Plex Web App Player can't direct play AV1 + Opus files

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: Version 4.138.0
Player Version#:

Hello everyone, first of all thanks to all the Plex team for the fantastic job you’re doing, it is much appreciated! This is my first post so please don’t crucify me for opening a subject that has been already opened, I just couldn’t find my definitive answer but a guess so here goes :

I really like the plex web app, I find it the most reactive and handy not having to use any external app to play my files. Whoever, I have tried everything I could think of to get a AV1 & Opus movie to direct play, without forced transcoding in the plex web app player (app.plex.tv if you wish, I believe that’s how it’s called). If I play the same file in either plex for windows client or HTPC version they direct play just fine for all streams, video (AV1), audio (Opus) and subtitle (ASS).

I am using Brave browser, I am convinced my browser has the ability to play AV1/Opus content using hardware acceleration (11th gen i5 with Intel Iris XE gpu that has 2 QSV engines including AV1 hardware decoding), I have done this test with some videos on You tube. I believe the bottleneck is the plex web app player itself that for whatever reason doesn’t allow a direct play of AV1/Opus.

I there anything I could try to configure like an xml file somewhere to tell it “just play it it’s okay, it’ll work” or is it a hard limitation of the plex web app player, and there’s nothing more that could be done my side (tears intensifying) to get this to work ?

TLDR; Anyone has got their plex web app to direct play AV1/Opus with no transcoding?

Thank you very much for your time and help with this topic.

2

Browsers are rather limited in their playback capabilities.
Even if they generally support a specific codec, there might be restrictions to certain bitrates, color spaces, codec levels, resolutions. This might also depend on the combination of video/audio/subtitle.

That’s why there’s native apps for most platforms, e.g. Plex for Windows which offer a more powerful video engine.
The web player will usually test if the media at hand is compatible / supported by the browser – if it is, it’ll attempt to direct play, otherwise it’ll request a transcoded/optimized version from the server.

3

Thank you very much for your fast & precise answer, I’ve marked it as a solution since if I understand it correct, there’s no way to achieve what I’d like as of now :slight_smile:

Here’s to hoping that in the next few years support for the bitrates/color spaces/codec levels etc… will improve. There’s nothing faster & more handy than the web browser to access its stuff, just like netflix,

Just for my understanding: does that mean that the videos I can direct play in youtube that uses av1 & opus are played in the browser because they control the settings of the encode to stay within what chromium based browsers can play while within plex there’s an entire possible mixture of different videos?

4

I can only guess.
Common streaming platforms will provide highly optimized versions to their customers – while in Plex that’s on you… unless you’re ok for Plex to transcode the videos as needed.