LOL - you guys... the Xbox One will not playback MP4's in anything other than 2-channel stereo. Did I say anywhere that the MP4 container couldn't handle multi-channel audio itself? Nope. Sorry. ;)
Yes, h.264 MKV's with AC3 5.1 are still the way to go, friends - for the Xbox One.
In your post you completely neglected to state exactly what you were talking about and given the actual topic of conversation, conclusions were drawn that it was what you were saying. Next time you should be more clear, although I'm pretty sure this statement isn't entirely factual as well. I can't verify since I don't have an multichannel mp4's, but I'm sure this would have come up quite a few times by now if it wasn't working.
In your post you completely neglected to state exactly what you were talking about and given the actual topic of conversation, conclusions were drawn that it was what you were saying. Next time you should be more clear, although I'm pretty sure this statement isn't entirely factual as well. I can't verify since I don't have an multichannel mp4's, but I'm sure this would have come up quite a few times by now if it wasn't working.
I neglected nothing, actually:
And it's quite factual that the Xbox One does not playback multichannel MP4. Don't shoot the messenger:
MKV will Direct Stream to the XBOx one.. changing the container to MP4 should not affect the video quality. It's my understanding that MP4 doesn't support DTS or chapters. Also, can you have multiple subtitles and audio tracks with mp4?
All correct! Well, just so long as the MKV is containing an h.264 file.
That says nothing about not supporting multichannel in mp4 on xbox one, it says DTS isn't supported. AC3 is supported however, and the DTS will be transcoded to it. Unless you have another source, I'm going to continue to say what you said earlier (multichannel in mp4 on xbx one doesn't work) is incorrect.
No worries - I can see that if you weren't paying attention you would have missed the fact that I have been talking about playback on the Xbox One. In the Xbox One forum. That said, I have yet to find any MP4's with AC3 encoded. Everything seems to be DTS which does not playback on the Xbox One, or 2-channel AAC which is absolute crap for films.
Find me a client that remuxes MP4's with AC3 from either MKV or straight from Bluray rips, and I'm on board 100% with MP4.
*EDIT: so I found a utility called XMedia Recode which will remux h.264 MKV to h.264 MP4, including any AC3 audio track contained. Just tried it on a 1 hour (11 Gigs) show, and it took about 3-4 minutes to remux. Played on the One and.... Plex transcoded the video anyway, since the bitrate is larger than 20 MB/s. Meh... I'll stick to MKV. Makes absolutely no sense to go through the hassle of remuxing my library to MP4 when the end result in playback is the same. I have too many Bluray rips that are > 20 MB/s bitrates, and this process would just add an additional step that's unnecessary.
No worries - I can see that if you weren't paying attention you would have missed the fact that I have been talking about playback on the Xbox One. In the Xbox One forum.
Wow, I never said anything about not being on the xbox one. You started with video, then you randomly changed to audio, but I must digress that at this point I no longer care.
Wow, I never said anything about not being on the xbox one. You started with video, then you randomly changed to audio, but I must digress that at this point I no longer care.
The thread shifted to audio because I was being advised to shift to MP4 instead of MKV, however; as pointed out - the Xbox One does not support DTS in MP4's and AC3 in MP4's is extremely rare. That you no longer care is fine by me, though.
Here is a picture of puppies so we can all get along:
I tested out a MKV with DTS and it does transcode audio but direct streams video. The same file with mp4tools convert(remux) to mp4 does "DirectPlay" with 5.1 surround sound
I think MKV would be best but sucks that XBOX One doesn't support it right now with Plex
I tested out a MKV with DTS and it does transcode audio but direct streams video. The same file with mp4tools convert(remux) to mp4 does "DirectPlay" with 5.1 surround sound
I think MKV would be best but sucks that XBOX One doesn't support it right now with Plex
Yeah it's a double whammy no MKV or DTS support yet. But Microsoft may add them if they get enough requests for it (For DTS anyway, MKV support is there just not for the apps yet)
I tested out a MKV with DTS and it does transcode audio but direct streams video. The same file with mp4tools convert(remux) to mp4 does "DirectPlay" with 5.1 surround sound
I think MKV would be best but sucks that XBOX One doesn't support it right now with Plex
You can also use Handbrake to convert a Blu-Ray rip to MP4 that plays back 5.1 sound on the Xbox One using direct play. When selecting the audio stream, just have it either pass through the 5.1 AC3 stream, or convert the DTS to AC3 5.1.
