Server Version#: 1.31.3.6868
Player Version#: 1.67.1.3665-771934d3
I know what this means but why am I getting the message? I am streaming 1080 files over a Gigabit LAN with a server running Windows 10 Pro and AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and streaming to a FireTV or a PC running Win 10 with Ryzen 9 5900X with 32GB DDR4 Samsung B-Die memory and m.2 drives. I have run far less powerful systems in the past without this message.
It will either give this message or play at about 1 FPS. I have tried playing with Plex HTPC, Plex for Windows, PlexWeb, OpenPHT, and the new Amazon Fire Cube. I will contend that I may not have the best settings on the server and clients, so perhaps someone could enlighten me. I should think I would have no issues. Perhaps codecs of these files? I typically have files with various codecs and this happens on many files. Funny thing is, I have some 4K files and they will stream just fine.
If you have Disable video stream transcoding enabled in the server Transcoder settings it will fail and you will see that message.
If it is a codec like Dolby Vision profile 5 which most clients cannot play and we cannot transcode and that message may appear.
As to why it thinks it needs to transcode in the first place it would be in the client and/or server logs media decision engine (MDE). if not an incompatible codec issue causing transcode it is generally because quality settings are lower than original file
“Disable video stream transcoding” is not and has never been checked.
I have always had quality settings at maximum because I believed it could be handled easily with my connection and hardware.
I just tried setting server transcode option to “Prefer higher speed encoding” and also “Ultra Fast” under “Background transcoding x264 preset” and set my PC client (for Windows) “quality” to 8Mbps 1080p and it plays fine, but increasing this to anything else plays at about 1 FPS.
Just doesn’t seem normal for my hardware. I have Gigabit LAN and Gigabit Internet.
[EDIT]
What I can’t figure out is why, on the Fire Cube, I have to set quality to Maximum and Unlimited or I will get the message that it can’t be played. My Fire Cube is the only device that is using 5GHz WiFi instead of Ethernet. I have to lower the client settings on my PC Windows app to get it to play. My Fire Cube is easily playing 4K videos over WiFi.
Are the HTPC and Windows apps just very inefficient players? I also don’t seem to have any issues when using PlexWeb over Chrome to play files.
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso6/iso2/mp41)
File size : 4.44 GiB
Duration : 1 h 6 min
Overall bit rate : 9 577 kb/s
videoai : Enhanced using ahq-12. Changed resolution to 1920x1080
encoder : Lavf59.34.101
IsTruncated : Yes
Video
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main@L4@Main
Codec ID : hev1
Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration : 1 h 6 min
Bit rate : 9 447 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Original display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.152
Stream size : 4.38 GiB (99%)
Title : Video
Color range : Limited
Codec configuration box : hvcC
Audio
ID : 2
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Format settings : Dual mono
Codec ID : mp4a-6B
Duration : 1 h 6 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 60.7 MiB (1%)
Title : Audio - en
Writing library : LAME3.92
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1
I am not familiar with Codec ID : isom (isom/iso6/iso2/mp41) so will need to ask some folks about that, the file does not look incompatible as far as I know. It would help to see the Android logs and server logs
