Server Version#: 1.15.4.994
Player Version#: 3.98.1
Tizen Version#: 3.0
TV Model: QN65Q9FAM
My most recent rips to Plex all seem to have a problem with horrible artifacting and stuttering. I have been ripping my movies to Plex for 2+ years now, and this is the first time I have run into this. It only seems to happen on my Plex app for my Samsung Smart TV. If I play the same file on my Samsung TV with my NVidia Shield, I don’t have this problem. The Smart TV is connected via a wired connection, the Shield using a wireless connection. The shield is only connected to test the issue currently and actually belongs in another room - hence why I don’t just switch to the Shield. I have attached a screenshot showing the artifacting as well as the info screen showing some of the file details. I have been playing with the bitrate settings on these rips to increase the bitrate to get the best quality/size options here. I did see an issue in the past where some Smart TV’s struggled with bitrates higher than 20000, so the most recent rip I did (the screenshot provided), I lowered it below that threshold but still seem to be getting the same issue. Can someone help me shed some light on this? I’m starting 4K rips tomorrow and want to find my best quality settings that don’t cause issues. Let me know what else you would like me to provide.
I have also confirmed I do NOT have this problem on my Roku Streaming Stick+ connected to an old Sony Bravia 46" LED TV (about 9 years old) with the same file. I do have the problem on my Samsung UN32M5300 TV running Tizen 3.0 and Plex 3.3.4. So currently, it seems related to Samsung Smart TV’s running the Plex app.
Can you confirm that this playback is Direct Streaming the video stream from your file?
(Check the Plex Dashboard)
If it does, then Plex has no influence on this issue. The TV only reproduces what is in your file.
Thanks @lostcowboy. I would agree, except it is technically in the same format as every other file I have added. Everything I rip I do in h265, copy the audio source, and remux the subs. Before you point out the subs though, I am not watching with subs in these tests, so it is not transcoding to burn in. Good thought though!
@OttoKerner I played the file on both of my Samsung TV’s that are having the issue and pulled up my Plex Dashboard from my PC. It is doing Direct Play for both video and audio, not direct streaming.
And correct me if I am wrong - I am just a humble (intermediate level) user - since it is Direct Play, that means that Plex and the TV agree that the TV is 100% capable of handling the file. The problem is, the file plays just fine on my laptop, server, Roku Streaming Stick+, and Nvidia Shield, so the file does not appear corrupted in anyway and the artificating only appears on the Samsung TV’s. That is what is stumping me.
@OttoKerner while I am doing that, just to get your opinion on this. Earlier you said that “A Full HD movie with 18 Mbps in HEVC appears to me as a bit excessive.” Can you shed some more light on this? Why do you do think that is excessive? What, in your opinion, would be a good setting to get the highest quality possible in HEVC? I am still learning all of the ropes when it comes to customizing my rips. Up until a few days ago, I just used DVDFab and set all the settings to high-quality for my rips. I just started trying to tweak the settings on my own in DVDFab instead of using presets, and am still figuring out terminology and settings honestly. If you can break down why you think that is excessive or point me to a good resource I can read on this (I have been trying to research this myself, but everything basically just says all the settings are subjective, which I get - it has to look good to my eyes), I would really appreciate it!
The highest possible quality is a lossless compression. Unfortunately, this will cause your encoded file to be much, much bigger than the original file
So, you must decide how much loss you are willing to tolerate.
Are you using ‘constant bandwidth’ or ‘constant quality’ to encode your files?
Which parameters do you use there?
A quick remux of the file using MKVtooknixGUI removing all of the subtitles and stripping it down to just the main english audio track does seem to resolve the issue. I can work with this going forward. I don’t really have any need for the non-english audio and subtitles, so I can exclude them from the rips to resolve the issue going forward. I guess I just wasn’t aware that was increasing the bitrate (although it does make sense once you mentioned it).
As far as the question about the parameters I use when ripping the files, I was aware of using a lossless option, but as you pointed out, the files get rather large. I originally just ripped all of my files using mkv passthrough, but as I added more media, realized I needed to factor in the cost of adding additional storage (I’m buying 10TB WD Red drives as needed. Right now I have 1-10 TB drive that is full and 5TB of external storage that I’ve almost maxed out that I had laying around until I can get another red drive (or 2)) and after a lot of research, decided to switch to h265 because of the compression v quality that it provides. In DVDFab, my option is really to set a bitrate, I don’t see an option to choose constant bandwidth or constant quality. I have a ‘high quality’ option I used to use, until I started playing with the bitrate the other day, which then sets the high quality option to customized. I think the struggle is understanding more about bitrate - I was under the very basic assumption that the bitrate would equate to high picture quality. So the higher the bitrate the better the picture. A quick Google search just now makes me think that I may want to set DVDFab back to high quality - assuming that it will give me a variable bitrate (which I am seeing some people say is better to account for more complex images). I will have to look more into what the different toggles in DVDFab will actually affect. I was just trying get an idea/opinion of what to aim for to get as close to lossless as possible while still saving space. Essentially, what things to factor in to get the best picture.
picking a bitrate target makes files which stream more predictably, because the bitrate doesn’t vary much. But the quality will vary.
picking high quality instead will adapt the bitrate to achieve a defined quality level. Which can sometimes save bitrate, but can sometimes also produce bigger files – all depending on the picture content and the amount of movement on screen. A side effect of that is also a (sometimes wildly) varying bitrate, which makes predicting the streaming performance difficult.
As for the additional audio tracks and subtitles:
Your example file had not only foreign languages but also 2 commentary tracks, plus the accompanying subtitles. You might want to keep these, but name those tracks in mkvtoolnix. Plex will expose those names in the UI someday.
We have multiple Samsung TVs using different Plex apps. All models are medium priced so no high end models. They are much more picky about network speed compared to eg. PMP running on Windows. I used to run most of them over wifi and 10-15Mbps Bluray rips was the maximum without artifacts and/or buffering. At the same time I could stream a full BR rip (30-45Mbps) to PMP over the same wifi.
After I went for all fixed 1gbps networking, all TV’s (with hevc support) can stream full UHD BR rips (50+Mbps) without problems. Also the lower end models without hevc support can stream full br rips.
So I would try even temporarily connecting the tv with fixed networking to find out the real root cause. <20Mbps bitrates should definitely not be a problem for the tv itself.
