080p to 720p mp4 to avoid transcoding?

7

That’s overkill for the moment.

Container type makes no difference.
The buggy Plex App on FireTV is the issue - unless we can find a work-around that works.

Now I’d like to see a ‘MediaInfo’ report for a file that’s misbehaving. Need to see what it is you’re trying to play.

8

okay, i arent sure on how to do the mediainfo thing, however the media i am trying to play is a BRIP of pirates of the caribean deadmen tell no tales. 720p files play fine, anything above 720p and it hammers my CPU. playing the files directly on my PC using VLC also hammers my CPU where 720p doesn’t. my machine is quite old acer aspire e700 desktop from 2007. 6gb ram

9

It’s possible a BR Rip will have more bit rate than can be transferred through your network - and Plex determines that before playback and transcodes down to something that WILL work through the bandwidth available.

If you’re using WiFi - instead of a wired connection - WiFi congestion may be playing a part… we just don’t know.

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

For instance - something like this:

General
Complete name                            : D:\Brooklyn's Finest (2009) [1080p x265]\Brooklyn's Finest (2009) [1080p x265].mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/mp41)
File size                                : 2.07 GiB
Duration                                 : 2 h 12 min
Overall bit rate                         : 2 230 kb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-05-06 11:05:35
Tagged date                              : UTC 2020-05-06 11:05:35
Writing application                      : Lavf58.20.100

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L4@Main
Codec ID                                 : hev1
Codec ID/Info                            : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration                                 : 2 h 12 min
Bit rate                                 : 1 999 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.054
Stream size                              : 1.85 GiB (90%)
Writing library                          : x265 3.3+4-rarbg-30eb4de83092:[Linux][GCC 8.3.1][64 bit] 10bit
Encoding settings                        : cpuid=1111039 / frame-threads=4 / wpp / no-pmode / no-pme / no-psnr / no-ssim / log-level=2 / input-csp=1 / input-res=1920x800 / interlace=0 / total-frames=0 / level-idc=0 / high-tier=1 / uhd-bd=0 / ref=4 / no-allow-non-conformance / no-repeat-headers / annexb / no-aud / no-hrd / info / hash=0 / no-temporal-layers / open-gop / min-keyint=23 / keyint=250 / gop-lookahead=0 / bframes=4 / b-adapt=2 / b-pyramid / bframe-bias=0 / rc-lookahead=25 / lookahead-slices=4 / scenecut=40 / hist-scenecut=0 / radl=0 / no-splice / no-intra-refresh / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / rect / no-amp / max-tu-size=32 / tu-inter-depth=1 / tu-intra-depth=1 / limit-tu=0 / rdoq-level=2 / dynamic-rd=0.00 / no-ssim-rd / signhide / no-tskip / nr-intra=0 / nr-inter=0 / no-constrained-intra / strong-intra-smoothing / max-merge=3 / limit-refs=3 / limit-modes / me=3 / subme=3 / merange=57 / temporal-mvp / no-frame-dup / no-hme / weightp / no-weightb / no-analyze-src-pics / deblock=0:0 / no-sao / no-sao-non-deblock / rd=4 / selective-sao=0 / no-early-skip / rskip / no-fast-intra / no-tskip-fast / no-cu-lossless / no-b-intra / no-splitrd-skip / rdpenalty=0 / psy-rd=2.00 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / no-rd-refine / no-lossless / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rc=abr / bitrate=2000 / qcomp=0.60 / qpstep=4 / stats-write=0 / stats-read=2 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30 / aq-mode=3 / aq-strength=1.00 / cutree / zone-count=0 / no-strict-cbr / qg-size=32 / no-rc-grain / qpmax=69 / qpmin=0 / no-const-vbv / sar=1 / overscan=0 / videoformat=5 / range=0 / colorprim=2 / transfer=2 / colormatrix=2 / chromaloc=0 / display-window=0 / cll=0,0 / min-luma=0 / max-luma=1023 / log2-max-poc-lsb=8 / vui-timing-info / vui-hrd-info / slices=1 / no-opt-qp-pps / no-opt-ref-list-length-pps / no-multi-pass-opt-rps / scenecut-bias=0.05 / hist-threshold=0.01 / no-opt-cu-delta-qp / no-aq-motion / no-hdr10 / no-hdr10-opt / no-dhdr10-opt / no-idr-recovery-sei / analysis-reuse-level=0 / analysis-save-reuse-level=0 / analysis-load-reuse-level=0 / scale-factor=0 / refine-intra=0 / refine-inter=0 / refine-mv=1 / refine-ctu-distortion=0 / no-limit-sao / ctu-info=0 / no-lowpass-dct / refine-analysis-type=0 / copy-pic=1 / max-ausize-factor=1.0 / no-dynamic-refine / no-single-sei / no-hevc-aq / no-svt / no-field / qp-adaptation-range=1.00 / no-scenecut-aware-qpconformance-window-offsets / right=0 / bottom=0
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-05-06 11:05:35
Tagged date                              : UTC 2020-05-06 11:05:35
Codec configuration box                  : hvcC

