Server Version#: Windows 10 - 1.23.6.4881
Player Version#: Plex Web - 4.62.1
“This server is not powerful enough to convert video” for an SD (MPEG4) AVI file
I do not want video conversion, why would it get triggered for an old-fashioned SD AVI file?
Meanwhile, this message occurs quite often, starting a couple of months ago. I never used to get this message on this same PC.
[Mod: fixed image to show up properly]
On what client are you trying to play this video and on what kind of platform are you running your Win10 machine (e.g. what CPU)?
If you’re trying to play this video through the browser, your “old-fashioned SD AVI file” might just be the problem (given no browser I’m aware of will direct play AVI files).
For some reason I’ve started to get the same message for videos that most definitely should work, and have worked in the past. This started happening around a week ago (end of July - start of August)
I can’t find anything wrong in the settings, and I know I haven’t changed anything lately.
Server Version#: Windows 10 - 1.24.0.4897
Player Version#: Plex Web - 4.59.2
I have the same issue with the AVI files, I transcode / stream 4k HDR content but in the same hardware.
CPU: i7 2600K
Version 1.24.1.4931
Plex web Version 4.59.2
The i7-2600K should have a PassMark score of approx. 8500. That’s not enough to transcode a 4K video (neither SDR not HDR).
But it works. The issue is with the AVI files which is older format that has this info, it can be handled with not problem:
General
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 700 MiB
Duration : 1 h 30 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 085 kb/s
Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings : BVOP2
Format settings, BVOP : 2
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 1 h 30 min
Bit rate : 943 kb/s
Width : 624 pixels
Height : 352 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.172
Stream size : 609 MiB (87%)
Writing library : XviD 64
Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Format settings : Joint stereo / MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 1 h 30 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 128 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 41.667 FPS (1152 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 83.1 MiB (12%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.60 video frame)
Interleave, preload duratio : 530 ms
Writing library : LAME3.90.
Encoding settings : -m j -V 4 -q 2 -lowpass 17.6 --abr 128
As I say, the 4K HDR content transcoded with my setup…
I do not wish to have any transcoding. Why can’t I turn transcoding completely off? I am master of my server, so I know which clients will be accessing it - just my Roku. I’ve been using Plex on three different older computers, including this Windows PC. My troubles seem to have started up within the past six months or so. I never used to have this problem.
You can… check Settings > [Server Name] > Transcoder > Disable video stream transcoding. With transcoding is disabled, Plex will give you an error message if you attempt to play a video it cannot direct play/stream.
I have been having the same issues over the last few months. I just started and I did nothing in terms of changes and format. Now I can’t even play the trailers that are on each movie anymore. I don’t think it is a hardware issue since it has been working fine for the last 4 years. Now I have an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU which I have read on many forums that UnRAID is best to use Intel but I have never had any issue in the past. This seems like a software issue since it started after an Update from Plex. I had external users for family which all were working fine too and then the update killed all that. I have searched and searched for an answer but nothing I have found seems to work.
Same issue for me:
Nothing really works.
Suffering from this since I installed PLEX version 1.24.3.5033 on my Drobo 5N. Any ideas on how to fix? tried most of the recommendations here and nothing fixed it and I was able to play all of this files before this last update.
The people that respond here, who are supposedly “in the know” seem to suggest it’s our hardware that’s causing the problem, not a software update, but I beg to differ. I used to be able to play some of the videos that I now have trouble with, including x265 formatted videos, which I can no longer play.
ditto for me after last update. Is there some new algorithm that looks at CPU and determines transcoding capability? If so it is bunk as previously everything worked great and now I get the “not powerful enough” for all of my recorded TV shows.
I also get that the server is not powerful enough to convert video when using Android OS or Chrome. When not converting I get that I can’t play the file on Android TV.
Using iOS to play a video and converting it I get that I do not have enough bandwidth to stream the file. But it works with iOS to stream when not converting and that takes more bandwidth.
The server I use is:
Dell PowerEdge T30
Windows 2019 Server
Intel Xeon E3-1225 Quad Core 3.3GHz
8GB Ram
512Gb SSD
And I have.a 970Mbits upload speed.
Doubt that I have a CPU or bandwidth issue. I cuncure with previous statement. I think there is a problem with the current version when it comes to transcoding.
I tested some more and for me it kind of worked but still have issue with a few video files using Chrome and Android.
Plex Server settings
Network:
Check box - Activate Relay
Remote access:
Add value to - Internet upload speed (I typed 600Mbits)
Limit Remote access bitrate - Original No limitation
Transkoder:
Transcoding quality - Punish my processor
Transcodings running in the background x264 - Ultra fast
Maximum simultaneous video transcodes - Ulimited
Uncheck the boxes of following settings:
Enable HDR tone mapping
Disable video conversion
Use hardware acceleration if possible
Use hardware-accelerated video encoding
I found the fix to be down grading the version to Version 4.62.1. It fixed all the issues from transcoding errors to trailers not working. The version after that one broke all the stuff so stay on that version and you are golden.
Thanks very much for this piece of information!
Sorry I need to make an update to version it was the Server version 1-24-2-4973 that I rolled back to that made it all work. Not the Web Player version… sorry for the confusion.
The latest version 1.24.4.5081 seems to be working better than 1.23.6.4881 - I can play x265 mkv files and avi files - two formats I had trouble with.
When I disable transcoding, attempting to play x265 videos gives me the dreaded “Not enough CPU for conversion of this item”. “Conversion” sounds suspiciously like “transcoding”, or am I wrong?
