ok thank you. then why not make it see a LAN connection by hosting a VPN?
None of my remote users even see my PMS when I am running my VPN (locally hosted or not).
Part of the approach here is to eliminate transcoding of HEVC both to improve quality of a supplied stream and also means you reduce load on the network (up from host and down from client). This reduction in load has it’s own benefits.
Edit - read the Feature Suggestion.
This isn’t so much about not transcoding HEVC to X264 and the like but more about being able to transcode all non HEVC streams as HEVC. For client equipment that can handle it. Plenty of benefits. I have a fairly hefty CPU that rarely works hard so I’m more than happy to push it to provide higher quality low bandwidth feeds to my users (HEVC vs H264).
Why the hell should I?
They should just add the standard, its needed, I feed 4 houses with my server, 2 daughters, 1 son and my mother in law, oh and myself when I’m travelling, should I now go and setup VPN’s for them all? that is just not practical, if I did this, then I would just share the drive and they can play direct, f%$$k usingf Plex, it wouldnt be needed, heck, if I VPN one can just CTRL+C CTRL+V the dam video file and what locally.
VPN is not the solution, that’s a work a round, and does not fix the problem that there is a better more compact encoding system out there, I use it for everything else, and Plex will only benefit from it.
I want all remote feeds to either stay as HEVC if they are under certain bit rate, or transcode what ever format to HEVC under a certain bitrate.
I live in place where upload rates are not real great, so saving bandwidth using H265 would be fantastic, I have tested the difference with my home video surveillance, I can switch all my cameras to H264 or H265 and I can see the bit rate and image quality difference between the two, all 9 4k cameras can be processed and streamed by the intel iGpu and all 9 feeds can be done at once in 720p each with less than 1mb bit rate and the image is fantastic, I would need 4mb each in H264, and that makes my connection choke.
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Also, many locations I go, the bandwidth is very restricted, and a low bitrate H264 even viewing on the phone is just shocking, if it was H265, it would look better, even at 480p with 512kb bitrate.
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You could test this with the option “Treat WAN IP as LAN-Bandwith”. With this enabled you should not see the transcode remotely, if it really is only this reason. If the bandwith is too low it should still transcode, despite this setting.
My Server is on a VPS (not at my house) and I can perfectly well direct play it’s content.
You missed the point of the thread though.
We want to transcode to HEVC.
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I was refering to this statement, that remote access is the reason for the transcodes. Which it should not be (all the time).
I get this, and voted for it as well. But it was not the context of my reply.
That is not what I actually said. In the context of my reply.
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Just another Plex owner/user who would like HEVC transcoding. I have 35mb/s upload speeds and my brother still encounters intermittent buffering. He is not overly savvy and just compares his experience to what he obtains with Netflix. Netflix almost never buffers and plex consistently does. I know it’s his bandwidth and setup at his house as I have a number of other users (friends) with better bandwidth and they experience no problems. HEVC, I believe, would help alleviate this issue by better utilizing the limited bandwidth available.
Oh, and for those that suggest just transcoding everything before hand, I will not do that for two reasons. My plex server IS my backup of my LD, DVD, HD-DVD, and Bluray collections. I have over 9K movies collected over 20+ years. I’m here to tell you, even stored in an air conditioned environment, discs can and will go bad. So going back to the original media can be impossible. That being said, transcoding from a previous transcode will loose quality over time. Therefore I will store the data as originally ripped from the discs and then use the best codec I can in a live transcode to deliver what I need. At this time, x265 seems like the best codec to do that for max compatibility and the best bandwidth utilization. As is always the case, compute power becomes easier and easier to come by and implementing x265 live transcoding, though possibly a challenge now will be nothing in the next couple of years. If the plex developers continue to wait, this whole conversation may start again with the AV1 codec and maybe they should move in that direction now with the idea that hardware support will become available over the next year of two. The intel ARC cards may end up being our saving grace with QSV/AV1 support at an acceptable cost. Maybe we could start with an Intel cpu and upon hitting the upper limit just pop in an ARC card… change none of the configuration… and increase our number of streams and quality that easy. I know… Pie in the Sky dreams. 
