Transcoding versus Re-encoding

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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This discussion was created from comments split from: Why does Plex hang with message “Looking for servers…”?.

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@“zbernie123@outlook.com” said:

@ChuckPA said:
Careful how you say that. Yes it does. I run PMS on a DS1813+ (even older).

What are you trying to do with it? Transcode video? Audio only?
Please qualify / explain your intended use

Play home videos and Handbrake transcoded movies. I just read today that DS Video will reach end of life in December of 2018.

Where did you read that? That does not sound rite to me and I follow this stuff very close, Synology is hard at work on the media front these days… unless of course there replacing it with something better, DS-Video is not all that good now in my humble opinion. One notable missing feature is if you have an AV receiver and want the best audio for your movies then DS-Video is not for you. It does not support 5.1 sound so no DD/ DTS audio… forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=130645

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@ChuckPA said:
If you’re using HandBrake to prepare your videos for your TV / tablet / phone then you’re covered from the video perspective. I recommend H.264 encoding, 2-pass encoding (for best quality) and output container extension of either MKV or MP4

Be sure to clear the Title and other Metadata fields if you encode to MP4. PMS will read it from MP4 files and, if done incorrectly, make it difficult to match correctly. For that reason, I use MKV. PMS doesn’t read metadata from MKV files.

As for audio, AAC or AC-3 is most universal and the NAS will more than handle transcoding this to stereo as needed.

Good to know, Thanks for the info. I never used HandBrake before because I let Plex handle it. How does HandBrake fair with the built-in Optimizer of Plex? Whats better??

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@ChuckPA said:
Remember the Naming Guidelines (link in my signature)

FileBot is great and everyone will confirm worth the $5. It does the naming lookup for you in advance.

If you want the template, let me know. All you’ll need do is add the destination path part to the template

May I have a copy of the template please? All my media is already hand named perfect but I setup systems for friends and family and there media is a mess in most cases…

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@“zbernie123@outlook.com” said:

@ChuckPA said:
If you’re using HandBrake to prepare your videos for your TV / tablet / phone then you’re covered from the video perspective. I recommend H.264 encoding, 2-pass encoding (for best quality) and output container extension of either MKV or MP4

Be sure to clear the Title and other Metadata fields if you encode to MP4. PMS will read it from MP4 files and, if done incorrectly, make it difficult to match correctly. For that reason, I use MKV. PMS doesn’t read metadata from MKV files.

As for audio, AAC or AC-3 is most universal and the NAS will more than handle transcoding this to stereo as needed.

Thanks for the transcoding tips. I just added a folder to Plex that contains 2 movies, one an .mp4, and the other a .mkv. But they are not being displayed when I click on movies in the home screen. I set the scan time to 15 minutes, and it’s been longer than 15 minutes. Any idea why Plex is not seeing these two videos?

Go to your movie library and click the 3 dots … then select ‘scan library files’ If that don’t work then select ‘Refresh all metadata’ I would not use the scan time function at all… There are other options to use that are better such as scan the library on change, Try that and see what happens.

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@“zbernie123@outlook.com” said:

@ChuckPA said:
Step 2.

  1. Start PMS on the Synology in Package Center
  2. Open http://ip.addr.of.Syno:32400/web in your local browser
  3. It will prompt you to sign in - Do so
  4. It will present you with the ‘Got It’ page
  5. The wizard will then walk you through setting up the server and creating your libraries.

Thank you! My problem was I did not have he /web in the URL. All this may be a moot point though, I just looked at the Plex NAS compatibility list, and my DS415play does NOT support 720p or 1080p videos. Bummer!

As Chuck said, You have misread the compatibility list. It says it does not support “trans-coding” of 720 or 1080p
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit#gid=314388488

Click my attachment below to see my highlight…

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@“zbernie123@outlook.com” @RayIT

In the interest of proper netiquette to the OP, whose question has been answered, I have broken out the thread here.

As requested: FileBot Templates

Movies mode template: /syno/movies/{n} ({y})/{n} ({y})
Episode mode template: /syno/tv/{n}/Season {s.pad(2)}/{n} - {s00e00} - {t}

You are free to prepare your content away from where PMS monitors (best practice)
When ready to give to PMS, FileBot will perform the lookup, suggest final naming, wait for acceptance, then rename and move into final position in one step