Web player audio codec question

General Discussions
1

Hi,
I noticed that my AC3 2.0 streams are now being transcoded to AAC when I am using the web player in the server app. Should I start converting my AC3 2.0 streams to AAC stereo now to avoid transcoding?

Thanks!

2

conversion = transcoding

I’d say “no”, because

  • there might be other Plex clients which can play the AC3 codec directly. (in fact, the web app is probably the worst choice in terms of codec support and fidelity)
    For these, you’ll have better quality if you leave the audio stream as-is. Both AC3 and AAC are “lossy” codecs. If you convert from one to the other, audio quality will get worse.
  • the cpu load by caused by this audio conversion is pretty low
3

Use one of the ‘Player Apps’ - Apps & Devices link at the bottom of this page.
Plex for ‘Whatever’ is the app that looks most like Plexweb - but has super-duper playback power for everything.

Plex Media Player is more for Home Theater use - but you might find a use for it. It has Super-Super-Duper enhanced settings in TV View you may need at some point - or not.

I use both - when they’re called for.
Pick and Choose.

4

Hi Juice, I would love to use one of the apps, but both give a slight video pause every couple seconds, and the videos are on the same computer. I tried installing it on an ssd drive, then the normal non-ssd drive. I updated my Radeon video card drivers, defragged the hard drive
 it’s a 3.4ghz Intel I5 64bit Windows 10 machine w/ 32 gigs of ram, so I don’t know why there would be problems. I just use the player built into the server which gives no issues.

5

Thanks for the fyi! Dumb question
can AC3 2.0 be Dolby Pro Logic? Or is it just stereo?

6

Dolby Pro Logic was a means to encode surround sound into an analog stereo signal. Inferior to even the most basic digital surround codec (e.g. AC3 5.1)

AC3 2.0 just means Dolby Digital in stereo (the numbers “2.0” describing the number of audio channels).