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Intel just gave ffmpeg an AV1 encoder for QSV, so forgoing a x265/HEVC library conversion at this point is (generally) the right call.
I think this conversation is already well under way with AV1, and also that 265 might straight-up be abandoned, relatively speaking, since its main platform-adoption obstacle is licensing cost — let alone AV1 being a bit better in compression rate and quality, though it does pose higher compute demands.
The good news for you (and all of us!) is that AV1 adoption will probably take off a lot faster than HEVC/x265 did.
I’m on the other side of the AV1 fence. It’s supported on modern hardware. Decoding is a little more common (QS is around 2020) but hardware encoding support starts this year (2022) with Nvidia 40 series, Intels Arc, and QS with Intel 14th Gen. Unless anyone can tell me differently, so it’s not common and won’t be for a while.
My hardware for plex is old (circa 2014) granted I use hardware transcoding and most of the clients are FTV and an Nvidia Shield, none of which support AV1, but all do for 265.
So my opinion is 265 is more common and will be around for a considerable amount of time yet. So support for encoding to 265 would be worthwhile.
Regardless if the future is AV1 (my hope) or x265 for transcoding, Plex will need to support a full 10bit/HDR pipeline to support HDR10/HDR10+>HDR10/HDR10+ transcodes (and ideally they convince Dolby to provide DV > DV/HDR10/SDR options as well).
My hope is Plex team prioritizes this early rather than waiting for AV1 encode hardware saturation as this is the “power user feature” that will need early user testing to get right. Jellyfin is already very close to implementing to complement their existing x265 encoding support.
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Don’t get me wrong, I have an interest in AV1 or other high compression codecs. But its interesting looking at the “Team Member” responses back in 2019 and “Plex Employee” in 2021, that basically say “no plans” to develop both due to adaption and requirements. Its going to be the same argument.
I’m sure many people would like to see an update from Plex on both fronts. With the adoption of 265 well established and no longer an argument. And the future of codec support such as AV1.
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It’s 2023 now; any word on fixing this issue?
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Would love to get an update aswell. Any HEVC/AV1 transcoding planned in the near future?
Most of my content is 4k hdr, direct play is just fine. Remote play is mainly limited by my upload speed, so i’d love to have some hdr → hdr transcoding.
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When generation 14 intel cpus is released, the ability to transcode to h265 will be much easier.
Intel’s future 14th Generation Meteor Lake CPU architecture will reportedly split video playback and encode functionality from the integrated graphics into a new area known as an SMU or Standalone Media Unit on the CPU,
Having this capability built into Plex would be a welcome addition to the system. Many of us are using other tools to do the conversion, and while the external conversion approach works, the integration back into Plex in not always optimal. As an example, converting recorded live TV in ts format to hevc in mkv works, but the skip commercials data is lost in the process. Being able to immediately do the conversion after recording has completed, and before the recording is moved from the .grab location would be so much cleaner. For extra credit - and not much extra work (he says as someone not doing the work) - using the comskip edl information to add chapter tags into the resulting mkv as commercial start/stop locations would be the frosting on the cake.
Not holding my breath, especially given the focus Plex is putting into the Plex channels, but it can’t hurt to at least bring this up.
Any updates from a Plex employee would be appreciated. Thanks.
Just so the original intent of this thread is not lost, the first post was asking for transcoding to HEVC to overcome certain issues, as mentioned in the first post, specifically, bandwidth limitations for off site play.
Actual conversion to HEVC of files was not the core request. I have MP4, MKV, MOV etc and do not want to run conversions on them to HEVC but it would be useful if Plex was able to transcode on the fly to HEVC, leaving the original file in it’s original format.
Plex it’s been 4 years since this thread was launched…
A high number of people asking for this functionality have paid for Plex (Me included)
When are you going to listen to your paying customers? (Knowing that technically speaking this is not challenging)
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+1 for HEVC/x.265 transcoding support.
It’s not possible to retain the HDR colourspace of 4k videos that are transcoded down to 1080p using the current H.264 standard. It means I would have to keep 2 sets of videos (one 4K HDR, and one 1080p SDR) for each movie if I wanted to support both 4K TV’s and 1080p TV’s in my house.
A H.265/x265 transcoder would resolve this issue.
