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Dren posted:I have a 3ish year old Samsung SmartTV and it has a plex app that works fine. At least try it before you run out and buy a Roku. I will. I may be on the edge but it's worth a shot. quote:Anyway what I am saying here is it doesn't make any sense to do a new build for the purposes of using less power unless you A) really care about using less power for a non-money reason or B) want another computer. Yeah you're right. I figured that was the case but hadn't done the math yet.
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Jul 26, 2018 03:27
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I've thought about this a bit more and did a little bit more looking into it. I want to, in order of importance: 1. Backup the movies I have and watch them straight off the HTPC. I.e. we watch a lot of movies in the location where the HTPC is and it'd be nice to have a good UI and organization so when people are over they can look through what I've got and select something without having to stand in front of the Wall O BDs/DVDs where half the poo poo is obscured in one way or another because I need more storage. The main thing here is that I need to retain ~100% audio/video quality. Secondary is a decent UI to find the movies. 2. Watch them upstairs on the 3 year old Samsung TV. If i can't use an app I'll get a Roku or whatever. 3. Watching them remotely on a Samsung Tab 4 (I think?), this is for my wife because she's out of town a lot for work. I just fired up the HTPC and started ripping a movie using MakeMKV to see how it looked. Looks like it'll take around 60 to 75 minutes, does that seem right? The HTPC has a 4670k and a GTX 760 and 16 gig of ram.
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Jul 26, 2018 05:47
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veiled boner fuel posted:I've thought about this a bit more and did a little bit more looking into it. 60 to 75 minutes is two to three times longer than I'd expect, are you selecting more than the main title? Also, I don't know if I mentioned this but if your Samsung TV is on wifi don't even bother with the Samsung app. It's awful unless it's got an ethernet connection. If you do have an ethernet connection it should be fine and you should be able to watch things without transcoding them.
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Jul 26, 2018 14:14
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The Roku client is pretty decent, if you can survive on wireless the current Xpress works fine for me with high bitrate files (with both server and client on WiFi and separated by quite a few walls). I’d recommend the Roku quite highly in your case, as some other clients like the Apple TV can’t play remuxed files like you’re making that have 2 reference frames. I feel like I harp on about that compatibility in here a lot, but this is the time where you’ll have problems with it and it can be infuriating trying to work out why. I can’t remember how many discs I have with the issue, but it’s not insignificant and means either transcoding on the fly or using a different client as otherwise the files are unwatchable.
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Jul 26, 2018 16:03
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Dren posted:60 to 75 minutes is two to three times longer than I'd expect, are you selecting more than the main title? Yeah, I fixed that and now it’s like 30 minutes. Can I use the plex software to watch movies on the server itself or do I need to use something else for that?
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Jul 26, 2018 16:52
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veiled boner fuel posted:Yeah, I fixed that and now it’s like 30 minutes. You can, or you can just use your browser to do it
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Jul 26, 2018 17:13
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I just have the client and server software setup side by side, works the same way as any remote device.
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Jul 26, 2018 17:55
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Aight, the queue is down to ~63 items, which is a bunch of episodes of The Sopranos. It looks like they're transcoding at around real time, so my estimate is that everything will finish on the 29th or the 30th at the latest. I was surprised because there were a couple of shows ahead in the queue that I thought would take a couple days themselves, but they went really fast. It seems that the faster the videos transcode, the smaller the file size as well, which I guess makes sense since that would indicate relatively simple video. It's just been difficult to predict how well a given show will compress/encode, because some of the animated series and older SD shows ended up being more complex than expected.
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Jul 27, 2018 08:56
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Synology DS918+ or DS418 PLay? I need a new NAS for household backup purposes, but I may as well move my Plex server to the NAS if it can support it. I use Usenet and Sonarr to grab my content. it would be ideal to move all Plex and content collection processes to the NAS so I can turn off my gaming PC when not in use. I do have 4K capable devices but I'm not using any 4K content yet.
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Jul 27, 2018 13:18
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Canuckistan posted:Synology DS918+ or DS418 PLay? I need a new NAS for household backup purposes, but I may as well move my Plex server to the NAS if it can support it. I use Usenet and Sonarr to grab my content. it would be ideal to move all Plex and content collection processes to the NAS so I can turn off my gaming PC when not in use. I do have 4K capable devices but I'm not using any 4K content yet. The DS918+ will work if you enable hardware transcoding (Quicksync). I've seen reports it can handle 10 bit HEVC. I don't use it so can't say how well it works; initial reports of Quicksync were it was a little buggy and the quality of the transcodes were lower, but that may well have improved since the fall of 2017. Check the Plex forums. The CPU in the 418Play, while still an Intel, isn't powerful enough to handle heavy jobs. It'll transcode audio and 720p/lower bitrate files but most reports I've read suggest it struggles beyond that. The 918+ appears decent for an all in one PMS server/NAS combo. Otherwise get a cheaper NAS and use a Shield to host PMS itself. Note if you are using clients that run Kodi with the Plex addon this doesn't matter as much because Kodi will do the decoding (assuming the clients themselves can handle it, like a Shield for example).
