Sync without transcoding

Plex Players Mobile Devices
1

Hi All,

I tried to follow the recommendation here to edit my iOS.xml profile to allow for direct sync of my 4k content without transcoding, but I am having no luck. Here is what I have modified my iOS.xml profile to:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="iOS">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <!-- This profile is used by A5 and higher devices (starting with iPhone 4S and iPad 3) -->
  <Settings>
    <Setting name="DirectPlayStreamSelection" value="true" />
    <Setting name="StreamUnselectedIncompatibleAudioStreams" value="true" />
  </Settings>
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" subtitleCodec="mov_text" context="static" />
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,mp3" subtitleCodec="eia_608_embedded" context="streaming">
      <Setting name="HlsExtraMultiChannelAudioStream" value="ac3" />
    </VideoProfile>
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
    <SubtitleProfile protocol="hls" container="webvtt" subtitleCodec="webvtt"/>
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mkv,mov,mp4,mpegts,mpeg,mpegvideo,avi,flv,ogg" codec="h264,hevc,vp8,vp9,h263,mpeg1video,mpeg2video,mpeg4,vc1" audioCodec="aac,aac_latm,ac3,alac,flac,dca,vorbis,opus,eac3,mp1,mp2,mp3" subtitleCodec="ass,dvb_subtitle,vobsub,eia_608,pgs,microdvd,movtext,ssa,srt" />
    <!-- Allow Direct Play of HLS content  -->
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="alac" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="3840" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="2160" />
        <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="10" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" onlyTranscodes="true" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>
2

Is this not the right place to get support from the Plex team?

Digging through the logs, it looks like my updated profile is being ignored, as I am seeing these two errors…

“non-selected embedded subtitle stream 9610 cannot be direct-played”
“video.width limitation applies: 3840 > 1920”

Is there some sort of cache for the profiles?

3

@ChuckPa is this post still relevant? Writing profiles for DLNA devices

I have modified my iOS.xml profile and placed it in the correct directory, but seems to be getting ignored, as noted in my previous post.

4

Ok, finally got this working and wanted to put down everything I did so maybe it helps someone else down the line, since the Plex team is of no help.

First, I modified the ORIGINAL iOS.xml as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="iOS">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <!-- This profile is used by A5 and higher devices (starting with iPhone 4S and iPad 3) -->
  <Settings>
    <Setting name="DirectPlayStreamSelection" value="true" />
    <Setting name="StreamUnselectedIncompatibleAudioStreams" value="true" />
  </Settings>
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,ac3" subtitleCodec="mov_text" context="static" /> <!-- EDIT: added ac3 -->
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,mp3" subtitleCodec="eia_608_embedded" context="streaming">
      <Setting name="HlsExtraMultiChannelAudioStream" value="ac3" />
    </VideoProfile>
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
    <SubtitleProfile protocol="hls" container="webvtt" subtitleCodec="webvtt"/>
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4,mov,mkv,m4v" codec="h264,mpeg4,hevc" audioCodec="aac,ac3,eac3" subtitleCodec="mov_text,tx3g,ttxt,text" /><!-- EDIT: added mkv,m4v,hevc,eac3 -->
    <!-- Allow Direct Play of HLS content  -->
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="alac" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*"><!-- EDIT: changed from h264 to * -->
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="3840" isRequired="true" /> <!-- EDIT: changed for 4k -->
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="2160" isRequired="true" /> <!-- EDIT: changed for 4k -->
        <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="10" /> <!-- EDIT: changed from 8 for HDR -->
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="*"><!-- EDIT: removed audio limitations -->
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

To be honest, this was a lot of trial an error so I don’t really know which modifications exactly fixed it, but I made notes of all the modifications I made to the original iOS.xml. Note: I edited the original file at /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Profiles/iOS.xml. I am aware that this file will be overwritten every time I upgrade, but creating a user profile at /Library/Application Support/Plex/Profiles did not work.

In addition, in Plex I had to go to Settings > Transcoder and check “Disable video stream transcoding”.

I hope this helps someone.

1 Like
5

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