Plex not recognizing codec 'profile' changes

[faycee]

Hiya

Due to the devices i stream to i do have to change the profile from all my videos to 4.1.
Past couple of days i’ve done the exact same thing, removed the file from directory, remove from plex, use H264LevelEditor, drag the file back into the directory, rescan and it usually shows the change and playback is fixed.

Now i can see that the codec info has infact changed to 4.1 (using mediaInfo) but plex still seems to display it as ‘5’ and its still stuttering.

Thanks in advanced!

[faycee]

Any ideas?
Is there a way i can completely remove metadata /media information from plex so it picks up the new information? where would old information be stored in plex because its not picking up the updated info… ?

regards

[TeknoJunky]

@faycee

Is there a way i can completely remove metadata /media information from plex

The Plex Dance ™

The purpose of this is to remove all cached metadata and xml data for an item that Plex usually keeps. This helps when you want to “start from scratch” for particular item move all files for the media item out of the directory your Library is looking at, so Plex will not “see” it anymore scan the library library (to detect changes) empty trash clean bundles (in menu next to server name, when accessed under ‘More’) double check naming schema and move files back scan the library Support articl…

[OttoKerner]

@faycee

use H264LevelEditor

All this tool does is to misrepresent what is in the video data stream. i.e. it “lies” to the player which is reading the mediainfo of that file.
That will only ever work if the level has been set wrong in the first place.
If however the level is correctly set, all you will achieve by editing it down is to produce a stream which can have visual glitches or which, in the extreme case, won’t play at all.

Plex is performing a deep analysis, which decodes the video stream in full and then determines the real level of the video stream.
So if you patch the ‘level’ label in your files, it won’t change anything in Plex – except in the case when Plex has decided to Direct-Play the file anyway.

[TeknoJunky]

sounds like, ‘you need a bigger boat’.

ie, you need better devices that can play the files you want to play.

or re-rip/re-encode the files to the proper profile level.

[faycee]

Youre 100% correct in saying that it misrepresents the actual value BUT for some reason its been working. Chromecast2 supports upto 4.1 and i genuinely felt that this application was far-fetched but it worked and it works on the actual video file itself when i check with a 3rd party application which displays codec information. Im going to try casting this file to my chromecast ‘outside’ of plex and see if it streams. bare with me

[OttoKerner]

@faycee

it works on the actual video file itself when i check with a 3rd party application which displays codec information.

All it does is to replace the label in the file header, which used to say e.g. ‘Level 5.1’ with a label which now says ‘Level 4.1’.
Most other software just reads the file header and thus, this “faked” label.

It does not change the video data stream itself, so that it now conforms to the boundaries defined in the profile level 4.1. That is impossible without a full transcode.

Whether this strategy produces playable files depends on both

• how was the video stream produced? By which software (or hardware encoder) and with which parameters, at which ‘speed’ setting?
• which particular player chip is used?

Your strategy can work perfectly fine for your current devices and the files you have now. But at any time it can fail, if only one of the above changes.

[faycee]

Okay that makes sense. Ive come across one of your responses :https://forums.plex.tv/t/solved-h264-maximum-level-solution/189370. I think so far i’ve just had luck with the content i was alternating the levels to. Theres obviously alot that i need to learn.

Thanks guys!