VC-1 being Transcoded

In the latest release as well as the latest beta (6.4.0.1558), VC-1 is being transcode, this should be Direct Played on the Shield. It is being Direct Played with version (5.6.1.505).

Fine for me. I tested the first harry potters. Maybe you have a incompatible audio format that you tv cannot passthrough thus causing a transcode of the video. Vc1 must remain in mkv for direct play to work and incompatible audio ruins this.

I’m not on the beta though.

You might try remuxing the file.

I had a movie with VC-1 video that was transcoding. I remuxed the file with MKVToolNix and it now Direct Plays.

There was a problem with an earlier release of MKVToolNix, which is fixed in the current release. Remuxing the file fixed the problem.

I’ve PMS 1.8.1 & client 6.4.1 on Shield TV.

@Afullmark said:
Fine for me. I tested the first harry potters. Maybe you have a incompatible audio format that you tv cannot passthrough thus causing a transcode of the video. Vc1 must remain in mkv for direct play to work and incompatible audio ruins this.

I’m not on the beta though.

Thanks for the audio tip, with that, I did some further testing. I have a Samsung (HW-K950) Dolby Atmos TrueHD soundbar and for the moment, it only supports DTS 5.1(Core), below are my findings with it.

  1. MKV - H.264 - TrueHD, DTS-HD MA = Direct Play of Video and Audio.

  2. MKV - VC-1 - TrueHD = Direct Play of Video and Audio.

  3. MKV - VC-1 - DTS-HD MA = Transcode of Video and Direct Play of Audio.

Item #3, in my opinion, should not be taking place, as my soundbar is Direct Playing the DTS 5.1 Core of the DTS-HD MA audio, the VC-1 should not have to be transcoded to H.264, the shield has VC-1 support built in.

Don’t know if my thinking is correct on this or not? Thanks.

@x64Man said:

@Afullmark said:
Fine for me. I tested the first harry potters. Maybe you have a incompatible audio format that you tv cannot passthrough thus causing a transcode of the video. Vc1 must remain in mkv for direct play to work and incompatible audio ruins this.

I’m not on the beta though.

Thanks for the audio tip, with that, I did some further testing. I have a Samsung (HW-K950) Dolby Atmos TrueHD soundbar and for the moment, it only supports DTS 5.1(Core), below are my findings with it.

  1. MKV - H.264 - TrueHD, DTS-HD MA = Direct Play of Video and Audio.

  2. MKV - VC-1 - TrueHD = Direct Play of Video and Audio.

  3. MKV - VC-1 - DTS-HD MA = Transcode of Video and Direct Play of Audio.

Item #3, in my opinion, should not be taking place, as my soundbar is Direct Playing the DTS 5.1 Core of the DTS-HD MA audio, the VC-1 should not have to be transcoded to H.264, the shield has VC-1 support built in.

Don’t know if my thinking is correct on this or not? Thanks.

DTS and DTS ma are different things. Your bar only supports DTS and not the MA exttention. In makemkv you can selectved to extracted them both by ticking both boxes for the DTS ma audio which will then extract the DTS part and the DTS ma part as separate audio tracks.

My issue has been fixed with todays beta release 6.5.0.1737, allow fallback to DTS Passthrough when DTS-HD / MA not supported, thanks.