You can also use Handbrake to convert a Blu-Ray rip to MP4 that plays back 5.1 sound on the Xbox One using direct play. When selecting the audio stream, just have it either pass through the 5.1 AC3 stream, or convert the DTS to AC3 5.1.
Depends on the person, for me surround sound is surround sound, I don't really care what codec it comes in. But I will tell you that depending on what it compresses down to can make a big difference.
I think the key to this whole thing is really not the audio side. Plex can easily transcode DTS to AC3 and you should not really need to worry about this unless you have a week CPU. Unless you are on a NAS almost any modern CPU can probably easily handle a dozen or more streams while transcoding audio only OR REMUXING on the fly.
It's the video transcoding that will put a hurting on the CPU. Doesn't really matter if it's MKV or MP4 container but the bitrate of the h.264 video stream. If the total bitrate is under 20 mbit it will usually just remux (if needed) it which is also pretty easy on the CPU. BUT if it's higher than 20 mbit you're going to take a hit on quality and CPU use, as the video needs to get reduced in size so the device can play it.
The real dilemma is:
1 bite the bullet and let Plex transcode this down to <20 mbit and take a loss in video quality
2 use a different client that supports higher than 20mbit
3 transcode your video files so the max bitrate is < 20mbit using a tool such as HandBrake or ffmpeg
In a perfect world ALL devices will handle any bitrate we can throw at them but often this isn't the case as we have ZERO control over this. Best we can do is switch devices that can handle higher bitrates. If this isn't an option then we are down to allowing Plex to do the work in real-time or we do the work a head of time.
That is a very tough call. There is no right or wrong answer and it's up to each OP and their particular environment to figure out what is best for them overall. It takes a long time to go through your library looking for bitrates higher than X and then transcoding them even if it's automated. Not so hard to do for new media because it can be part of your pre-processing routine.
The kicker is the quality of the output. You can't expect something that works faster than realtime (plex encoder) to do the same job quality wise that an offline tool can/will do that takes 4X the time of the movie.
Carlo
PS there are other reasons a transcode could happen as J_McKee posted the profile. I only touched on the bitrate as that is most often the reason blu ray rips need transcoding.
1 bite the bullet and let Plex transcode this down to <20 mbit and take a loss in video quality
2 use a different client that supports higher than 20mbit
3 transcode your video files so the max bitrate is < 20mbit using a tool such as HandBrake or ffmpeg
Okay, do you (or anybody else) know why Plex can only stream <20MBit/s? I am asking because I am on a weird gigabit network and I can easily stream at 100MBit/s and yet, I run into the same problem where my NAS just can't do the transcode and it makes things unplayable.
It could be a limitation imposed on them by MS which Plex has no control over.
I do know however you can play higher bitrate files via DLNA to xBox One. So the xBox can surely hand higher bitrates. It's just a matter of if this functionality is exposed to 3rd parties or not.
Okay, do you (or anybody else) know why Plex can only stream <20MBit/s? I am asking because I am on a weird gigabit network and I can easily stream at 100MBit/s and yet, I run into the same problem where my NAS just can't do the transcode and it makes things unplayable.
Is there a way to force it not to transcode?
Just something you can try.
From a Windows 8.1 computer right click on one of your media files. Do you get an option to "Play To" with the xBox One listed? If so does it play?
If so you could enable DLNA and play the files that way from the xBox One.
