Video quality not as good as Web Player, VLC, Windows 10 App

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1

Recently installed OpenPHT, and the video seems to have a “soft glow” that is not present in VLC, the Plex Web App, or the Plex Windows 10 App. Makes it seem like the HD is not as present. You can really notice it on the face and details of the shirt/suit below. This has all stemmed from me just trying to get surround sound to work on my new media server, as Kodi wasn’t working out for me. It was requiring too much tweaking, was too complex for the wife to use, and for some reason, it wasn’t recognizing files in my library and adding them (Plex has always worked perfectly for this).

Any advice here?

OpenPHT:

VLC Player:

2

Is the client quality set to direct streaming / direct play or is there some quality restrictions applied? Have you tried with and without hardware acceleration?

3

Quality settings are set to Direct Play (I think, see below). What is the best way to disable hardware acceleration? Is that done through Windows 10 or OpenPHT?

4

What video codec is this file using?
If it is h.265 aka HEVC, then it is no wonder that it looks bad in PHT. Since it cannot handle HEVC yet, so it gets transcoded by the server to AVC aka h.264
Check mediainfo of the file and Status - Now Playing in Plex Web to see whether transcoding is going on.

5

@OttoKerner said:

If it is h.265 aka HEVC, then it is no wonder that it looks bad in PHT. Since it cannot handle HEVC yet, so it gets transcoded by the server to AVC aka h.264

But it looks good on the web client, can the web client direct play h265?

6

@zpaolo11x said:
But it looks good on the web client, can the web client direct play h265?

I don’t know. It may depend on the browser. What does the mediainfo say?

7

@zpaolo11x said:

@OttoKerner said:

If it is h.265 aka HEVC, then it is no wonder that it looks bad in PHT. Since it cannot handle HEVC yet, so it gets transcoded by the server to AVC aka h.264

But it looks good on the web client, can the web client direct play h265?

Just check the file with mediainfo and post the info here!

8

Thanks for the help everyone! Here is the mediainfo, doesn’t appear to be H265…using Chrome as the web browser.

l5u52cd5ljzq.png741×531 49.6 KB

and the xml in case the screen capture missed something: This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. <MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="2" librarySectionTitle="Movies" librarySectionUUID="c2898d9b-9dd4-4e64-ad6a-795e763b7d78" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1459829704"> <Video ratingKey="95643" key="/library/metadata/95643" guid="com.plexapp.agents.imdb://tt0478970?lang=en" librarySectionID="2" studio="Marvel Studios" type="movie" title="Ant-Man" contentRating="PG-13" summary="Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, con-man Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world." rating="8.0" audienceRating="8.7" viewOffset="83959" lastViewedAt="1463025685" year="2015" tagline="Heroes Don't Get Any Bigger" thumb="/library/metadata/95643/thumb/1461086024" art="/library/metadata/95643/art/1461086024" duration="7026652" originallyAvailableAt="2015-07-17" addedAt="1450046312" updatedAt="1461086024" audienceRatingImage="rottentomatoes://image.rating.upright" chapterSource="mixed" ratingImage="rottentomatoes://image.rating.certified"> <Media videoResolution="1080" id="86622" duration="7026652" bitrate="10692" width="1920" height="1040" aspectRatio="1.85" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="dca" videoCodec="h264" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" audioProfile="dts" videoProfile="high"> <Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="196516" key="/library/parts/196516/file.mkv" duration="7026652" file="XXXXXXXXXXXX" size="9391033415" audioProfile="dts" container="mkv" videoProfile="high"> <Stream id="217017" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="9181" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" cabac="1" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codecID="V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC" duration="7026652" frameRate="23.976" frameRateMode="cfr" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1040" level="41" pixelFormat="yuv420p" profile="high" refFrames="4" scanType="progressive" width="1920"/> <Stream id="217018" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="dca" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="1509" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" bitDepth="24" bitrateMode="cbr" codecID="A_DTS" duration="7026646" profile="dts" samplingRate="48000"/> </Part> </Media> <Genre id="39440" tag="Sci-Fi" count="121"/> <Genre id="6512" tag="Action" count="224"/> <Genre id="564" tag="Adventure" count="181"/> <Writer id="9204" tag="Adam McKay"/> <Writer id="8996" tag="Edgar Wright" count="5"/> <Writer id="8997" tag="Joe Cornish" count="2"/> <Writer id="20048" tag="Paul Rudd"/> <Director id="9679" tag="Peyton Reed" count="4"/> <Producer id="6439" tag="Kevin Feige" count="6"/> <Country id="22" tag="USA" count="979"/> <Role id="578" tag="Paul Rudd" count="9" role="Scott Lang/Ant-Man"/> <Role id="1105" tag="Michael Douglas" count="6" role="Dr. Hank Pym"/> <Role id="19034" tag="Corey Stoll" count="4" role="Darren Cross/Yellowjacket"/> <Role id="2198" tag="Evangeline Lilly" count="4" role="Hope van Dyne"/> <Role id="693" tag="Michael Peña" count="8" role="Luis"/> <Role id="2103" tag="Hayley Atwell" role="Peggy Carter"/> <Role id="16443" tag="Bobby Cannavale" count="4" role="Paxton"/> <Role id="2166" tag="Anthony Mackie" count="6" role="Sam Wilson/Falcon"/> <Role id="5706" tag="Judy Greer" count="3" role="Maggie Lang"/> <Role id="39568" tag="Abby Ryder Fortson" role="Cassie Lang"/> <Extras size="0"></Extras> </Video> </MediaContainer>

