I’m not trying to say that native MKV support is useless - but on the other hand I’m not sure why everyone is obsessing so much over it…
Its because whenever you try to play a MKV file at the moment Plex fires up the part of its program called "Plex Transcoder", or something like that, on the server. A lot of peoples servers are based on setups with CPUs that cannot handle this and the video just stutters or doesnt play at all. If MKV support was included the "Plex Transcoder" wouldnt be used and the file would play regardless of personal setup.
This scares me a bit. I am considering buying a Synology DS415+ NAS and run plex server on it.
But if the Plex app needs to transcode mkv movies even thou xbox one supports it i will run in to problem, because the power of the DS415+ is limited.
Yes the Xbox supports it, but Plex has said that MS currently does not support it for third party applications. This is something they are working with MS to change.
Its because whenever you try to play a MKV file at the moment Plex fires up the part of its program called "Plex Transcoder", or something like that, on the server. A lot of peoples servers are based on setups with CPUs that cannot handle this and the video just stutters or doesnt play at all. If MKV support was included the "Plex Transcoder" wouldnt be used and the file would play regardless of personal setup.
First of all, the “plex transcoder” process is also responsible for doing a simple stream copy. Just because it’s running doesn’t mean that this will necessarily require a lot of cpu time. (And yes, in practice it will always use a lot of cpu time - because it’s buffering ahead. again, this doesn’t cause stuttering)
You are assuming that the remux is taking up so much cpu that the playback is stuttering. As I was saying, ‘direct stream’ playback is almost as fast as ‘direct play’ - if your video is stuttering on a slow NAS it’s most likely because:
you haven’t selected the maximum quality in the XB1 app and the server is transcoding (not ‘direct streaming’)
your mkv has a DTS audio track (or anything else besides AC3) - this will be transcoded
subtitles. This leads to the video stream being transcoded. This can be taxing even for fast CPUs.
See, the problem here is not that the MKV is not played using ‘direct play’ - it’s that there was stuff in the container that the Plex app on the XB1 doesn’t support yet. MKV is just a container. Like folder.
There are not too many people who have NASes too slow for ‘direct stream’…
Of course, ideally everything should be played with ‘direct play’ and the Plex App on the XB1 should support all possible audio and subtitle formats natively, but right now, the only scenario where native MKV support would make a difference is for perfectly compatible files - which are already extremely cheap for the server to play using ‘direct stream’.
To be less rhetorical this time: In my opinion a lot of people think they need native MKV support, when they actually need native DTS, native subtitle support & a better way to tell the XB1 client to use ‘direct stream’.
To be less rhetorical this time: In my opinion a lot of people think they need native MKV support, when they actually need native DTS, native subtitle support & a better way to tell the XB1 client to use ‘direct stream’.
Boom. I've been searching for a bit through the forums trying to figure out why my experience with a DS415play, Plex, and Xbox One is not working nearly as well as a DIY server, PS3 Media Server and PS3 that I used to use. And you just nailed it. Thanks for putting it in plain english. This information is not as readily available as one would think...
I was debating giving Serviio a shot for the subtitles (sounds like external subs are an issue for Plex for some inexplicable reason?) but, seems as though it would make no difference on the XBox one. In another room, I just use a WDTV Live and a network share, and that cheap little thing handles everything with no issues.
Sounds like if I don't want to wait for Plex/Xbox one software to play catch up, a dedicated plex server supporting transcoding -or- adding another client to the A/V cabinet is the way to go (WDTV Live is probably easiest/cheapest and just ditch Plex altogether).
tl;dr: Any (to be fair: almost any) MKV containing h264 video and ac3 audio will be remuxed (= lossless and cheap) NOT transcoded (= slow and lossy).
I’m not trying to say that native MKV support is useless - but on the other hand I’m not sure why everyone is obsessing so much over it…
It's very likely people are obsessing over it because remuxing requires substantially less CPU resources than transcoding, and having native support on Xbox One will allow a much smoother viewing experience (hopefully) once the bugs are ironed out.
I suffer the most from the lack of subtitle support, 80% of my files are supported locally since the Oct update. But since I need subtitles everything is transcode anyway.
And than DTS is important. With those most of peoples files can be locally played.
