Plex always transcodes to MPEGTS

Plex Players Smart TVs
1

Hello everyone. I noticed that for a few months when I stream on my Samsung TV any content is transcoded from the mkv container to MPEGTS. I’m sure it’s not a bandwidth or codec reading problem because I’ve always been able to see anything in direct play and now this happens with both h264 and HEVC.
Also this does not happen with the Fire TV and I always get direct play with older TVs and off my network. I looked at the history of my streams on Tautulli and I noticed that until May this only happened a few times, while now it happens for every file. The only setting that I remember having changed in that period is disable direct stream and direct play (what’s the difference?) only on my tv to better manage some old AVI files, but I have encountered the same problem in other samsung tvs that I have tried these days. However I can’t understand what is the situation or the file type that makes plex decide to transcode.

In all honesty I don’t notice any difference and all this doesn’t seem to bother me (the bitrate is even higher, maybe due to the different container?), but I would like to understand the reasons, since I can’t even force the direct stream from the TV and I have not been able to verify the impact it has on the server CPU, which is an old computer and I would like to preserve it.

These are the logs I took from the yesterday vision of a fullHD h264 file, sorry for the length but I didn’t know which information could be the most important and I started from about the time of selecting the content.

Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.255 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - PlayQueue: 0 generated IDs compressed down to a 20 byte blob.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.256 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - PlayQueue: Start index: 0 End index: 0 Count: 1
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.256 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - PlayQueue: 1 generated IDs compressed down to a 24 byte blob.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.257 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - PlayQueue: Added 1 items in 0.0 sec.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.261 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.261 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - Selecting best audio stream for part ID 17511 (autoselect: 1 language: it)
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.261 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - We're going to try to auto-select a subtitle.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.261 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - Subtitles: Found a candidate subtitle language [ita] for a foreign film
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.261 [0x7fc73bfff700] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 43277, Subtitle Stream: 43279
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.261 [0x7fc756bbc700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.5:57499] 200 POST /playQueues?type=video&uri=library%3A%2F%2Ffa8dd033-e4ee-428b-a59f-0f374ac2579c%2Fitem%2F%252Flibrary%252Fmetadata%252F7693&shuffle=0&repeat=0&includeChapters=1 (8 live) TLS GZIP 7ms 1758 bytes (pipelined: 10)
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.767 [0x7fc756bbc700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as gianluca_98
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.767 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.1.5:57499 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?hasMDE=1&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F7693&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&protocol=hls&fastSeek=1&directPlay=0&directStream=0&subtitleSize=100&audioBoost=250&location=lan&session=sy4h3g3exx7gvkj0jn0pgy14&subtitles=auto&Accept-Language=it (8 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (gianluca_98)
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.767 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Found session GUID of sy4h3g3exx7gvkj0jn0pgy14 in session start.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.800 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] TranscodeUniversalRequest: using augmented profile Samsung Tizen
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.800 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Downloading document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/7693?includeBandwidths=1&offset=-1&X-Plex-Incomplete-Segments=1&X-Plex-Session-Identifier=kffo0ttkcmiqm6we2ohfflxr
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.801 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Auth: authenticated user 1 as gianluca_98
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.805 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.805 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Selecting best audio stream for part ID 17511 (autoselect: 1 language: it)
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.805 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] We're going to try to auto-select a subtitle.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.805 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Subtitles: Found a candidate subtitle language [ita] for a foreign film
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.805 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Audio Stream: 43277, Subtitle Stream: 43279
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.812 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Scaled up video bitrate to 9490Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.812 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mpegts
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.812 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: analyzing media item 17450
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.812 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E1 - Episodio 1: Direct Play is disabled
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.812 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E1 - Episodio 1: media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E1 - Episodio 1: Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E1 - Episodio 1: no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Scaled up video bitrate to 9490Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Dieci piccoli indiani - S1 E1 - Episodio 1: selected media 0 / 17450
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Adding session 0x7fc73c1f4460:kffo0ttkcmiqm6we2ohfflxr which is using transcoder slot.  Used slots is now 1
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Added session 0x7fc73c1f4460:kffo0ttkcmiqm6we2ohfflxr
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.813 [0x7fc7427fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=7693 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=17450 part=(id=17511 decision=transcode container=mpegts protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=43276 decision=transcode bitrate=9490 encoder=libx264 width=1920 height=1080) Audio=(id=43277 decision=copy channels=2 rate=48000) Subtitle=(id=43279 decision=transcode bitrate=2147483647 encoder=webvtt languageCode=ita location=segmented))))
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:25.814 [0x7fc756bbc700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.5:57499] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?hasMDE=1&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F7693&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&protocol=hls&fastSeek=1&directPlay=0&directStream=0&subtitleSize=100&audioBoost=250&location=lan&session=sy4h3g3exx7gvkj0jn0pgy14&subtitles=auto&Accept-Language=it (8 live) TLS GZIP 47ms 1555 bytes (pipelined: 11)
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.046 [0x7fc7573bd700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as gianluca_98
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.046 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.1.5:57517 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/start.m3u8?hasMDE=1&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F7693&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&protocol=hls&fastSeek=1&directPlay=0&directStream=0&subtitleSize=100&audioBoost=250&location=lan&session=sy4h3g3exx7gvkj0jn0pgy14&subtitles=auto&Accept-Language=it (9 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (gianluca_98) (range: bytes=0-) 
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.046 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Found session GUID of sy4h3g3exx7gvkj0jn0pgy14 in session start.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.046 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - [Transcode] TranscodeUniversalRequest: using augmented profile Samsung Tizen
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.046 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Downloading document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/7693?checkFiles=1&includeBandwidths=1&offset=-1&X-Plex-Incomplete-Segments=1&X-Plex-Session-Identifier=kffo0ttkcmiqm6we2ohfflxr
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.047 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Auth: authenticated user 1 as gianluca_98
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.051 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - [Transcode] We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jan 15, 2021 22:18:27.051 [0x7fc765d7b700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Selecting best audio stream for part ID 17511 (autoselect: 1 language: it)

