Server Version#: 1.22.0.4163
Player Version#: 7.14
Movie video MKV/H264/480p, audio AC3 stereo. subtitles deactivated.
Looking at iOS natively supported formats I understand that it should be played without any transcoding. Hence my question transcoding is performed ?
Thank you
Can you provide the detailed media information, which you obtain by going to the “get into” menu item under the ellipses.
Media
Duration 1:50:36
Bitrate 4240 kbps
Width 552
Height 576
Aspect Ratio 1.33
Video Resolution 480p
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate PAL
Video Profile high
Part
Duration 1:50:36
File San Francisco.mkv
Size 3.28 GB
Container MKV
Indexes sd
Video Profile high
Codec H264
Bitrate 4048 kbps
Anamorphic true
Bit Depth 8
Chroma Location left
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Coded Height 576
Coded Width 560
Color Primaries bt470bg
Color Range tv
Color Space smpte170m
Color Trc bt709
Frame Rate 25 fps
Height 576
Level 3.0
Pixel Aspect Ratio 64:45
Profile high
Ref Frames 3
Scan Type progressive
Width 552
Display Title 480p (H.264)
Extended Display Title 480p (H.264)
Codec AC3
Channels 2
Bitrate 192 kbps
Language English
Audio Channel Layout stereo
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Title Stereo
Display Title English (AC3 Stereo)
Extended Display Title Stereo (English AC3)
Forced true
Codec VOBSUB
Language Français
Display Title Français Forced (VOBSUB)
Extended Display Title Français Forced (VOBSUB)
Was the subtitle activated during playback?
A vobsub subtitle will cause transcoding on many client types.
If you want to know for sure, activate ‘debug’ logging on the server, then start playback. After ~1 minute, inspect the Plex Media Server.log. Look for lines containing MDE:
The transcoding decisions are logged in these lines.
as said in the OP subtitles are not activated
check your quality settings on the client - that file is very high bitrate for 480p H264…
@BobSnot
Automatically adjust quality: checked
LAN streaming: recommanded selected
I assume that with these settings there should not be any transcoding
Theoretically not – unless iOS doesn’t like anamorphic video.
Anamorphic media works OK for me on an iPhone Xs and some random iPads.
@number8.1 did you see Otto’s suggestion to share logs or view the MDE: lines from the logs?
That is a guaranteed transcode.
As per @JuiceWSA, Automatically adjust quality has been disabled. No change
Following @OttoKerner recommandation I searched for MDE in the server log file and discovered that Direct Play was disabled on client side. After allowing it, transcoding switched to off.
I then reactivated Automatically adjust quality and transcoding is occuring again.
Bottom line: keep direct play On and disable Automatically adjust quality.
One very last question: I was curious to see what happens when subtitles (VOBSUB) are activated. I had the understanding that transcoding should be back because it has to burn subtitles on the fly in the video stream. Which is not the case (here below excerpt of GetInfo). What is the reason then?
Thank you very much to all of you for the kind support
“Automatically adjust quality” forces transcoding, because changing the transcoding rates is how quality is adjusted. (That setting also forces the old/native video player.)
I’m surprised that it mattered on the local network. I can’t duplicate it myself on the LAN.
The iPhone player can composite VOBSUB subtitles itself, so it doesn’t require the server to burn them in. This is very client-dependent.
Plex does help us very much in making options that are not mutually exclusive (same issue hardware decoding/encoding, you may select the later but it has no effects until the first option is selected). I guess this option is helpfull when one is playing on a mobile device with a non stable internet connection?
I didn’t know that. I’m wondering why it is not processed by all the clients the Apple way;)
Maybe another option that makes it occuring?
For now, at least, I would make certain the Client Apps in question have both Quality and Remote Quality set to ‘Original/Maximum’.
That’s a fat bit rate and probably has spikes to 100Mbps…lol <—we didn’t make it at my house - that is certain.
On 1080p movie I confirm there are spikes closed to 100Mb/s. LAN is 1GB/s and Wifi AP’s are 400MB/s minimum real throughput.
You can see the bitrate of the media itself if you Get Info and View XML in Plex, and look at requiredBandwidths="7303,4932,3415,3415,3415,3415,3415,3415 (example).
Note that when you play video, it will be transferred over the network as fast as possible, in gulps. The client will download a big gulp of the video and fill its cache, then will take additional sips as it plays.
Looking at Plex Dashboard or task manager on the server confirms this. Depending on the video file, this is why movie takes some times before being played.
It turns out it is a rather complex matter when it comes to what exactly do when performing file preparation with handbrake. I have more than a thousand movies, and I admit that at the beginning of this adventure, I had not enough info to optimize quality versus playability.
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