Its still a shame that the performance of PLEX on the xbox one is slow. And still no MKOV support.
And I think, if u want to be a success on the xbox one / 360, those 2 problems need to be solved.
What is the 'slow' issue you are referring to? The GUI? works fine for me. Can you please clarify?
And the .mkv issue isn't a Plex one, it's an XB1 one. Microsoft has to allow 3rd party apps to be able to play .mkvs, something it hasn't allowed Plex to do yet.
And the .mkv issue isn't a Plex one, it's an XB1 one. Microsoft has to allow 3rd party apps to be able to play .mkvs, something it hasn't allowed Plex to do yet.
This, we'll be stuck with remuxing mkv's until xbox allows this. Personally I haven't seen any issues what so ever with this though, it really doesn't take much of a processor to remux the streams to an mp4. I don't get direct play, but I get direct stream on all my mkvs.
I can play 1080p MKV files with no issues at all also on direct stream.
Hi guys, i'm new to Plex. Picked it up specifically to try on the Xbox One (finally retired my WMC7 based HTPC based on the lack of support). What's the difference between Direct Play and Direct Stream and how can I tell which my Xbox is using?
Direct play means it is streaming the original file with no transcoding.
Direct stream means that the codec (whether video or audio) was compatible, but the container (in this case, mkv) was not supported and it was remuxed to a compatible container (likely mp4).
You can tell what is happening by going to plex\web, clicking on activity, and going to now playing. When you hover over the video playing on the xbox there will be a little "I", click this and it will tell you how it is being played.
Excellent, thanks for the reply Adam.
What is the 'slow' issue you are referring to? The GUI? works fine for me. Can you please clarify?
And the .mkv issue isn't a Plex one, it's an XB1 one. Microsoft has to allow 3rd party apps to be able to play .mkvs, something it hasn't allowed Plex to do yet.
As of the October update, X1 supports MKVs fully...and i've been playing them successfully
Will Xbox one show that the video is direct playing similar to how you can tell a video is direct playing on the roku 3 by the HD text that shows when the video is loading? Also any update on mkv direct play support?
As of the October update, X1 supports MKVs fully...and i've been playing them successfully
I was told that MKV support is not there yet for XB1 3rd-party-apps. Are you 10000000% sure that you really are Direct Playing? Many people does not know the difference between Direct Playing and Direct Streaming. And I suspect you are Direct Streaming. But I would love to be wrong. Can you tell me what the PMS-log says when you start a movie in the XB1?
Plex and mkv has become unusable for me now. Just freezes every 5 seconds and is so annoying. And I'm still paying for this app $4.99 today from my account so about ready to cancel my subscription until the kinks are ironed out. Shame really.
Plex and mkv has become unusable for me now. Just freezes every 5 seconds and is so annoying. And I'm still paying for this app $4.99 today from my account so about ready to cancel my subscription until the kinks are ironed out. Shame really.
If you don't want to deal with bugs on a beta, then you should wait until the actual release when you can just pay for the app once and be done. If you are only having plexpass for the xbox app it's probably the wrong way to go. It's similar to being in the Xbox Preview program and griping when a bug comes up, when you use prerelease software things are not going to be perfect.
FWIW: my 2TB library is almost exclusively mkv and I've not had issues thus far.....
If you don't want to deal with bugs on a beta, then you should wait until the actual release when you can just pay for the app once and be done. If you are only having plexpass for the xbox app it's probably the wrong way to go. It's similar to being in the Xbox Preview program and griping when a bug comes up, when you use prerelease software things are not going to be perfect.
FWIW: my 2TB library is almost exclusively mkv and I've not had issues thus far.....
Understandable.
How are you streaming your library without issue then? Do I just need a faster transcoding server?
My computer is nothing special to be honest, it's a dual core (AMD Black Edition Something or other) that is about 4 years old. My server is only ever doing a remux to a different container so it's not very processor intensive. I also don't have subtitles in any of mine, this could be part of the issue if you do as it will transcode and burn in the subtitles on the fly. Checking your logs would be the best thing to do, while watching a movie that is having issues. That will tell you what/if the movie is being transcoded and will tell you if your computer is able to keep up or not.
I would suggest making a new thread, state your problem and provide the logs. Hopefully can get it sorted out for you. :)
Plex and mkv has become unusable for me now. Just freezes every 5 seconds and is so annoying. And I'm still paying for this app $4.99 today from my account so about ready to cancel my subscription until the kinks are ironed out. Shame really.
If your videos are h264 encoded I'm 99% sure the reason you are experiencing transcoding is because the quality setting on the X1 client is set to like 8mbps which will force the transcode if the file is of a higher bit rate. Please confirm if this is the case
In my case I only have issues when playing MKVs with DTS audio tracks. I have an HP MicroServer with an AMD Neo CPU which is pretty slow and as the Xbox one doesn't support MKV with DTS audio yet (coming), that seems to be the issue at least for me. Freezes every 5 second. I'm on dashboard preview.
Oh, yeah, before I found the quality setting on the X1 (only available when pausing a video), every MKV, DTS or not, would pause every 5 second.
In my case I only have issues when playing MKVs with DTS audio tracks. I have an HP MicroServer with an AMD Neo CPU which is pretty slow and as the Xbox one doesn't support MKV with DTS audio yet (coming), that seems to be the issue at least for me. Freezes every 5 second. I'm on dashboard preview.
Oh, yeah, before I found the quality setting on the X1 (only available when pausing a video), every MKV, DTS or not, would pause every 5 second.
Transcoding audio isn't really CPU intensive so that wouldn't be the reason it's stopping every 5 seconds. In the quality setting make sure "Maximum" is set for video. Once you do this, stop (not pause) playback, then try to resume
Hmmm.. tried again last night. Seems to be working now. Yeah, as I mentioned, once quality was set to maximum, non DTS would work perfectly but I would still get stuttering video for high bitrate 1080p content with DTS. Seems OK now tho. Only change I know of is an updated dashboard build. Will switch to use Plex on my X1 instead of the NUC I have and see if stays OK. =)
/S
Hmm.. I dont' seem to have a 'maximum' setting on any of my 1080p blu ray rips, only on the DVD rips. Any thoughts on why? This is forcing all of my Blu Rays to transcode instead of directly stream.
Also, what does it mean when it says "throttled" after transcoding?
Edit: I just realized I'm having the same exact problem as Slydog... Going to leave my post up in case it can help.
I'm having the same problems. When I look at activity information, it appears that I am direct streaming my 1080p Media, but it says "Transcoding (Throttled)". My server is a new Mac Mini 8 GB Memory and 2.6 GHz i5, so my server power is more than adequate to transcode. I've also done connection tests on my Xbox and I have zero packet loss and am getting 45/5. Any ideas what could be going on?
