Server Version#: 1.21.0.3711 (Windows)
Player Version#: 8.10.0.21911 (Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K)
Hi everyone,
Wondering if anyone knows the answer to this. I’ve just purchased an Amazon Fire TV Stick to try and replace my built in Smart TV apps. I’ve been quite disappointed with the Plex App so far. The main issue i’m having is when i’m trying to playback test 4K footage and any really large files. I will copy and paste the details of the file below underneath the line. When I try and play this back on my Fire TV Stick it comes up with the error “The Server Is Not Powerful Enough To Convert Video”.
It might be the case that the it is just a bad error message and the file just simply isn’t support on this player, if that is the case I will be very disappointed as these files playback fine on my built in LG TV Plex app. The video files are “.ts” and very large. But all my other Plex Apps play them back just fine.
Does anybody have an idea on what is causing this?
Media
Duration 2:34
Bitrate 50189 kbps
Width 3840
Height 2160
Aspect Ratio 1.78
Video Resolution 4K
Container MPEGTS
Video Frame Rate 60p
Audio Profile lc
Video Profile main 10
Part
Duration 2:34
File 4K HDR Test Video Pet Travel.ts
Size 957.09 MB
Audio Profile lc
Container MPEGTS
Packet Length 188
Video Profile main 10
Codec HEVC
Bitrate 49997 kbps
Bit Depth 10
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Codec ID [36][0][0][0]
Coded Height 2160
Coded Width 3840
Color Primaries bt2020
Color Range tv
Color Space bt2020nc
Color Trc smpte2084
Frame Rate 59.94 fps
Height 2160
Level 5.1
Profile main 10
Ref Frames 1
Stream Identifier 257
Width 3840
Display Title 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)
Extended Display Title 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)
Codec AAC
Channels 2
Bitrate 192 kbps
Audio Channel Layout stereo
Profile lc
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Stream Identifier 258
Display Title Unknown (AAC Stereo)
Extended Display Title Unknown (AAC Stereo)
Which Fire TV Stick did you get? Only the 4K model supports 4K. For anything else, PMS has to transcode it to 1080p.
Even a slow Windows machine shouldn’t produce that error. You’ve either disabled transcoding or there is a setup issue and PMS cannot find the codecs it needs to perform the transcode.
I have the 4K one. Brand new from Black Friday 2020. Although I think it’s still a 2018 model the newest 4K one. I have disabled transcoding on the server because I want it to always be direct play. I don’t want to downgrade the quality of the stream ever or it do any sort of conversion. I want it to stream the file untouched, in its entirety. My LG app and Xbox app and Windows app can all play the videos in question. It’s just my Fire TV app that displays this error. It is a massively high quality clip but it shouldn’t matter right ? As long as the network supports the bandwidth and it’s direct play it doesn’t have much to do with processing power at all at there is no transcoding going on.
That doesn’t make it so the content will direct play. It just turns off your server’s ability to perform a transcode. If the device needs a transcode, then it will fail and you get that error.
Are your files 10-bit? The app on the Fire TV does not support 10-bit video so these will always want to be transcoded. There is no way to force playing these as-is.
If that’s the case it’s incredibly disappointing. I would have thought the Fire TV App would be one of the most developed and advanced Plex Apps as so many people have that exact device and platform. It looks like the Fire TV stick can’t replace my built in TV apps now. I do hope this gets resolved in future updates quite soon. Unless of course it’s a hardware limitation.