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Jul 27, 2018 14:38
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Thanks for all the help everyone, I'm up and running and ripping like crazy (I didn't realize how long it took, pretty daunting at the moment). Couple audio questions. Makemkv defaults to this every time where the better audio format is unchecked (DTS-HD 7.1 vs 5.1 in this case), is there any reason that these shouldn't both be checked?  Is there any reason I need to include DD Stereo? At first I thought maybe I should for stereo devices but some movies don't appear to even have a stereo track so I've just been grabbing the 7.1/5.1 and figuring that either Plex or the devices themselves will handle it.
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Jul 27, 2018 14:48
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veiled boner fuel posted:Thanks for all the help everyone, I'm up and running and ripping like crazy (I didn't realize how long it took, pretty daunting at the moment). The HD audio track — that DTS-HD MA stream — is larger in file size than the other options. I'm guessing it's unchecked to try and get the encode file size output smaller. That said, Plex clients that don't support 5.1+ surround sound (for example, the Plex Web App) will request a transcoded 2.0/stereo audio stream and your server will downmix that automatically. [edit] Also important to note, most Plex client devices don't support bitstreaming HD audio tracks, i.e., Atmos, TrueHD, DTS-HD aren't widely supported by the most common streaming boxes used for Plex like Roku, AppleTV, Chromecast, etc. Even if your AVR supports those HD audio formats, the Plex clients won't be able to pass them through. I believe the only Plex client devices that can bitstream HD audio are the Nvidia Shield and PCs/Macs running the Plex Media Player app. teagone fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 15:03
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Ixian posted:The DS918+ will work if you enable hardware transcoding (Quicksync). I've seen reports it can handle 10 bit HEVC. I don't use it so can't say how well it works; initial reports of Quicksync were it was a little buggy and the quality of the transcodes were lower, but that may well have improved since the fall of 2017. Check the Plex forums. QuickSync encodes are noticeably worse than libx264 encodes, dunno about its h.265 encode but I suspect the same thing. QuickSync is engineered for speed over quality and size. The Quicksync SDK has 10-bit HEVC though so if that pipeline is functional within plex that might be interesting.
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Jul 27, 2018 17:32
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teagone posted:The HD audio track — that DTS-HD MA stream — is larger in file size than the other options. I'm guessing it's unchecked to try and get the encode file size output smaller. That said, Plex clients that don't support 5.1+ surround sound (for example, the Plex Web App) will request a transcoded 2.0/stereo audio stream and your server will downmix that automatically. The Xbox One should be able to in the near future, they can pass it over HDMI from BluRay with the latest dashboard update.
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Jul 27, 2018 17:40
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Dren posted:QuickSync encodes are noticeably worse than libx264 encodes, dunno about its h.265 encode but I suspect the same thing. QuickSync is engineered for speed over quality and size. The Quicksync SDK has 10-bit HEVC though so if that pipeline is functional within plex that might be interesting. It is as of last December, though I think it is still marked "experimental". There are Syno owners using it with good results. Your comments on quality track what I have read. I haven't used Quicksync to transcode anything but low quality is a common knock against it. That said if you want to use it with even a DS918+ it's the only real option as software decoding won't work for all but the most basic jobs (audio transcodes, which are always done in software anyway, etc.).
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Jul 27, 2018 20:05
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Has anyone had any trouble with Plex not scraping the metadata for a specific season of a TV show? I can't get it to pull episode names for season 13 of King of the Hill. The filenames are all just "King of the Hill s13e01" and so on, and I've done the plex dance 3 or 4 times already and it dutifully pulls the information from tvdb for every season except that one. Edit: It does seem to pull the correct poster for that season, it just doesn't pull anything else. RichterIX fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jul 30, 2018 |
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Jul 30, 2018 03:07
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RichterIX posted:Has anyone had any trouble with Plex not scraping the metadata for a specific season of a TV show? I can't get it to pull episode names for season 13 of King of the Hill. The filenames are all just "King of the Hill s13e01" and so on, and I've done the plex dance 3 or 4 times already and it dutifully pulls the information from tvdb for every season except that one. You might have an issue with local metadata; sometimes info like episode, season, etc. is embedded inside the file container itself (.mp4, etc.). And if it's wrong, well. Try reordering how Plex uses metadata for that category. Read this: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200220677-local-media-assets-movies/ as it also gives a good overview of how to organize your stuff. Alternatively, you can try to add your own local metadata/nfo file and have Plex use that first instead.
