Plex H264 Maximum Level?

[darcilicious]

Are you accessing Settings from TV Mode?

You can read a little more about H.264 levels here:

H.264 Maximum Level for various TVs

I’m finding a lot of conflicting information on what the H.264 Maximum Level should be set to for smart TVs running Plex natively. Hardware details are below. I’m mostly playing ripped/compressed BR movies and live TV Comcast feed through a SiliconDust HDHomeRun. I just recently found the settings to allow the clients to play a higher quality. My server can easily transcode, but I want the highest quality that will work. The Plex client on all my devices indicates 4.1 is the recommended setting …

and here:

Maximum H.264 Level > (Help Text)

Server Version#: 1.16.3.1402 Player Version#: 3.1.13.5830 Settings > Video > Maximum H.264 Level > (Help Text) Choose the maximum H.264 level to be considered when deciding if the media will Direct Play, Direct Stream, or Transcode. This has to be the most confusing tooltip ever written. How does this setting influence one outcome over another?

@caputo00

what about the setting “use hardware acceleration when available”, does that only effect transcoding or does it also effect direct play?

It only effects transcoding since that’s done on the server side; direct play means the client is doing all the work and the server is sending the file “as-is”; it’s not actually much “work” for the client since direct play implies the client can just play the file.