Any way to see if its transcoding while playing a video?
Any way to see if its transcoding while playing a video?
Watching a 1080p video. Plex web says direct play, but looking at the process list the Plex New Transcoder is indeed running at 171% CPU so I would say it's re-encoding(not transcoding) down to the 720p 4Mbps(or something). Even if I change the quality to max, the encoder still runs at like 181% CPU, so I would say it's not doing directplay. too bad.
Hi.
If you click on the Activity indicator in the upper-right hand corner of Plex Media Server while something is playing, hover over the movie image and click the informational icon, it will show how that file is being played (transcode, direct, etc) and also what format.
Wow. Seems to be directplaying my remuxed MKVs. Getting lag but i'm connected by WIFI so thats no surprise. It won't play the new transformers remux tho with ATMOS, I hope they they change it so its easy to keep it set as maximum quality etc. Also I wish I could change the audio before it plays so I could try transformers with a diff soundtrack.
I am getting constant buffering and I am fully wired.
I am getting constant buffering and I am fully wired.
Haven't wired up so I can't test. Kinda depressing but I only really wanted to play with the client. I love Plex and its nice. It seems only keeping Remux's is a lot of trouble. But i'll never change. Full quality or nothing.
I also see in Plex Web that is says it is direct streaming, but see that the Plex server is hard at work likely transcoding my MKV. I was hoping it would direct play it, but it looks it wont. I'm connected via wireless and I have not had any problem .
Haven't wired up so I can't test. Kinda depressing but I only really wanted to play with the client. I love Plex and its nice. It seems only keeping Remux's is a lot of trouble. But i'll never change. Full quality or nothing.
The client is new so give it some time. I was trying to convert all my mkvs to mp4 last week and after 2 series I gave up. I don't have that kind of time and patience :D
I am looking at writing a script to mass convert stuff though. Just never got around to it. I want to use the apple format and terminology. It should work with all devices.
Video: mp4 h.264
profile: 4.1 i believe
Audio: Track 1 aac stereo default , Track 2 ac3 5.1 disable
I am still learning about subtitles since the few documentations I read so far haven't mentioned anything about them.
I also see in Plex Web that is says it is direct streaming, but see that the Plex server is hard at work likely transcoding my MKV. I was hoping it would direct play it, but it looks it wont. I'm connected via wireless and I have not had any problem .
I don't think it is reporting it correctly. Xbox 360 does not have mkv support so it can't direct play mkvs. It's probably direct stream it but reporting it wrong. Maybe a dev can clarrify on that. Again I am just speculating here base on what I know to be true and that is xbox one is the only xbox that recently got mkv with aac audio support.
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/xbox-video/mkv-support
Any way to see if its transcoding while playing a video?
Look at running processes on your server, I can't seem to play anything without it transcoding, .avi, .mp4, .m4v, etc.
Seems like a complete waste of time to me, quality is crap even on Max setting. Using the system video player using DNLA plays everything apart from .mkv without transcoding.
Will not be using this client.
Regards.
I am having similar experience. On XBox 360, when I use DLNA client (i.e. Xbox System Video Player), there is no transcoding. How do I know...looking at Task Manager on Plex server shows me that no Plex Transcoder process is running, and CPU utilization is relatively low. When I use Plex client on XBox 360, task manager on Plex server shows Plex Transcoder process running and CPU utilization is spiked. By the way, when playing a movie in both cases the activity indicator on Plex's web-based Media Manager shows Direct Play, which appears to be incorrect when utilizing the Plex client on Xbox 360, i.e. its actually transcoding the movie.
All kinks hopefully to be worked out...
I don't think it is reporting it correctly. Xbox 360 does not have mkv support so it can't direct play mkvs. It's probably direct stream it but reporting it wrong. Maybe a dev can clarrify on that. Again I am just speculating here base on what I know to be true and that is xbox one is the only xbox that recently got mkv with aac audio support.
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/xbox-video/mkv-support
I agree. It is actually Direct Streaming, not Direct Playing. For everyone else: If your MKV is just an h.264 video (which the 360 does play) in an MKV container, then yes - Plex will Direct Stream the video to the 360 app. To be clear, there are 3 methods of playing back video from Plex:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streaming-Media-Direct-Play-and-Direct-Stream
Direct Stream: media that is compatible with your device regarding resolution and media type (H.264, AC3, etc.), but is in an incompatible file container (.mkv, .avi, .wmv, etc.). Plex extracts and repackages before sending to your device for streaming playback. This may be also done in a combination where video is extracted and recontained before streaming and only audio is transcoded, etc.
Direct Play: source media is compatible with the client's playback capabilities
Transcoding: Yep!