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Jul 30, 2018 03:32
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RichterIX posted:Has anyone had any trouble with Plex not scraping the metadata for a specific season of a TV show? I can't get it to pull episode names for season 13 of King of the Hill. The filenames are all just "King of the Hill s13e01" and so on, and I've done the plex dance 3 or 4 times already and it dutifully pulls the information from tvdb for every season except that one. Yes. Happened to me with Westworld. I fixed it by removing the entire show from my server and deleting the tvdb agent cache. Remove the show by cut/copying the show folder to whatever directory on your server that isn't a Plex library, refresh library in Plex Web app and you should see the trash icon over the removed show. Trash the show, empty trash, and then clean bundles/optimize database. Quit Plex Media Server, then delete the tvdb agent cache. Restart Plex Media Server, add show, and it should properly scrape all metadata. [edit] vvv well, seems like you fixed it! I'll leave this up in the event that doesn't work for someone else.
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Jul 30, 2018 03:41
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Ixian posted:You might have an issue with local metadata; sometimes info like episode, season, etc. is embedded inside the file container itself (.mp4, etc.). And if it's wrong, well. This turned out to be it. The files had no tags that I could find, but turning off the local media agent altogether seems to have fixed it. Thanks!
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Jul 30, 2018 03:41
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RichterIX posted:This turned out to be it. The files had no tags that I could find, but turning off the local media agent altogether seems to have fixed it. Thanks! Glad it worked. You can install Mediainfo (https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo) which will show you all the file metadata, including things like episode, season, etc. if they are present. They aren't always are; depends on how/where *cough* you got the file. Plex will look to that before anything else if "local media" is ordered first as an agent for the library (which I think is the default setting). I don't know if Plex can read nfo sidecar files (like Kodi can) but if it does that's another vector. The embedded metadata always throws people off because it's not obvious; you need a tool like MediaInfo to even see it, and it can be incomplete, incorrect, or corrupted, depending on how it was originally encoded, the tool used, and who did it. And a lot of the time title/season/etc. isn't even there.
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Jul 30, 2018 17:58
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My large Handbrake queue full of HEVC transcodes for my Plex server finished early on the 29th. It began about 17 days earlier on the 12th, and it took a few days longer to finish than I had predicted (about 2 weeks) although those ~828 or so items included some more additions during the process. They were mostly TV episodes (around 22-30 minutes, or ~44-60 depending on the series) with a few feature-length movies thrown in (1-2 hours each) plus any extras or "making of" content I thought would be interesting (of widely varying length.) So I dunno, say 400 hours of video? Based on my estimate of around real-time transcoding on a 4790 system, that does work out to almost 17 days. So for those who were interested, that's how long it took to finish transcoding all my media! Now my PMS contains almost 2k movies, 74 different TV shows (that aren't necessarily complete at the moment) and another ~350 "making of/behind the scenes" extras sprinkled in for good measure!
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Jul 31, 2018 08:11
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What was your space saving? If any..
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Jul 31, 2018 12:51
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Have any plexpass users with hardware transcoding enabled been experiencing transcoder crashes? I had to disable it to get my daughter her Elmo fix.
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Jul 31, 2018 13:28
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Roundboy posted:What was your space saving? If any.. click the little ? under his name, he was posting stats like that as the transcodes proceeded. iirc he got up to 60% on some animated stuff, other stuff was not as good
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Jul 31, 2018 14:13
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TheScott2K posted:Have any plexpass users with hardware transcoding enabled been experiencing transcoder crashes? I had to disable it to get my daughter her Elmo fix. Is your server a Windows box? There was a Windows update that rolled out about a week or two ago that screwed things up. There should be a hotfix for it if you force an update.
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Aug 1, 2018 05:05
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Roundboy posted:What was your space saving? If any.. Going from MPEG-2 (typically) to HEVC probably compressed down to an average of 40% of the original file size, but it wildly varied based on content (i.e. flash animation got compressed down to around 10%!) but the worst-case scenario was "only" 60% of the original file size. Even if everything gets chopped to half its original size that's still a significant savings (with no discernible difference in quality.)
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Aug 1, 2018 08:06
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FCKGW posted:Is your server a Windows box? There was a Windows update that rolled out about a week or two ago that screwed things up. There should be a hotfix for it if you force an update. I am indeed on Windows. Never occurred to me that it would be on their end. Thanks!
