Here is the quick run down. I just ripped the blu ray the Croods and watch it. Then watched it on the actual disc and the disc is much much better picture. Both were played on the 110” screen from a 720 DLP projector. The disc was played on a Sony 1100es blu ray player and the rip was made wIth MakeMKV. In Plex it shows it to be 1080p H.264 35bit rate and being played thru the Brand new Apple TV 4K 2021. Is it the rip that I’m missing something or is this the way it will be on all blu ray rips?
This is a bit unclear.
Please use the Plex XML info and copy the first ~15 lines from it and paste them into here.
This will tell us exactly what’s in the ripped file .
To diagnose further: during playback open the plex web app on a computer and go to Activity - Dashboard
Activate the detail view.
Then inspect the playback mode of the video stream. It must say either “Direct Stream” or “Direct Play”.
Do also verify that the connection is not “indirect”.
Media
Duration 1:35:14
Bitrate 35071 kbps
Width 1920
Height 1080
Aspect Ratio 1.78
Video Resolution 1080p
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate 24p
Video Profile high
Part
Duration 1:35:14
File The Croods- A New Age.mkv
Size 23.34 GB
Container MKV
Has Thumbnail 1
Video Profile high
Codec H264
Bitrate 31088 kbps
Language English
Bit Depth 8
Chroma Location left
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Coded Height 1088
Coded Width 1920
Frame Rate 23.97599983215332 fps
Height 1080
Level 4.1
Profile high
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionTitle="Movies" librarySectionUUID="1f97d5a7-84df-4d73-aee3-59ffd64f095f" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1624289829">
<Video ratingKey="9632" key="/library/metadata/9632" guid="plex://movie/5d776d4847dd6e001f6f1e5e" studio="Universal Pictures" type="movie" title="The Croods: A New Age" titleSort="Croods: A New Age" librarySectionTitle="Movies" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/1"contentRating="PG" summary="The prehistoric family the Croods are challenged by a rival family the Bettermans, who claim to be better and more evolved." rating="7.6" audienceRating="9.4" viewOffset="221471" viewCount="1" lastViewedAt="1625435897" year="2020" tagline="The future ain't what it used to be." thumb="/library/metadata/9632/thumb/1625428186" art="/library/metadata/9632/art/1625428186" duration="5714560" originallyAvailableAt="2020-11-25" addedAt="1625428182" updatedAt="1625428186" audienceRatingImage="rottentomatoes://image.rating.upright" chapterSource="media"primaryExtraKey="/library/metadata/9633" ratingImage="rottentomatoes://image.rating.ripe">
<Media id="11942" duration="5714560" bitrate="35071" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="8" audioCodec="truehd" videoCodec="h264" videoResolution="1080" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="12291" key="/library/parts/12291/1625428102/file.mkv" duration="5714560" file="/Volumes/F/Movies/The Croods- A New Age.mkv" size="25062431898" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="4" hasThumbnail="1"requiredBandwidths="2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="42160" streamType="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="31088" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1088" codedWidth="1920" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1080" level="41" profile="high"refFrames="2" requiredBandwidths="32009,31764,31446,31346,31284,31222,31090,31090" scanType="progressive" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (H.264)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080p (H.264)"></Stream>
<Stream id="42161" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="truehd" index="1" channels="8" bitrate="3095" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="7.1" bitDepth="24" requiredBandwidths="3521,3423,3316,3139,3097,3097,3097,3097" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 7.1"displayTitle="English (TRUEHD 7.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="Surround 7.1 (English TRUEHD)"></Stream>
<Stream id="42162" streamType="2" codec="ac3" index="2" channels="6" bitrate="448" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" requiredBandwidths="448,448,448,448,448,448,448,448" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 5.1" displayTitle="English (AC3 5.1)"extendedDisplayTitle="Surround 5.1 (English AC3)"></Stream>
<Stream id="42163" streamType="2" codec="ac3" index="3" channels="2" bitrate="192" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" requiredBandwidths="192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192" samplingRate="48000" title="Stereo" displayTitle="English (AC3 Stereo)"extendedDisplayTitle="Stereo (English AC3)"></Stream>
<Stream id="42164" streamType="2" codec="ac3" index="4" channels="2" bitrate="192" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" requiredBandwidths="192,192,192,192,192,192,192,192" samplingRate="48000" title="Stereo" displayTitle="English (AC3 Stereo)"extendedDisplayTitle="Stereo (English AC3)"></Stream>
<Stream id="42165" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="5" bitrate="56" language="English" languageCode="eng" requiredBandwidths="61,61,61,61,61,61,61,61" displayTitle="English (PGS)" extendedDisplayTitle="English (PGS)"></Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
Thanks for the mediainfo! This looks like a perfectly ordinary “BR remux”.
What does appear in the Dashboard during playback? Does it say “transcode” on the video stream?
Here is the thing I don’t understand. It is showing ripped and playing at 1080p and direct. Yet when I play the actual disc in the player, the picture is noticeably better. I mean noticeably. Even the wife commented about it. Then tonight we played a ripped Downton Abbey and then the disc, and same thing. Showing the same 1080 and direct. Is it possible that the ATV 2021 is not sending it down the hdmi to the projector correctly? Should I be ripping ata different frame rate? At this point with the quality drop, I should either not pay extra for blu ray and just get dvd or forget the whole Plex thing. This is just not making sense.
According to your last screenshot, the Apple TV is getting the full quality of the file.
The only explanation I have for the perceived difference is additional image processing which could happen either in your BR player or in your TV.
TV can also apply different processing, depending on which HDMI input is used.
Have you tried to swap the HDMI inputs which are used for BR and Apple TV?
Any way, this is beyond what the Plex client on your Apple TV is able to influence. It is giving the hardware the full quality of your video file.
It might even be due to a different way to downscale the picture from 1080p to 720p. If the playing device can sense that the projector only can show 720p, it might downscale the picture itself. And the other device is sending the original picture in 1080p quality over and leaves it to the projector to downscale it.
Then it is down to whichever device has the better downscaler built-in.
But again, this is far outside of what the Plex app has any influence over.
The Sharp projector actually only has 1 DVI input, so actually both the BR and the ATV have the same brand of hdmi cables and they go into a 3-in-1-out to the cable. Thus, both are going to the projector via the same cable. The only difference is the Plex is coming via the CAT5 thru the ATV vs the BR goes direct to the 3-in-1. So it looking like the ATV is either not outputting the same quality or not scaling correctly, or the BR does a better job of scaling.
But the end result is if it’s not a “fixable” ATV issue, then Plex for blu ray disc is not really good. So I will have to decide if I continue to get BR disc or go backwards in my library handling to a possible manual disc handling.
Have you tried without the video switch inbetween? Some of these might communicate wrong resolution data between devices.
No but that’s a good idea. Thanks.
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