Video full of artifacts with Direct Play

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Hello,

I want to ask what could be the issue that a video has a lot of artifacts when I play it with Direct Play. It looks right (no artifacts appear) when I play it on a Windows PC.

The video has the following characterists:

Video
ID                             : 1
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : High 10@L4
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames     : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                       : 48 min 44 s
Nominal bit rate               : 4 500 kb/s
Width                          : 1 440 pixels
Height                         : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 4:3
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                     : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 10 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.097
Writing library                : x264 core 133 r2334 a3ac64b
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=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / 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=29 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=abr / mbtree=1 / bitrate=4500 / ratetol=2.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=81 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default                        : Yes
Forced                         : No

Many thanks in advance

Server Version#: 4.61.2
Player Version#: 8.20.0.26605

2

Possibly the 10-bit H.264 video. Not all devices support that format.

Check the capabilities of your Android TV device and any attached TV/monitor.

3

It is the Chromecast 4K Google TV

4

Can I activate that plex auto transcode those 10 bit H.264 videos?

Because it looks like Plex thinks it is compatible, but with a lot of artifacts.

5

I’m not aware of a way to do that with Android TV clients. If the client tells Plex it supports a certain codec/format, then Plex will try to direct play it.

You can force a transcode by changing the playback quality after you start streaming the video.

You can try playing the video in Plex Web. That should transcode due to browser limitations. That will show you how the transcoded video will appear in other clients.

You can monitor playback in Plex Dashboard → Now Playing. Toggle the button on the top right to expand the view. It will show you if the video/audio is direct playing, direct streaming, or transcoding.

6

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