When I initiate a 4k stream, Plex will always transcode down to 1080p when I select an external .srt file with a gre language code. If it’s a file with eng langugae code the stream will remain in 4k res.
If I manually remove the “gre” language code from the greek .srt file, then the subtitle will show up as unknown but plex won’t trasncode my 4k stream.
I am forced to always rename my greek subs from *.gre.srt to plain *.srt in order to avoid transcoding.
I wonder if it’s transcoding because greek subtitles have non-standard characters (diacritics) like έ. And it’s erroneously thinking that your device doesn’t support them. So, for safety, it just transcodes the video.
When a device doesn’t support those characters all you’ll see are boxes like so:
What I don’t understand is why it’s transcoding to 1080p. That usually doesn’t happen unless a user selects a different resolution or sets something to “automatic” in the settings.
It doesn’t have to transcode due to special characters. I am sure of that because it can playback fine the same .srt file after I remove the language code “gre” just before the .srt extension.
Srt file keeps same characters but with the non-language-coded filename it appears us “Unknown”. However it displays fine after that and all special characters are ok. Encoding is UTF always.
Everything is set yto max quality, local and remote. But when it reads an srt filename with .gre. in its name, it defaults to 1080p transcoded stream with correctly displayed subtitles.
I understand what you mean! But what I don’t understand is why it doesn’t transcode with Unknown subtitles as well? And why downgrading trasncoding to 1080p as well.
Tvseries.gre.srt file → 1080p trascoded with greek subs displaying correctly
Tvseries.srt file → 4k direct play with greek subs (selected as Unknown) displaying correctly.
Tvseries.eng.srt file → 4k direct play with English subs (selected as English) displaying correctly.
If a stream needs transcoding for another reason it defaults to 4k transcoded stream. When transcoding happens due to Greek subs it immediatley goes to 1080p stream with burnt in greek subs.
What can I do about it though? Just bulk rename greek sub files everytime? Or just change my roku tv in the end…
It is very strange that Plex still depends on the device peculiar capabilities/restrictions to just display subs no matter what language it has to display!
Have you ever successfully transcoded to 4k before or never? It’s an important clue as to whether the 1080p thing is a different matter than the subtitle thing.
My server can do 4k transcoding on CPU just fine. AMD ryzen 2700 with 8 threads available to transcode.
It transcodes 4k streams down to 1080p for my other 1080p tv fine with no issues.
And it can transcode from 4k to 4k as well I think cause I remember some DoVi files being retranscoded from 4k to 4k in order to play on my Roku TV in the past!
One thing to try is to make sure the subtitle file is UTF-8 without BOM. You can use Subtitle Edit if you don’t know how to convert it. I’ve seen other people having problems with ANSI encoded subtitle files this week. So that might be one reason why it’s transcoding.
I will try to convert them with Notepad++ to UTF-BOM and back to plain UTF and do a test with both. Keeping the gre code on the file. I will let you know with the transcoding results I get!
Same thing with subs having a Greek language code no matter what the encoding is.
After it sees a gre or el code it starts transcoding down to 1080p.
Strange thing I noticed is that when I try to change resolution the 4K original stream is selected but on the right side of the playback bar says hd 1080p.
I can tell it’s trascoding for sure as my 8 threads jump up to 80% with playback.
On stream info says that subtitles selected require transcode. Server decided this cannot direct play.
