I can playback those files on the device themselves without any hiccup, they are all in my home network, but Plex kept trying to transcode and fail (since my NAS’s GPU is not supported!!!) WHY???
Further study shows that AC3 might be the cause of the problem. Any video file with AC3 auto. With AAC auto, Plex will allow at least as high as 3500kbps (that’s the highest I have) videos to play directly. With AC3 though, most video with higher than 1800 kbps won’t play. Plex will convert AC3 to ACC but won’t allow video to be directly streamed. This won’t happen all the time but quite often. It seems like a but not allowing direct stream. Please fix it.
I play media on my Android Plex app all the time without transcoding. Not sure what’s happening with your setup - perhaps server logs will shed light on it. Also, enable the overlay and you’ll see why it’s being transcoded.
I am currently running Plex front end with Kodi where there is an option to force play at original quality. It works perfectly without the need to transcode at all.
