Why is my PMS transcoding

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1

Hi all

I have just bought a new Samsung smart tv and when I am playing a file I have noticed my PMS is transcoding the file. This is a problem for me as I am in the process of making a light weight PMS sever that will only direct play on my LAN.

But I don’t know why it is transcoding as the file is a .avi file using mpeg-4 (xvid) codec and mp3 audio

And my TV supports .avi files and mp3 audio

And no subtitles are being used

Any ideas?

2

Could be a lot of things.

  1. The TV itself being able to playback certain formats doesn’t mean those are all made available to apps installed on the TV
  2. It’s always about the combination… if your TV supports the container (avi) that doesn’t mean it’ll support it with all possible codecs for video and audio.
  3. Even if the combination of container/codecs is ok, one of the streams could exceed certain thresholds supported on your TV (e.g. video dimensions, bitrates, # of audio channels, color range…).

Many tv makers focus on commercial formats – so xvid might be the culprit in your use case. However… to be sure you can open Plex Web while the video is playing. Navigate to Activities > Now Playing or the new Dashboard… there you should get a first set of information what exactly is being transcoded (and some information on why that is).

For more detailed information you’ll have to take a look at the Plex Media Server’s log files (Settings > Manage > Troubleshooting > Download Logs). Check out the most recent Plex Media Server.log and look for MDE labelled lines – those refer to the engine determining how Plex will serve a certain video to the client.

Example:

Jan 13, 2019 21:51:23.200 [0x7f38963f9700] DEBUG - MDE: The Lorax (2012): Direct Play is disabled
Jan 13, 2019 21:51:23.200 [0x7f38963f9700] DEBUG - MDE: The Lorax (2012): media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Jan 13, 2019 21:51:23.200 [0x7f38963f9700] DEBUG - MDE: The Lorax (2012): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264
Jan 13, 2019 21:51:23.200 [0x7f38963f9700] DEBUG - MDE: The Lorax (2012): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Jan 13, 2019 21:51:23.200 [0x7f38963f9700] DEBUG - MDE: Der Lorax (2012): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Jan 13, 2019 21:51:23.201 [0x7f38963f9700] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec dca when profile only allows ac3
3

Thanks I’ll take a look and see what’s happening

Edit: viewed now playing and it’s transcoding MPEG4 to H264 and MP3 to AAC

4

This is what the logs say -

MDE: Selected protocol dash; container: mp4
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.715 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 111160
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.715 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: E11 - The Justice League Recombination: Direct Play is disabled
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.715 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: E11 - The Justice League Recombination: media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.715 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: E11 - The Justice League Recombination: avoiding video remux due to potentially unsafe container/codec combination
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.715 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: E11 - The Justice League Recombination: no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.715 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.716 [13412] DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 1582Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.717 [13412] DEBUG - Codecs: testing aac_mf (encoder)
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.719 [13412] INFO - [FFMPEG] - MFT name: 'Microsoft AAC Audio Encoder MFT'
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.838 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec mp3 when profile only allows aac
Jan 19, 2019 17:39:15.838 [13412] DEBUG - MDE: The Big Bang Theory - S4 E11 - The Justice League Recombination: selected media 0 / 111160
5

I think I have found the issue, this is from the supported formats for smart TVs

Direct Play Video Support

Native video support is typically (but not always) limited to the MP4 container, H.264 video encoding, and AAC audio. Content that is not natively supported will automatically be Direct Streamed or transcoded as needed by the Plex Media Server.

See the Specific Model Differences later in the article for more information about cases that may vary from this. Content matching the following can usually be Direct Played:

  • Container: MP4
  • Resolution: 1920×1080 or smaller
  • Video Encoding: H.264 (level 4.0 or lower)
  • Video Framerate: 30fps
  • Video Bit Depth: 8
  • Audio Encoding: AAC

Now to re encode 800 files

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