Why is Plex transcoding trailers?

[CostaHT]

Server Version#: 1.21.1.3830
Player Version#: 5.6.1

Hi guys, I have a couple of questions:

1. Why does Plex transcode 100% of the trailers, even those that my crappy TV is able to play, like h264-aac?
2. Why has the trailer to pass through the server? Why not hand the youtube link to the Plex Player on the tv and let it play the trailer?

I enabled debug level logs on my TV and captured the logs on my server using tail -f Plex\ Media\ Server.log.

Klaus (2019) - Trailer
https://paste.centos.org/view/8b5ecd3f

The Polar Express (2004) - Trailer
https://paste.centos.org/view/7c713d45

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) - Trailer
https://paste.centos.org/view/11911717

Why is Plex transcoding even SD trailers?

[Super4Jet]

Hi CostaHT,
looking into your logs tells me the client, the Vizio TV, doesn’t want to have a direct stream. Why? No idea.

You can try setting the transcode option in the server settings (Settings>Transcoder>Disable Video Stream Transcoding>True) and see if your TV can handle that. If it doesn’t, the Plex Player for this TV doesn’t (yet) support that particular file format/codec/etc.

[CostaHT]

When transcoding is disabled Plex won’t play any trailer.

This is very frustrating, having a Plex Pass and not being able to use a feature it comes with.

[pandas]

@CostaHT

When transcoding is disabled Plex won’t play any trailer.

I can’t reproduce what you’re seeing. Using PMS windows latest, Plex client mac latest, Web client latest.

[CostaHT]

Ok, when you play trailers, is plex transcoding?

[pandas]

In a word, no. Now that I look closer even though I played an HEVC title to force a transcode the trailer itself is actually x264 and is direct playing. Not a helpful datapoint for you I suppose sorry.

[BigWheel]

Is direct play enabled in the client?

[CostaHT]

Thanks for answering… Here’s my TV configuration:

Just to make sure I hadn’t touched those profiles, I installed the last version of Plex in another machine and compared the hash of each .xml and they all matched.

Other settings that maybe you wanna take a look:

Another person reported the same issue here:

Playing Cinema Trailer Transcoding Issue

If I enable the option to play a cinema trailer before a movie it causes pre-roll and the movie file to be transcoded while playing - unchecking the boxes in the Extras section fixes it. It seems that when a cinema trailer is streamed from the internet Plex transcodes it but fails to realise that it can play both the pre-roll and the movie file directly and continues to transcode everything causing the movie to buffer intermittently unless you stop the movie a few minutes in, manually change th…

Please, let me know if you need me to do any test.

[BigWheel]

Is it only the Vizio TV? Does it transcode for the web browser app, mobile app or any other type you may have?

[CostaHT]

Using web browser or mobile, trailers are transcoded some times, but that’s ok.
Unfortunately, the logs of mobile app and the web browser app don’t give enough information about it the same way the TV does. Actually, almost no logs at all.

I’m waiting for two people to do some tests for me and then I’ll post the results here.

[CostaHT]

Ok, so I tried playing the trailers on a high-end TV, and it direct played

So, let’s say buying a decent tv is the solution, but I wonder why this is happening:

Plex online source trailer:
https://paste.centos.org/view/d422b978

Assuming that this trailer is fetched from TMDB (that’s how my library metadata is set to), I downloaded it in the same resolution and audio and added it to a library:

Playing the same trailer as a local video
https://paste.centos.org/view/3ceb67d6

I’m not sure if they are the same video because one says 3.5Mpbs and the other one 5Mpbs. If you think they are different files, I could make a new test using the correct one if you tell me where I can get it from.