Server Version#: 1.30.1.6497
Player Version#: 9.13.1.37459
PMS now supports the AV1 video codec standard since version 1.30.1.6497.
Please add also support to detect AV1 hardware decoding on Plex Client, if available.
As it stands now everything is only getting transcoded.
hardware transcoding is done on the server, not the client.
hardware transcoding is a plex pass feature.
I’m a Plex Pass holder.
Plex hasn’t enabled yet AFAIK this on their Plex Clients.
What did I ask?
I am asking only for now on to be added in their clients a function to check if there is hardware playback support available on Plex Client end.
In my case I now have a device which does hardware playback AV1 and my Plex client ( Android TV) is only offering transcoding when in fact it should be Direct Play.
Plex added enabled AV1 on their servers on the latest version
which playback device are you using?
Xiaomi MI Stick TV 4K (2022)
They have enabled Direct Play for AV1 content on their HTPC client:
I suspect you are in the 0.1% of people who have AV1 content out so cannot imagine rolling out AV1 to all other clients, is high on the to-do list.
yep, 0.1% of people with AV1 content combined with using such a niche device that probably 0.1% of plex users have. so 0.1% of 0.1% of plex users.
The hardest part was to get transcoding on the server side running
This is already done. What is left is easy compared with.
Is not about what device I have. It’s about the platforms (OS).
I am asking for that to be enabled by checking if a Plex client in question is running on a device (and there’s a increasing growing list of it) that has hardware decoding.
And in the case you didn’t noticed I’m talking about Android TV. Pretty niche I’d say.
Honestly. I don’t even know why I’m even replying to this.
It will be the last.
it won’t be stock Android TV, it’ll be Xiaomi’s fork of it (same as Nvidia uses a fork for their devices).
the only device running stock Android TV is google own devices.
and if what is left is so easy then feel free to write the code that is needed to do it.
I’m with you, hbbs. AV1 support was added to PMS beta a couple of weeks ago, and within a few days stable, now it’s already playing properly in some clients (direct play, Plex for Windows, HTPC). I would assume Android devices will be next, because of the strong support of AV1 from Google on Chromecast, Google TV, and Android TVs (2020+). A topic like this will help us keep informed of the progress, at least.
Also, I don’t think AV1 is super-niche anymore (but what do I know), now that encoding time is reasonable (SVT-AV1) it is quickly becoming more interesting and easier to access (Handbrake). I only question how useful AV1 will be with high-quality (bitrate) video, as it would seems to love annihilating sharpness and details (like early HEVC). If it keeps getting faster and more tunable, it could end up being very popular. 2023 will be very interesting for AV1. (And JPEG XL?!)
You clearly don’t know anything about content availability, codecs nor software development. I’m a bit amazed that you were able to create a Plex forum account at all.
AV1 is already widely used by YouTube for some time now and all popular streaming services are rolling it out (or planning) as we speak. All new SoC’s provide AV1 support and it will be mainstream before Q3 this year. Plex is not decoding content itself, but is relying on the embedded media player, such as ExoPlayer on Android. If the platform supports AV1 and Plex has a client for it, it will be less than an hour work to implement it properly.
It’s totally not a niche anymore (read my previous comment), but I guess Herman is a bit “technologically challenged” 
is that really the best you can do? poor poor effort.
try better next time (whilst complying with the forum rules)
i’m willing to bet that, as the shield doesn’t support AV1 or VP.9, there won’t be much desire to offer support on the client side for android based devices, even if you think it would only take 1 hours work to do.
AV1 is indeed gaining a lot of traction.
Software decoding is out for a while and hardware accelerated decoding is being added by all major chip manufacturers. All new streaming devices will support it. I’ve read it will also be mandatory for all android 14 phones (google is pushing a lot for AV1, as is Netflix and all the other partners in the Alliance of Open Media). Being a royalty free codec is a strong incentive for adoption by all hardware manufacturers.
AV1 content will hopefully become more and more available, since it offers the best compression quality so far. It is better than H265 and even VP9.
I hope this is the year in which Plex rolls out direct play capability for all their clients. It should be added as soon as possible, at least for the most used clients. (Web Browsers, Android TV, LG and Samsung Smart TVs …)
Plex is hiring, maybe you can be the one to complete all the work in an hour, and get paid for it!
Google already demand all new Android/Google TV devices must support AV1. Some of the new Google TV/Android TV devices on the market already supported AV1. Even my 2020 Sony TV has been updated to support AV1. The platform is ready for a while now. nVidia Shield no longer represents what Android TV eco system is as it is still running on a 5-year old SOC.
Why do you think I would want to cut my current salary in half?
PS. Their engineers aren’t the problem (I actually know one of them personally); they are quite skilled. It’s the priority given to certain features and defects.
This, exactly. But I’ll suggest you don’t waste your time on someone who lacks any form of knowledge about this subject and doesn’t want to learn either.
FWIW the only thing stopping me from using AV1 in my library is the lack of Plex support.
