Hi at all,
I have a H.264 file that my fireTV (gen 2) could play directly, but somehow the newest plex app wants to transcode it although I forced it to play it in ORIGINAL quality?!?!
how come?
there’s a number of factors… in your case, the codec is ok. could be the bitrate is too high (either the average bitrate or the max bitrate), this could also be about the level used in the codec… some clients don’t support the higher (more effective) levels of h.264.
side note: the setting you refer to is used for the targeted playback. if your client cannot deal with some of the above parameters, this will still require Plex to transcode it.
ok, good to know. then obviously my fireTV stick 2 does not like that movie and wants to be handfed.
thanks for clearing that up.
I think you can raise the accepted ‘H.264 Level’ of the Firestick in the preferences.
Particularly raising it from 4.0 to 4.1 will almost never have any negative side effects.
this film in particular has “Level 5.1”. That is certainly the culprit. Dunno if the stick is going to play that level natively (if forced). What could go wrong? Worst case scenario is: not being able to play it, right?
with Plex you cannot force it.
you could check if you can push the video through DLNA or an alternative (non-transcoding) player.
as for your stick…
| Type | Codec | MIME type | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video | H.265 (HEVC) | video/hevc | Hardware accelerated up to 1080p @ 30fps, 25 Mbps, Main Profile Level 4.0, Color space 8-bit support |
| H.264 | video/avc | Hardware accelerated up to 1080p @ 30fps or 720p @ 60fps, 20 Mbps, High Profile up to Level 4 | |
| H.263 | video/3gpp | Hardware accelerated up to WVGA (800x400) @ 30fps, 6 Mbps, Profile 0 Level 70 | |
| VP8 | video/webm | Not supported | |
| VP9 | video/webm | Not supported | |
| MPEG-4 | video/mp4v-es | Decodes at 30fps, 20 Mbps, Advanced Simple Profile Level 5 |
so no native playback of h264 level 5.1
1 Like
@max_plexibility said:
this film in particular has “Level 5.1”. That is certainly the culprit.
Agreed.
Dunno if the stick is going to play that level natively (if forced). What could go wrong? Worst case scenario is: not being able to play it, right?
Precisely. Level 5.1 allows for more reference frames and also 10 bit color depth. If you have a file which really utilizes these possibilities, you’ll either get no playback at all or at least occasional distortions (e.g. where the picture fails to refresh parts of it etc.)
