Nvidia Shield and 4k DCI

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
1

Two days ago I bought Nvidia Shield, installed Plex player, disabled Plex server and then tried to play 4k DCI (4096x2160 60p) HEVC video. It worked well. Ran that with direct play. Smoth and quick. I really enjoyed how it worked. So I played about a dozen of videos and then went to bed. Next evening, when I tried to do the same, I found that it’s not working as well as day before. It starts transcoding all DCI videos, while still playing regular UHD (3840x2160) with Direct play. Status is showing that “Transcode reason: device cannot play video format 4096:2160”. Something similar to this topic: https://internal.jenkins.dev.us-west-2.awspedev-test.foxneotechops.com/job/pe-m2-dev-build/configure

Well, it would be ok for me, to face such limitations, BUT!!! It was working fine just day before!

Again, the rest of videos with h265/h264 and resolutions from 720x320 to 3840x2160 and up to 60p still working fine.

Does anyone knows something about it or had similar experience?

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What is your display size, 3840x2160?

If so, Plex will transcode the video, as it is larger than your display - 4096 pixels vs 3840 pixels.

Not sure why it did not transcode the first time you played the videos. Every 4K video I’ve played on my Shield (probably 5 total) has transcoded.

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Shield is connected to media projector with FullHD resolution (1080p).

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Then Plex will transcode any video larger than 1080p to H.264 1080p.

Transcoding 4K/UHD video in real time requires a lot of CPU horsepower. Since your display is 1080p, there is no real reason to play 4K/UHD videos, since Plex will just transcode them to 1080p anyway.

Note that Plex transcodes 4K/UHD HDR H.265 video to 1080p SDR H.264. Also, Plex does not yet support HDR -> SDR tonemapping, so the resulting colors will appear washed out.

Basically, transcoding 4K in Plex is currently problematic and best avoided if possible.

If the movie/show/etc is only available in 4K, you may wish to transcode it offline, using tools such as Handbrake. You can then load the the resulting file into Plex where it will direct play.

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Video file is 4096x2160x60p HEVC.
Plex is running on server with following specs:
Supermicro X10DRi-T
2 x Xeon E5-2630 v3
128 GB ECC 2400 RAM
24 x Samsung EVO 850 250G in Raidz2 pool
6 x Seagate 5TB in Raidz2 pool
10G network (10G switch as well)

Transcoding utilizing both CPU for about 100% (no mater of what is resolution is on output device) but video is not playing at all or playing with hard jitters and pauses. When Direct play worked at first day it started playing immediately, almost with no lag. I would say in 1-2 seconds. And it was playing very smoothly. It is working the same smooth through Kodi, but I would like to use Plex, instead of Kodi, just because it is more easier for my family.

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I think that I’ve tried to play 3840x2160 and it was working thru Direct play on 1080p projector, but I’m not sure. Tonight I will check this again and then update this thread.

Well, if I understood you correctly, Plex always will do transcode if source resolution is higher than output device resolution?

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As I promised when I came back to home i’ve tried to play few movies in UHD 3840x2160 and HEVC. All of them are playing nice in Direct play mode on my 1080p projector. So your assumption that everything that has bigger resolution than output device will be transcoded is incorrect.

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