Server Version#: 1.29.2.6364 or 1.30.0.6486
Player Version#: Plex for Samsung 5.52.3
Hello,
I’ve got Plex Media Server setup on Windows 10. Most of my files plays fine, but on some cases, when the video file is supported by the TV, but the audio isn’t, it attempts to direct stream the video and transcode the audio and a strange problem happens. The file plays for about 30s-90s then buffers. But it buffers infinitely until i get the “An unexpected playback problem occurred” in about 2 minutes of waiting. I’ve already tested with two types of audio which aren’t supported by my TV: DDP with Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD Master Audio. On both cases, the audio is transcoded to AAC and the problem is identical.
I tried some things to test that it wasn’t a hardware or network issue:
1 - I disabled the “Direct Stream” option on the app. This causes Plex to transcode both video (with same bitrate as original) and audio, which is a lot more hardware intensive then direct streaming video with transcoded audio, as far as I know and evidenced by my CPU/GPU usage. Direct streaming with transcoded audio barely touches my CPU. When I try this and the file doesn’t have gigantic bitrate, it plays normally without buffering at all. When the bitrate is a bit too high, my PC is not strong enough and it buffers, but it buffers normally. It plays a few minutes of video, then buffers a few seconds, continues playing, buffers a little…and the playback never crashes.
2 - I tried reencoding the file with a supported audio file. This causes Plex to direct play the file. My internet connection is pretty good so without the need of transcode, the files play without issues with zero buffering even with very high bitrate files (80+ Mb/s).
I’ve tried checking the server and app logs, but both show zero errors. Could someone help me try to find what is the problem?