I agree. It is actually Direct Streaming, not Direct Playing. For everyone else: If your MKV is just an h.264 video (which the 360 does play) in an MKV container, then yes - Plex will Direct Stream the video to the 360 app. To be clear, there are 3 methods of playing back video from Plex:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streaming-Media-Direct-Play-and-Direct-Stream
Direct Stream: media that is compatible with your device regarding resolution and media type (H.264, AC3, etc.), but is in an incompatible file container (.mkv, .avi, .wmv, etc.). Plex extracts and repackages before sending to your device for streaming playback. This may be also done in a combination where video is extracted and recontained before streaming and only audio is transcoded, etc.
Direct Play: source media is compatible with the client's playback capabilities
Transcoding: Yep!
I love Plex, but I'm very disappointed by the Xbox 360 app. The front end looks great, but why is Plex transcoding my files that play perfectly fine using the Plex DLNA server and the Xbox System Video player?
My media server cannot handle it without buffering, which makes the app unusable. I actually started a pass subscription and wanted to pay for this client, but cancelled a few hours later after the experience. My server is set to allow direct play and I've tried changing the quality settings on the client to 1080p to match the source material, but Plex still want's to transcode.
I hope this gets sorted.
I'm not sure what's happening with this app. I've just checked the activity log and it's reporting direct play, but buffering every 10 seconds, while the "newtranscoder.exe" process churns away.
I have more than amble bandwidth and play the same movies via the DLNA - System video player route.
Strange indeed.
Please sort this Plex....It looks great and I want to be able to use it.
I'm not sure what's happening with this app. I've just checked the activity log and it's reporting direct play, but buffering every 10 seconds, while the "newtranscoder.exe" process churns away.
I have more than amble bandwidth and play the same movies via the DLNA - System video player route.
Strange indeed.
Please sort this Plex....It looks great and I want to be able to use it.
I'm replying to myself here, because nobody seems to be commenting on this and there must be more than a few others with the same problem I describe.
In fact, how some are reporting play-back works ok is a mystery to me, after trouble-shooting for the last few hours.
I've tried the xbox direct into my router, wirelessly, with different console display settings, every combination of Plex server settings and I still get exactly the same problem.
I've tried selecting the lowest quality on the client after playback starts, and all the others too. I've tried re-installing the app on the xbox, signing in and out, jumping up and down and standing on my head.
Then I simply exit the app, select the system video player, choose the plex server and watch exactly the same film in high quality 1080p that only seconds prior via the Plex app played for a few seconds before buffering every 20 seconds.
There must be something about the app and my xbox that is different to others. Maybe something that isn't visable like the network firmware or interface or something bizarre that hasn't been picked up in testing.
Don't beat yourself up. Don't take people's word for it. You know what you see and that's that. I am having issues as well. When I heard minority of people saying it works fine for them I just ignored their comment. If something is messed up for 90 - 100 people and only works for 10 that only means something is wrong. Unless their file is encoded differently than ours. Different container, low profile, compatible audio track, etc...all these would make a tremendous difference.
Don't beat yourself up. Don't take people's word for it. You know what you see and that's that. I am having issues as well. When I heard minority of people saying it works fine for them I just ignored their comment. If something is messed up for 90 - 100 people and only works for 10 that only means something is wrong. Unless their file is encoded differently than ours. Different container, low profile, compatible audio track, etc...all these would make a tremendous difference.
Thanks Breezy. Half of the frustration is getting somebody who can influence the situation positively to acknowledge there's an issue.
It doesn't make sense for any business to ignore issues that could affect thier income. I bought a plex pass specifically for this app and then cancelled after I confirmed it didn't work for me.
Hi,
We are looking into this issue.
Thanks,
@paulheyworth can you share more information about the file you are trying to play in Xbox360. Get the file information using http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo
Are you getting this issue in all of your video files?
@paulheyworth can you share more information about the file you are trying to play in Xbox360. Get the file information using http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo
Are you getting this issue in all of your video files?
Thanks both for taking the time to look at this. It is appreciated.
The format of one of the files with issue is as follows. This plays directly on the Xbox system video player and most of my files are in this format, but I do have others that differ slightly that don't play either.
General
Complete name : U:\The Thing (1982).mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 2.21 GiB
Duration : 1h 48mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 904 Kbps
Movie name : Main Movie
Encoded date : UTC 2014-11-02 21:37:24
Tagged date : UTC 2014-11-03 00:16:26
Writing application : HandBrake 0.9.9 2013052900
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 48mn
Bit rate : 2 100 Kbps
Width : 1 916 pixels
Height : 816 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Minimum frame rate : 19.608 fps
Maximum frame rate : 32.258 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.056
Stream size : 1.59 GiB (72%)
Writing library : x264 core 130 r2273 b3065e6
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=300 / keyint_min=30 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=2100 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=78125 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date : UTC 2014-11-02 21:37:24
Tagged date : UTC 2014-11-03 00:16:26
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Says direct play for me but it's actually transcoding but no buffering issues.
Playback is a lil laggy sometimes though.
