Plex can't do portraits properly...unfortunate

[none]

Server Version#: 1.20.4.3517
Player Version#: I don’t know where this is but it’s the latest download on all devices

PLEX does not seem to live up to the hype. What is infuriating is I see time and time again people complaining about the same issue and a couple claims the problem has been fixed in upgrades, and the same problem persists. Are the developers not on this forum? Why can’t this thing play portrait videos properly. It always seems to be blamed on 3D settings (which my TVs don’t have) or the TV itself…no, it’s PLEX. Every other player plays the same videos fine on all devices without touching settings…VLS, DSVideo, KODI. So why is PLEX unable to resolve this issue?

I have three different devices I’ve tested so far. Sony XBR65E(something), Samsung QN75Q70RA, Firestick…attached to the Samsung. The only one that seems to play the portrait videos properly is the firestick. The Samsung it is stretching the video, and on the Sony it is playing a duplicate side by side image, or it rotates some of the video 90’. The same video files play perfectly on a computer using all applications…yes including vlc.

Yes I go into the settings and make sure the videos are playing at original format and settings…but I don’t think I should have to do that…I don’t with any other player.

The only way I get the videos to play properly is by going into a video editor and exporting the video without making any changes. I shouldn’t have to do this, I especially don’t like doing this because the video poster now gets turned into a portrait image, this doesn’t make any sense.

My videos are on a synology.

Can this please actually be addressed.

[Volts]

Can you share some samples?

I assume the portrait orientation videos were recorded on phones?

I think what’s going on here is that the video stream was actually recorded in landscape orientation, and there’s just a flag in the container that it should be rotated.

I think that’s why re-saving your videos helps. The new video stream is saved in the portrait orientation, without the “rotate me!” flag.

Even outside of the Plex world, differences between the container and the stream have always been problematic. This used to happen frequently with images, too. A similar issue even happened with some commercial DVDs and aspect ratio.

Plex is more likely to interpret the container-level flags if you allow the server to transcode the video, because the transcoder tries to parse them. So forcing a different resolution, disabling Direct playback, or using Plex to “Optimize” the video, may address this.

That’s more like what the other “thick” players do, too.

Direct, however, means it’s given to the player hardware without much intervention. Playback devices are less likely to interpret the container-level flags when Direct playback is enabled.

Another option is a rotating TV mount. Watching portrait videos at a FULL 65" is an astonishing experience.

(Edit: to be clear, if there is any improvement to be made here, I would also welcome it!)