When will proper HDR support be done in plex? HDR only works with direct play, which most of the time is not the case. Subtitles results in transcoding, which results in HDR metadata being stripped and the content not playing in HDR.
I have an HDR OLED TV and an HDR computer monitor, and instead of using PLEX (which I have paid for and support) to play movies with HDR, I end up just firing up VLC because it’s the only way to watch it in HDR (especially with subtitles on, since it always burns subtitles instead of overlaying them on the client side, and does transcoding).
Either add HEVC transcoding support (in my case, the server I’m running plex on is a Xeon E5 with a Titan X (Maxwell), so it has plenty of power for HEVC transcoding);
Or add HDR metadata support in your h264 encoder (h264 supports HDR [at least in HLG, maybe not PQ, but the gamma transfer functions between the two are well documented], despite comments on other threads by staff, I’m a developer for a company that does server software for TV channels and we recently added HDR support);
Or if all of that is too much to ask and it’s too concerning that it might be too processor intensive for the average host, store the HDR metadata from the original HEVC file, encode the h264 in Rec.2020 (which it should be anyways, I don’t think you’re doing colorspace conversion in your transcoder, but I could be wrong), and transmit the HDR metadata side-by-side with the h264 video stream, read it in the PLEX client, and then use it to signal the display of the HDR parameters.
Also an option to not burn subtitles and overlay them client-side would be nice, but I’m more concerned to get HDR working properly with transcoding.
Server Version#: 1.13.8.5395
Player Version#: Many
What client are you actually using?
I have zero issues with direct playing HDR files with subs as long as they are text based such as .srt
I have 4 TV based clients and have zero issues on any of them .
PMP, Shield, ATV 4K and LG tv app.
I’ve never had it work even once. It plays, but not in HDR. I’m using the LG WebOS client, and the windows store client. It’s obvious if you actually compare it from VLC to what plays in the client (on the same screen obviously). The colours from PLEX are always washed out.
Hm, weird, other forums post seemed to indicate that (as far as I could tell) everyone had the same issue. It went as far as someone labeled as a PLEX employee said h264 doesn’t support HDR in one thread, so I thought that lent credence to it being a widespread problem
Well the ones I have are too, but plex doesn’t (at least I haven’t figured out how or found anything that does) transcode to HEVC, only to h264, so for example, if your device doesn’t support TrueHD audio, it has to transcode. Only direct play would work. (at least until they FINALLY fix it, if they ever do, I’m not optimistic.)
The only reason as to ever use the Windows Store App is because you need the sync function (for travelling, on a laptop or such). Use PMP, it is your only option.
Well it really shouldn’t be expected. I just tested Solo: A Star Wars Story with forced srt subs and it both direct plays and passes HDR metadata just fine in Plex Media Player.
If you can achieve DirectPlay or DirectStream (audio-only conversion), you should get HDR if the player has it.
IF the player (TV, etc) is not HDR cable, you will see the washed out colors because the transcoder hasn’t been upgraded yet to pull in those changes for Linux and you’ll get washed out colors because of the lack of tone mapping.
When I first started watching 4k HDR HEVC movies through my Shield TV on Plex, it would direct stream, but the colors were washed out and the picture sucked. I then realized that the audio receiver I had the Shield hooked into didn’t support a full pass-through of HDR/UHD/etc. I then connected the Shield directly to the TV, and then everything worked better for the HDR 4k video, but my Samsung wasn’t passing through the lossless audio back to the receiver.
I then bit the bullet and upgraded my audio receiver to a new one, hooked the Shield into it and it into my TV, and all is so much better now. The Shield direct plays everything I throw at it, including UHD /HDR / 4k / HEVC / H.265 / or whatever fancy terms you want to call it these days! even subtitles in the mkv container direct stream too.
Everything I try to play on is HDR capable (). The problem is that DirectPlay/DirectStream is not an option for burning subtitles, as that causes transcoding, and even without subtitles, it still transcodes to h264.