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 2 h 12 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 224 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 213 MiB (10%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Alternate group                          : 1
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-05-06 11:05:35
Tagged date                              : UTC 2020-05-06 11:05:35
10

Sorry for the delay in replying. Your help is very much appreciated :).

Havin gone away and had time to think, it suddenly dawned on me, if I try to play any form of 1080p media be it movie or TV show… ffmpeg shows up in task manager and my CPU usage goes up massively. Of the device I want to play 1080p content is compatible and I have the network share path in place it should direct play with no transcoding required as the device is compatible and it’s accessed directly.

Having checked my network adapter settings it states 100mbps. I use a cat5e cable capable of 1gbps from computer to router. If I change the link speed from 100mpbs to 1gbps it disables connection completely so I wonder if the router isn’t capable of such internal data transfer speeds and could be the reason why playback overlay shows maximum bitrate exceeds… Fallen back to transcoding at 720p. Our router is the standard sky fibre sr102 router and there doesn’t appear to be an option to enable 1gbps Lan speed.
Having checked with media info earlier today while playing with it as I had never used it before, it stated the original bitrate of pirates of the Carribbean dead.men tell no tales was something like 4180kbps.

My gpu in my machine that won’t play the media itself is very old a Nvidia geforce 3400gs 258mb but that shouldn’t matter should it as that machine isn’t playing the media, the other devices are, or does the you need to do something before before it reaches the devices?

Sorry for the hundred questions, I will post a media info like you have asap
Rob

11

media info

General
Unique ID : 312488101056264981609272692420352119864 (0xEB1704E45215AE8F48F2FB4B180B9438)
Complete name : D:\movies\Pirates.of.the.Caribbean.Dead.Men.Tell.No.Tales.2017.1080p\Pirates.of.the.Caribbean.Dead.Men.Tell.No.Tales.2017.1080p.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 3.98 GiB
Duration : 2 h 9 min
Overall bit rate : 4 414 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2019-07-30 09:47:05
Writing application : mkvmerge v35.0.0 (‘All The Love In The World’) 64-bit
Writing library : libebml v1.3.9 + libmatroska v1.5.2