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Aug 1, 2018 14:04
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TheScott2K posted:I am indeed on Windows. Never occurred to me that it would be on their end. Thanks! Yeah, took me forever to figure out. Something in the update messed up the way certain apps buffer network transfers. There’s a giant thread on the Plex forums now. https://forums.plex.tv/t/windows-10-update-kb4338819-issue-conversion-failed-the-transcoder-exited-due-to-an-error/288449
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Aug 1, 2018 15:49
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FCKGW posted:Yeah, took me forever to figure out. Something in the update messed up the way certain apps buffer network transfers. I love how their first move is always to assume everyone is trying to play back corrupted media on an outdated install
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Aug 1, 2018 17:03
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Yeah, reading the Plex forums is always satisfying because it's never somewhere in the middle-- it's always either people shrieking at the devs about something being broken when it's actually broken and the devs playing coy, and people shrieking at the devs because their server is transcoding in a situation where their server should be transcoding.
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Aug 1, 2018 20:23
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I’m decent with understanding formats and home theater and such, but this has me scratching my head. Thinking about getting a TCL P617. I have some movies I stupidly ripped with DTS audio — oops. Looks like the P617 can’t passthrough DTS to a receiver. Does that mean that my Plex server would indeed direct play the movie to the TV, and I’d get crappy TV speaker audio? I’d like to avoid having to rerip, if possible. If that’s the only way, it is what it is.
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Aug 2, 2018 04:13
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crestfallen posted:I’m decent with understanding formats and home theater and such, but this has me scratching my head. You can re-encode the audio using ffmpeg to add a suitable audio track. Something like: `ffmpeg -i input.mkv -acodec mp3 -vcodec copy out.mkv` (You will want to google the exact options and tuning you want for the audio. This will also discard the DTS track in the output file, so if you want both you're going to need to do more googling about remuxing mkv tracks.)
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Aug 2, 2018 04:32
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Having just got Alexa devices the ability to control my Plex using my voice alone is goddamn magical
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Aug 2, 2018 04:42
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crestfallen posted:I’m decent with understanding formats and home theater and such, but this has me scratching my head. Similar situation on my side. Roku Ultra, plugged into a Sharp TV, which feeds optical to my old non-HDMI receiver. The TV won't feed anything but PCM Stereo over that link, and the Roku detects this, so Plex downmixes to stereo. I really need a new receiver one of these days.
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Aug 2, 2018 04:46
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crestfallen posted:I’m decent with understanding formats and home theater and such, but this has me scratching my head. It can passthrough DTS Core and others via HDMI ARC. DTS-HD is what it has trouble with because current ARC implementations can't handle the bandwidth. If your sound device can't handle the format for whatever reason Plex will transcode the audio to a format it can and passthrough the video (assuming it can play the video direct).
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Aug 2, 2018 15:57
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Thanks for the responses everyone.Ixian posted:It can passthrough DTS Core and others via HDMI ARC. DTS-HD is what it has trouble with because current ARC implementations can't handle the bandwidth. This is interesting. Rtings says the 2018 6 series cannot do DTS passthrough over ARC or optical, full stop. Unless I am reading it wrong. None of my encodes are doing anything fancy. It’s either plain DD 5.1 or “regular” (..?) DTS 5.1.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:01
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Feel like a dummy here, been using Plex for about 2 years and have spent a good amount of time ripping my BR collection via MakeMKV and then Handbrake to my NAS. I feel like maybe my final files are too big based on what I'm reading here? I do MKV in Handbrake and set the quality level to about 18. Takes like 45 mins or so and final file gets down to about 6-9GB. Should I be doing a different setting to get them way lower? Thx
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Aug 3, 2018 15:05
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If you’re in x264, I’d say you’re on the low end of maintaining quality.
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Aug 3, 2018 15:51
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Tim Whatley posted:Feel like a dummy here, been using Plex for about 2 years and have spent a good amount of time ripping my BR collection via MakeMKV and then Handbrake to my NAS. I feel like maybe my final files are too big based on what I'm reading here? I do MKV in Handbrake and set the quality level to about 18. Takes like 45 mins or so and final file gets down to about 6-9GB. Should I be doing a different setting to get them way lower? Thx Give the don meldon settings a try and compare them to one of your files. I guarantee they are way better looking and filesizes are comparable/better.
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Aug 3, 2018 16:24
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Tim Whatley posted:Feel like a dummy here, been using Plex for about 2 years and have spent a good amount of time ripping my BR collection via MakeMKV and then Handbrake to my NAS. I feel like maybe my final files are too big based on what I'm reading here? I do MKV in Handbrake and set the quality level to about 18. Takes like 45 mins or so and final file gets down to about 6-9GB. Should I be doing a different setting to get them way lower? Thx I do 1080p h264 rf=24 w/ 224 kbps AAC stereo audio, ~1.5G/hour (heavy on the ~). You're missing 4k vs 1k and audio information. Time to render is meaningless.
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Aug 3, 2018 22:09
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