@Sabran said:
Thanks, @OttoKerner. I installed LAVfilters, but the problem still happens. Any other thoughts?
A quick fix would be to re-encode the film with a high quality preset.
There were similar issues reported with other BR remuxes. And they all had in common that they used 2 reference frames and were produced by Sony. But there were never any solutions found so far.
Ok. So, what I’ve done is using Plex, go to Optimize for this movie and set the quality to “Original Quality”. This actually does appear to work fine. The one movie I tried is not showing artifacts at all in the places where the original MKV did.
Am I “losing” anything significant with the optimization? My hope was to rip all my blu-rays and have them be (for all intents and purposes) just about the same quality, with both video and audio. My intent with all of this is to play everything I rip on my home theater setup - I have an LG 4k TV (I know these movies aren’t 4k) and a 5.1 surround sound system. I’ve got a bunch of different ways to run the Plex client too - Xbox, LG TV, Apple TV 4k, etc…
Thanks again for the help.
Call up the Plex XML info of this movie again and post it here.
We can peruse it together and I can point out for you the differences between the original and the ‘optimized’ version.
Ok. Here’s the updated XML for that title.
Original file
<Media videoResolution="1080" id="870" duration="15797792" bitrate="32915" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="7" audioCodec="dca" videoCodec="h264" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" audioProfile="es" videoProfile="high" title="Original">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="875" key="/library/parts/875/1508814945/file.mkv" duration="7661280" file="E:\TV & Movies\Movies\Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (2003)\The Return of the King (2003) - PT1.mkv" size="31109576963" audioProfile="es" container="mkv" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="3044" streamType="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="30309" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1080" level="41" profile="high" refFrames="2" scanType="progressive" width="1920" />
<Stream id="3045" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="dca" index="1" channels="7" bitrate="1536" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="6.1" profile="es" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 5.1" />
<Stream id="3046" streamType="2" codec="ac3" index="2" channels="6" bitrate="640" language="Português" languageCode="por" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 5.1" />
<Stream id="3047" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="3" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
<Stream id="3048" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="4" language="Español" languageCode="spa" />
<Stream id="3049" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="5" language="Português" languageCode="por" />
<Stream id="3050" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="6" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
<Stream id="3051" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="7" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
<Stream id="3052" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="8" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
<Stream id="3053" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="9" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
<Stream id="3054" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="10" language="Português" languageCode="por" />
optimized file
<Media videoResolution="1080" id="1636" duration="15797782" bitrate="20499" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="24p" optimizedForStreaming="1" proxyType="42" audioProfile="lc" has64bitOffsets="1" target="Original Quality" targetTagID="3" videoProfile="main" title="Original Quality">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="1644" key="/library/parts/1644/1512256481/file.mp4" duration="15797782" file="E:\TV & Movies\Movies\Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (2003)\Plex Versions\Original Quality\The Lord of the Rings_ The Return of the King (2003).mp4" size="40480802581" audioProfile="lc" container="mp4" has64bitOffsets="1" optimizedForStreaming="1" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="4713" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="18969" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1080" level="40" profile="main" refFrames="4" streamIdentifier="1" width="1920" />
<Stream id="4714" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="6" language="English" languageCode="eng" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="2" />
<Stream id="4715" streamType="2" codec="aac" index="2" channels="6" language="Português" languageCode="por" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="3" />
Subtitles are gone completely.
If there was one of the subtitles selected, prior to the optimization, it will be now ‘burned in’ the video picture.
the video is now in a mp4 container, with an average bitrate of 18mbps
the original is in a mkv container and has 36 mbps
the original has both english DTS audio in a 6.1 channel configuration and bitrate of 1536 kbps
and portuguese audio in AC3 format and 5.1 channels in 640 kbps bitrate
The optimized version only has both languages in AAC format and 5.1 channels (yet unknown bitrate)
The optimized version is significantly smaller than the original.
If you cannot determine the difference between original and optimized version, even on your biggest screen, then it is probably good enough. 
Thanks for the detailed information! Do you think it’s just a bug in the software that is causing these MKV files to not work? And if so, is there a place I should go to open up a ticket?
By the above, I just meant that you had previously commented “There were similar issues reported with other BR remuxes. And they all had in common that they used 2 reference frames and were produced by Sony. But there were never any solutions found so far.” Perhaps there’s an open ticket or something where I can attach this information as well? Perhaps it will help a developer figure out the issue (assuming anyone would ever really look into this).
@Sabran said:
By the above, I just meant that you had previously commented “There were similar issues reported with other BR remuxes. And they all had in common that they used 2 reference frames and were produced by Sony. But there were never any solutions found so far.” Perhaps there’s an open ticket or something where I can attach this information as well? Perhaps it will help a developer figure out the issue (assuming anyone would ever really look into this).
The bug tracker is not public.
I already appended your issues to the open ticket.
Ok. Thank-you. I really appreciate you and @JuiceWSA helping me out here.
I have the same issue, any update on this?
