Server Version#: 4.41.1 (official Docker container on Ubuntu)
Player Version#: Roku Plex Preview 6.6 build 8
When watching video on my Roku, if I rewind for 10 seconds using the left side of the + navigation pad, sometimes it will actually jump forward a few seconds requiring that I rewind again, but it also somehow throws the file time out of sync and then the video stops playing with 2-5 minutes remaining. I mostly notice this with TV shows because it cuts the credits out or cuts off in the middle of a scene, but I’ve noticed it with movies as well. If I try to fast forward to the last couple minutes of the video, it will usually crash on me and say it can’t play the media.
I’m curious if this might be caused by some of my videos being H.265, as I’ve just recently started using that. I don’t remember if I’ve run into this issue when using some older H.264 videos, I’ll have to test and update.
I did try to recreate on my web player, but it played fine and didn’t close early at the end.
Another post that explained about the same issue I’m experiencing, but I don’t see any replies:
Usually the Roku is good about this. Sometimes this happens if the video is being direct played/streamed and has really spaced-out key frames.
I’m not sure if you’re describing exactly the same issue. Does your audio stay in sync when this happens? Any big pauses after you hit “play” again it does it start up immediately?
There are a few encoder apps that are worse about this. Or pirated anime content is notorious, for example.
Does it still happen if you force the video to transcode? Disable Direct and/or force a lower quality to test. The Plex transcoder stuffs keyframes in at a reasonable frequency.
So I’m watching a show I ripped from my own blurays and the compressed with Handbrake using H265 codec.
I had no issues with audio going out of sync, although subtitles occasionally go out of sync if I pause something and come back and resume the next day or some extended period of time (not sure if that’s related).
I did try what you suggested and played at 720p instead of original 1080 and it seems to work fine (one quick test, but didn’t play all the way to the end as I was too tired).
I didn’t disable Direct play, but I’ll try that and leave it at 1080 and see if that does anything. I’m not too picky, and most of the time can’t really notice a difference between 1080 and 720.
Not sure why it’s doing it, but that could very easily be on something I did when compressing it. I’m no expert at this.
Thanks again for the follow-up.
Interesting thing happened. Last week I replaced my server’s CPU fan and after booting back up, I didn’t notice issues for the first couple episodes I watched. The following day, I started noticing the issues again, but it’s easy enough to just downgrade the stream to 720p to fix everything.
Not sure if I should go into Handbrake settings here or in another post, but I’ll go ahead and throw this here real quick. I usually come here to the forums to look for recommended Handbrake settings maybe once a year, or less. The preset I’ve created is originally based on H.265 MKV 1080p30 preset and I’ve only modified a few things to my personal preferences. I used to primarily use H.264, but recently decided to just go with H265.
Most settings for my default BRRip preset profile below:
Dimensions are 1920x1080
Anamorphic: Auto
Modulus: 2
Cropping: Automatic (depends on video, I find Blurays usually don’t require cropping, and if they try to automatically crop a small amount, I’ll usually remove the crop because any cropping tends to make the files bigger. Not sure if that’s normal behavior)
Filters: All Off for Blurays
Video:
Codec: H.265 (x265)
FPS: Same as source
Variable Framerate
Constant Quality: 22 (usually 21-24)
Encoder Preset: Slower
Encoder Tune: None
Encoder Profile: Main
Encoder Level: Auto
Advanced Options: (these are auto-populated) strong-intra-smoothing=0:rect=0
Audio: (I’ll usually include main audio in 5.1 and Stereo if available, but I don’t have a surround system, so my default track for Plex is Stereo, I also include commentary tracks)
Stereo tracks I run through AAC codec and 5.1 I’ll usually use AC3 or Auto Passthru
Subtitles: (I usually include the primary track and Foreign Audio Scan)
Chapters: Create chapter markers (default)
Again, this is what I use for Bluray at 1080, but it’s just about the same if I’m doing 720p or DVDs at 480. I’ll occasionally run bonus features through as MP4 files so I can manually tag them for Plex to read, but that’s only bonus features or movies headed to a custom library (educational or exercise videos, etc).
