Why Plex is converting container from MKV to MPEGTS

Plex Players Streaming Devices
, ,
1

The last couple of days Plex is playing new 4K MKV files as a Direct Stream witch results the playback on my LG TV to transcode when a SRT subtitle is selected. Older MKV files are Direct Played, so no transcoding when a sub is selected.

When looking in Tautulli, when the file is played as a Direct Stream, only the container is converted from MKV to MPEGTS and both the Video and Audio stream are played as a Direct Stream.

Can someone asist me how to analyse this futher, I’m on a dead end have no idea how to move on.

Plex version: 1.26.2.5797
The Plex client: Plex for LG 5.38.1
Television: LG OLED55E6

2

There’s probably some other differences between your “old MKVs” and the ones Plex is direct streaming.

3

Thanks for pointing me to the KB article! In my search before posting this topic I stumbled on this article as well. Only Plex media info as well Mediainfo doesn’t show any changes worth mentioning.

If I understand it correctly Direct Stream in the article Streaming Media: Direct Play and Direct Stream tells me that both Video and Audio is compatible with my device only the container isn’t.

When comparing an old and new MKV file the new file has a slightly lower overall bitrate and the version of mkvmerge is one step higher in major release number. To be complete: the audio and video stream are identical besides the bitrate.

4

Try remuxing one of the troublesome files with MKVToolNix or similar tools.

Plex might think something is wrong with the MKV container and remux the tracks to correct the problem.

If that does not help, set the Plex app to log to server at the debug level. Your server should also be set to log at the debug level. Recreate the problem, then pull the server log files and upload to the thread. Also attach the XML info for the movie with which you recreated the problem. The forum does not accept .xml attachments, so save the info as .txt or zip it.

If you want to look in the log files, look at Plex Media Server.log. Lines with MDE: (Media Decision Engine) and Reached Decision will have the interesting information.

5

Thanks!

There was indeed something wrong with mixing the MKV container, demuxing all the track and remuxing them again with MKVToolNix fixed the issue. Even if the tracks where remuxed with the exact same version of MKVToolNix, where the original container was made of, works

Weird

6

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.