9

The mediainfo looks pretty standard. h.264 level4.1, no subtitles, no 10bit color.
PHT should have no problem decoding this properly.
We need a Plex Media Server.log with at least timestamps from around the time when you started playback.
Look out for lines starting with MDE:

  1. activate debug logging (not ‘verbose’!)
  2. quit Plex Server
  3. wait 1 minute
  4. empty the log folder
  5. start Plex Server
  6. wait 2 minutes
  7. play the movie for 2 minutes
  8. wait 3 minutes
  9. shut down Plex server
  10. wait 1 minute
  11. zip up the whole log folder and attach it here
10

I’m still curious if the server is transcoding or not, can you check in the “now playing” page of the web interface and verify that direct play or direct stream are actually used?

11

@zpaolo11x said:
I’m still curious if the server is transcoding or not, can you check in the “now playing” page of the web interface and verify that direct play or direct stream are actually used?

Or he could just press i during playback and see if it says direct play…

12

@danjames92 said:

Or he could just press i during playback and see if it says direct play…

You’re right, does it distinguish between direct play / direct stream of audio and/or video?

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@zpaolo11x said:

@danjames92 said:

Or he could just press i during playback and see if it says direct play…

You’re right, does it distinguish between direct play / direct stream of audio and/or video?

I don’t believe so but pretty much all my content direct plays so I’m not 100% on that.

14

I have also noticed this softness to the image. Don’t know if it’s just a sideeffect of the underlying rending system this uses.

15

Check this; https://github.com/RasPlex/OpenPHT/issues/34

Scroll to the bottom - its a known issue and hopefully fixed in the new release.

Not sure if its exactly the same issue that you have

16

@nielsvdp said:
Check this; Embedded - Video Tearing · Issue #34 · RasPlex/OpenPHT · GitHub

Scroll to the bottom - its a known issue and hopefully fixed in the new release.

Not sure if its exactly the same issue that you have

That’s talking about tearing where the image frames are aligning correctly. We’re talking about image quality presentation. Don’t think it’s related but happy to be proved wrong.

17

Understand. But follow the link and see the image quality difference in the posted screenshots.

18

I noticed this too and just upgraded to the 1.6 pre-release. It appears to be fixed.

19

Yes, the quality of playback has been improved. The issue on Github also has been closed now.

20

All, thanks so much for the help. My basement flooded and I’ve been working for the past month to put it back together! Luckily my HTPC was OK, just finally got it back online. Going to continue to troubleshoot and send updates next week.