But my complaint isn’t the transcoding, my complaint is that the transcoding doesn’t preserve HDR metadata to signal the display that it is HDR content, and what the HDR parameters are.
And h264 in the VERY LEAST supports HLG for HDR content, and while most content is in PQ, the gamma transfer function from PQ to HLG is trivial and readily available, so I don’t see any reason that the transcoder isn’t preserving/converting the HDR metadata for that. (Or having the ability to transcode to HEVC if the system is powerful enough would be good as well, and then PQ would work as well as HLG)
And as mentioned in my original post, if changing the transcoder is just not an option, keep the colorspace Rec. 2020, and pass the HDR metadata separate from the video data, and have the plex client use that to signal HDR on it’s own.
Alright, thanks, I appreciate it. Assuming you guys use libx264 for ffmpeg h264 encoding (which as far as I recall is the most common way it is done), h264 supports both HLG and PQ, and from my own testing (single threaded, so not the fastest result) produces proper h264/avc video with HDR metadata that plays properly in VLC.
Using a video with Stream #0:0(eng): Video: hevc (Main 10), yuv420p10le(tv, bt2020nc/bt2020/smpte2084), 3840x2160 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 23.98 tbc (default)
PQ (worked perfectly as there was no gamma transfer): ffmpeg -i original_hevc.mkv -color_primaries bt2020 -colorspace bt2020nc -color_trc smpte2084 -c:v libx264 -x264opts colorprim=bt2020:colormatrix=bt2020nc:transfer=smpte2084 output_h264.mkv
Resultant stream:Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (libx264) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p10le(bt2020nc/bt2020/smpte2084), 3840x2160 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=-1--1, 23.98 fps, 1k tbn, 23.98 tbc (default)
HLG (wasn’t quite right, some parts of the video appears properly, others the gamma was off, I probably missed something in the conversion or my display doesn’t support it, but it did identify it as being HLG and switch to HDR mode): ffmpeg -i original_hevc.mkv -color_primaries bt2020 -colorspace bt2020nc -color_trc arib-std-b67 -c:v libx264 -x264opts colorprim=bt2020:colormatrix=bt2020nc:transfer=arib-std-b67 output_h264.mkv
Resultant stream: Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (libx264) (H264 / 0x34363248), yuv420p10le(bt2020nc/bt2020/arib-std-b67), 3840x2160 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=-1--1, 23.98 fps, 1k tbn, 23.98 tbc (default)
I do everything possible with my Plex setup to avoid transcoding any movies to my 2 main 4k capable TVs. That’s why I have Shield TV clients on them and I make sure my movies are in containers that will always support direct play without transcoding for video/audio/subtitles…
My server running PMS (among other things):
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670
32GB DDR3
nVidia Titan X (my old video card before I got a Titan Xp for my main PC)
and RAID-6 storage with WD Golds
I’m not too worried about CPU to transcode 4K HDR BluRay
Damn!!! That thing is a beast!!! And I thought my wife was gonna kill me when I built my new server recently with ONLY an Intel Core i5-8600k, 16GB, no video card. But I also splurged on a pair of WD 8TB drives shucked from an WD Easystore enclosure.
Maybe try pairing that Super Server with a Shield TV super client, and see if you can just direct play that 4k HDR content.
Regarding the H264 encoding, verify the HW ASIC can support whatever you want to do as well, including the multi-threading. Single-threaded (exclusive) use of it won’t be viable if only one stream can be transcoded at a time.
I have a Workstation with Xeon CPU E5-2470v2 10 core/20 Threaders, with 32GB RAM. My NAS has all my movies on my network, and everything is a GLAN, including my TVs.
I cannot ply 4K content. I really do not know it it has to be a I7 CPU required or what I can do.
The warning that I have are that the Plex Server does not have enough power to trans-code. I was thinking to put a 10GLAN, but I know if that is the way to go. On the Plex configuration, I put “make my CPU hurt” and no help.