Video
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L4@Main
HDR format : SMPTE ST 2086, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 2 h 9 min
Bit rate : 3 745 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.102
Stream size : 3.38 GiB (85%)
Writing library : x265 3.1+5-9c5c9cef2a86:[Windows][GCC 9.1.0][64 bit] 10bit
Encoding settings : cpuid=1111039 / frame-threads=4 / numa-pools=16 / wpp / no-pmode / no-pme / no-psnr / no-ssim / log-level=2 / input-csp=1 / input-res=1920x800 / interlace=0 / total-frames=185724 / level-idc=0 / high-tier=1 / uhd-bd=0 / ref=4 / no-allow-non-conformance / repeat-headers / annexb / no-aud / no-hrd / info / hash=0 / no-temporal-layers / open-gop / min-keyint=23 / keyint=250 / gop-lookahead=0 / bframes=4 / b-adapt=2 / b-pyramid / bframe-bias=0 / rc-lookahead=25 / lookahead-slices=4 / scenecut=40 / radl=0 / no-splice / no-intra-refresh / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / rect / no-amp / max-tu-size=32 / tu-inter-depth=1 / tu-intra-depth=1 / limit-tu=0 / rdoq-level=2 / dynamic-rd=0.00 / no-ssim-rd / signhide / no-tskip / nr-intra=0 / nr-inter=0 / no-constrained-intra / strong-intra-smoothing / max-merge=3 / limit-refs=3 / limit-modes / me=3 / subme=3 / merange=57 / temporal-mvp / weightp / no-weightb / no-analyze-src-pics / deblock=0:0 / sao / no-sao-non-deblock / rd=4 / no-early-skip / rskip / no-fast-intra / no-tskip-fast / no-cu-lossless / no-b-intra / no-splitrd-skip / rdpenalty=0 / psy-rd=2.00 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / no-rd-refine / no-lossless / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rc=crf / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpstep=4 / stats-write=0 / stats-read=0 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30 / aq-mode=2 / aq-strength=1.00 / cutree / zone-count=0 / no-strict-cbr / qg-size=32 / no-rc-grain / qpmax=69 / qpmin=0 / no-const-vbv / sar=0 / overscan=0 / videoformat=5 / range=0 / colorprim=9 / transfer=16 / colormatrix=9 / chromaloc=0 / display-window=0 / master-display=G(13250,34500)B(7500,3000)R(34000,16000)WP(15635,16450)L(10000000,50)cll=0,0 / min-luma=0 / max-luma=1023 / log2-max-poc-lsb=8 / vui-timing-info / vui-hrd-info / slices=1 / no-opt-qp-pps / no-opt-ref-list-length-pps / no-multi-pass-opt-rps / scenecut-bias=0.05 / no-opt-cu-delta-qp / no-aq-motion / hdr / no-hdr-opt / no-dhdr10-opt / no-idr-recovery-sei / analysis-reuse-level=5 / scale-factor=0 / refine-intra=0 / refine-inter=0 / refine-mv=0 / refine-ctu-distortion=0 / no-limit-sao / ctu-info=0 / no-lowpass-dct / refine-analysis-type=0 / copy-pic=1 / max-ausize-factor=1.0 / no-dynamic-refine / no-single-sei / no-hevc-aq / no-svt / no-field / qp-adaptation-range=1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : PQ
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries : Display P3
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0050 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2 h 9 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 591 MiB (15%)
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : No
Forced : No

12

You can’t play HEVC HDR10 on a FireStick apparently.

Stick to files that look like this:

General
Complete name                            : D:\The Saint (1997) [1080p x264]\The Saint (1997) [1080p x264].mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size                                : 2.21 GiB
Duration                                 : 1 h 56 min
Overall bit rate                         : 2 729 kb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-09-12 10:48:04
Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-09-12 10:48:04
Writing application                      : Lavf58.20.100

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 1 h 56 min
Bit rate                                 : 2 500 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 816 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.35:1
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (23976/1000) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.067
Stream size                              : 2.03 GiB (92%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 152 r2851M ba24899
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=16 / lookahead_threads=4 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=2500 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=31250 / vbv_bufsize=31250 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=3:1.00
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-09-12 10:48:04
Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-09-12 10:48:04
Codec configuration box                  : avcC

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 1 h 56 min
Duration_LastFrame                       : -11 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 224 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 186 MiB (8%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Alternate group                          : 1
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-09-12 10:48:04
Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-09-12 10:48:04

AVC NOT HDR
File Shown is still AAC 5.1 - but that will change shortly to AC3 5.1

13

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