Samsung TV Q85R (2019) Transcoding All Live TV / DVR Instead of Direct Play or Stream

Plex Players Smart TVs
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Server Version#: v1.21.1.3830
Player Version#: v5.6.1

First post so go easy on me…

Everything I seem to play via the Live TV / DVR on my Samsung Q85R TV, causes a Transcode.

The video format that the stream is being transcoded from —> to, looks to be the same format. and underlying codecs, all are supported by the TV (AFAIK).

I have taken a clean log of two different streams, with the Plex for Samsung TV app logging to PMS enabled. Both streams trigger a transcode, whereas I would expect both to Direct Play / Stream the video.

(File removed)

Stream 1

Dec 18, 2020 11:41:05.195 [3484] DEBUG - MDE: Christmas Special: Direct Play is disabled
Dec 18, 2020 11:41:05.195 [3484] DEBUG - MDE: Christmas Special: no direct play video profile exists for hls/mpegts/h264
Dec 18, 2020 11:41:05.195 [3484] DEBUG - MDE: Christmas Special: no direct play video profile exists for hls/mpegts/h264/ac3
Dec 18, 2020 11:41:05.195 [3484] DEBUG - MDE: Christmas Special: Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded
Dec 18, 2020 11:41:05.195 [3484] DEBUG - MDE: Christmas Special: no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Dec 18, 2020 11:41:05.195 [3484] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations

Stream 2

Dec 18, 2020 11:42:48.945 [8640] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Aladdin (2019): Direct Play is disabled
Dec 18, 2020 11:42:48.945 [8640] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Aladdin (2019): no direct play video profile exists for hls/mpegts/h264
Dec 18, 2020 11:42:48.945 [8640] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Aladdin (2019): no direct play video profile exists for hls/mpegts/h264/aac
Dec 18, 2020 11:42:48.945 [8640] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Aladdin (2019): Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded
Dec 18, 2020 11:42:48.945 [8640] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Aladdin (2019): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Dec 18, 2020 11:42:48.945 [8640] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations

On the Samsung TV under Plex > Settings > Video I have both ‘Allow Direct Play’ and ‘Allow Direct Stream’ enabled.

I have verified that Direct Play works on Films in my library.

Please can you advise / assist on how I enable Direct Play / Stream specifically for Live TV / DVR, as it appears this is disabled on the Server / Player somewhere?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

James.

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Whilst waiting for a response on this, I’ve had another look through the log file and noticed that the Profile ‘Generic’ was being used, as a ‘Tizen’ Profile could not be found;

Dec 18, 2020 11:41:20.893 [9100] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Tizen (TV 2019).
Dec 18, 2020 11:41:20.893 [9100] DEBUG - [Now] Profile is Generic

I have checked under /PMS/Resources/Profiles and there is no Profile called ‘Tizen’ but noticed there was a ‘Samsung Tizen’ Profile.

Interestingly, inside the ‘Samsung Tizen’ Profile, there was a relatable transcode target entry;

  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,mp2,mp3,ac3,eac3" context="streaming">
      <Setting name="BreakNonKeyframes" value="true" />
      <Setting name="IncludeMapInEmptyVTT" value="true" />
    </VideoProfile>

I therefore proceeded to copy the ‘Samsung Tizen’ Profile and rename it to ‘Tizen’, with the outlook to then do something to the mpegts transcode target, however the player doesn’t seem to find it and just uses the ‘Generic’ Profile still.

The issue I am having, seems to be the same / similar to this post;

[Plex profiles with Tizen App wrongly assigned as Generic?](Plex profiles with Tizen App wrongly assigned as Generic? - Plex Players / Smart TVs - Plex Forum)

Any thought on how I should proceed would be welcome, as I am now truly stuck!

Thanks.

James

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Heym same issue for me on a The Frame 2020. Transcoding all Live tv but direct play works with a recording. Help in solving this would be appreciated!

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Could the fact of being under a general profile the cause of this:

plex media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol

BTW the same works perfectly in plex for android tv in the nvidia shield

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I have also confirmed that if I record a program via the DVR, it will Direct Play on playback, however the same program will transcode if watched on Live TV.

I’ve read in other forum posts, the Generic Profile is now embedded into the Tizen application and it does not use the Profiles on the PMS.

We therefore need to wait for a Plex employee to pick this up and amend the embedded profile, to allow it to Direct Play / Stream known supported videos stream, as per the log extracts above.

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Live TV playback is transcode only due to sync and other issues.

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Check the video that is being live streamed. I saw in another forum that Samsung cannot handle 1080i and that is why it gets transcoded. The Samsung will take 1080p but not 1080i. See if that is the issue. Not sure about a resolution for it if that is indeed the issue.

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Thank you for confirming @sLumpy.

I purposely picked my hardware, on the ‘always try to ensure you direct Play / Stream your content’ recommendations that are littered all over Plex’s support pages.

To now find out that there is a blanket wide Transcode enforced on all Live TV, even on streams which are natively supported by the TV, is a tad disappointing. It makes is harder to swallow that the Live TV feature requires a paid for Plex Pass.

Are there plans to improve this and enable Direct Play ./ Stream for Live TV on the roadmap?

1 Like
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I have same issue… and on top of that i get buffering.

I dont get buffering on any of my recorded or ripped stuff. Even whe. Transcodeing

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Why is this specific to Samsung? Live TV playback works fine direct on my Fire Stick 4K, but on Samsung Tizen it is “not allowed”. Meanwhile, if I record the show, then play it back on the Samsung, it plays direct no problem. Is there something you can do to fix this with the Live TV?

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Same here with frame 2020 And LG 2018.

Vert bad

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Ditto on this issue.
My iPad, iPhone etc can all play both Live TV and the recording from the beginning (whilst still recording) without transcoding. Whereas my Samsung 2019 QLED (QE43Q60RATXXU) transcodes live tv or tv which is still recording in the Plex app. If I playback when finished recording it’s fine. I can also play direct from the tuner (HD Homerun connect Quattro) through the sources on the TV so it’s capable and nothing to do with being interlaced.
As a new plexpass lifetime subscriber this is disappointing.

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Same problems here with 5 TVs!
I paid a lifetime pass and the support is very bad! Why is it so difficult too fix this problem?

1 Like
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