I found other people wit the same similar problem here on the forum, but it looks slightly different every time.
Thank you for the help.

Server Version#: 1.21.1.3876
Player Version#: Plex for Samsung 3.3.4 (Tizen 4.0)

[EDIT]
I tried to enable the direct stream option on the tv and now plex says direct stream, but tautulli still says MPEGTS as container. I took a look also on the cpu consume and there never seems to be any operation that is more expensive than normal and that could suggest a transcoding. Also I tried to reactivate the direct play option too, but the situation doesn’t change and I just get that it is impossible to play the avi files I was talking about (it should be a bug of the samsung app). So do I have to give up?

2

If it is direct stream Plex is only changing the container for example mp4 to mpegts but it is not transcoding the video. It may be your video in the current container is not supported by your TV so Plex has to change the container to something your TV wants.

3

Plex telling me what my tv can and can’t play is a major problem for me to… My tv plays almost everything I throw at it from USB but nooo, plex “knows better” and transcodes every audio making impossible to watch anything with subtitles b/c then video gets transcoded to, hrrrrrr!? My PC has useful things to do than wasting CPU power for completely unnecessary transcodings.
Unfortunately my tv has no other options but Plex so I am stuck with it.
Let me choose what and how to play it, please, I know my tv much better than you, Plex, believe me.

1 Like
4

Yes, I think the same. And as I said it’s not a problem for me right now. But this is strange because i could direct stream “for real” until a while ago and I’ve got the “proof” thanks to Tautulli :joy:

5

It might help if you include the details of the video you are trying to play as well as the model number of the TV. Most issues like this is the result of TV limitations and not Plex. In most TV’s you only can play stereo as their is no surround and not all audio formats are supported so ether Plex or the TV will transcode the audio and TVs usually don’t have a lot of processing power which causes shuddering or buffering issues if they transcode the audio. Some TV’s can’t handle the PGS subtitiles and need to be transcoded, if you do not want to transcode, consider remuxing with out the PGS subtitiels and use SRT subtitles instead.

6

@98_gmail_com
Sorry for hijacking your topic, but it’s really frustrating…

@Alucard1
If you are asking me here it is… Tv is latest 2021 Vizio model OLED55-H1 and as I said plays every audio AAC, AC3, EAC3, DTS, DTS-HD(all in 2.0/5.1/7.1 etc), mp3, flac, opus, vorbis etc, except DD-TrueHD and DTS-X(but can pass them through to receiver I use) but plex decides to transcode them to sometimes AC3, sometimes EAC3, sometimes AAC without a logic. B/c of this any subtitles cause plex to transcode video to. I then use Plex to cast these movies with subtitles to the same tv built-in Chromecast - Plex then direct streams same video and audio and only transcodes vtt(chromecast supported format) subtitles to ass(no biggy). If I convert vtt to ass and play movie again with ass subtitles Plex again transcodes ass subs back to vtt?! Now tell me WTF is the Plex logic here…!?
Those are external subtitles, internal in mkv subs are no go at all.
Video details really doesn’t matter if tv can play them from USB stick but Plex app/server decides tv is no good for it.

7

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