PlexTranscorder.exe - File Starts as Direct Play, shifts to transcodering

General Discussions
1

Client: Xbox One S
Video: MKV (HEVC) - 24mbps stream
Audio: AC3 5.1 and TrueHD (AC3 selected prior to starting movie, I understand the TrueHD forces Plex to transcode everything)

The movie will start out showing Direct Play under my Plex server status page. However, my processor is maxed out at 100% and the plextranscoder.exe is consuming 95%-98% (i7-2600K @3.7GHz and 24GB of ram). After a few minutes if I check back, the server status page shows the audio is direct play, but the video has shifted to transcoding down to x264.

I’ve used Plex for years (paying monthly for plex pass because I’ve been happy and want to contribute what I feel they are owed!). I’ve never had to look up a log file or troubleshoot my setup. Any chance someone could give me some assistance? Any thoughts on what could be causing this issue? Could this be related to subtitles?

Media

Video Resolution 4K
Duration 2:12:52
Bitrate 24897 kbps
Width 3840
Height 1600
Aspect Ratio 2.35
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate 24p
Video Profile main 10

Duration 2:12:52
Size 23.11 GB
Container MKV
Video Profile main 10
Codec HEVC
Bitrate 24001 kbps
Language English
Bit Depth 10
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Range tv
Color Space bt2020nc
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
Height 1600
Level 5.0
Profile main 10
Ref Frames 1
Width 3840
Codec AC3
Channels 5.1
Bitrate 448 kbps

Codec TRUEHD
Channels 7.1
Language English
Audio Channel Layout 7.1
Bit Depth 24
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Title Dolby Atmos TrueHD 7.1 @ 3951 kbps

Codec AC3
Channels 5.1
Bitrate 448 kbps
Language English
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Title AC3 5.1 @ 448 kbps

2

@clipboard88 said:
The movie will start out showing Direct Play under my Plex server status page. However, my processor is maxed out at 100% and the plextranscoder.exe is consuming 95%-98% (i7-2600K @3.7GHz and 24GB of ram). After a few minutes if I check back, the server status page shows the audio is direct play, but the video has shifted to transcoding down to x264.

I’ve used Plex for years (paying monthly for plex pass because I’ve been happy and want to contribute what I feel they are owed!). I’ve never had to look up a log file or troubleshoot my setup. Any chance someone could give me some assistance? Any thoughts on what could be causing this issue? Could this be related to subtitles?

If you have subtitles enabled or enabling them, then yes that forces a transcode on the current Xbox One client. This means that not only does the 4K video need to transcode, but that it will transcode to h264 at 1080p. This is due to a limitation with the decoder on the Xbox One that has issues with 4K video in a h264 container.

If that is not the case, then the only reason a file will start direct play and switch to transcoding mid stream is that the app detected the Xbox One media player encountering an error with the video stream. Instead of ending all playback from the error the Xbox One will fallback into transcoding to allow playback to continue.

In either case the best way to track down what is happening would be for you to share your Plex Media Server.log after attempting to playback the file exhibiting this issue.