Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Ali Aces posted:

So, while I love Plex to death for all the things it can do, I'm starting to grow impatient waiting for a spoken word library format for audiobooks/dramas/podcasts. Does Emby work for those, or does anyone know of another media library app that can handle syncing of files/position in the way Plex does, ideally running on a Linux (Ubuntu) server, that supports Android & Windows clients?

...I really just wish Plex would add an audio show library already. It wouldn't need to pull media info or anything, just work like the "Home Videos" library does now but for audio, syncing and remembering played/unplayed & position.

Since you're running on ubuntu, couldn't you just have a cron that looks for new audio books in folder A, and then re-wraps them using ffmpeg into an MP4 container and puts them in folder B that plex scans as movies?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 20:22

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 03:27

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Ali Aces posted:

I've tried this. Plex does not actually handle this well.

It will not play an MP4 file that doesn't have a video stream in it; it just errors out. I tried pointing to a still image and making a video stream with that. It works in some clients, but not others. The worst thing though is, even at best, it's going to keep the display on on my phone while playing it, getting hot in my pocket, jumping around when it interprets random jiggling as screen taps, and of course draining the battery.

The whole converting-to-video thing really doesn't work.

It was a silly idea, and plexes selling point is 'just works' so hopefully it's supported properly soon.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 05:51

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Khablam posted:

Does anyone happen to know the various bitrates / resolutions plex sync equates to? The help page seems to only suggest that 'highest' is usually a direct copy if the source is playable on iOS (possibly a remux only if MKV -> MP4?).
Do all the settings retain HD resolution if the source is HD? I assume this is probably medium and up.

I can't work out why this option is smoke & mirrors when you can otherwise select useful options like 2mb 720 / 1.5mb 720 etc when streaming.

Last time I checked, it was dependent on the resolution of the target device-- this created hilarity with my ipad air wherein SDTV would get upconverted to many times its original size. FWIW, I always sync at lowest, and it looks fine. I guess I just don't care about the specifics for sync since it's a temporary copy.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 19:24

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

EL BROMANCE posted:

I read something interesting on plex forums with regards to that a little while ago, where it was talked about how it doesn't necessarily matter if the client hardware kicks out a native 24p signal.

If the TV can accept a 24p in 60hz signal, then you get the same picture as if it was 24>24, and so it doesn't matter that my Apple TV is stuck at 50/60. Haven't been able to test because I'm between setups, but it sounds encouraging. And it's typical video bullshit that none of it really makes logical sense.

Sure, if the TV does reverse 3:2 pulldown properly then you will get 24p displayed.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 23:07

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

EL BROMANCE posted:

Just checking I'm not missing something on the Apple TV app:

If you watch an episode of a show and it returns you back to that episode screen, there's no fast and easy way to then move along to the next one right? The only way is to go into the season view then scroll to the next one by hand? Feels like there should be a 'next' button or something but not seen it. I know if you start from the show screen it'll just keep playing episodes until you stop it by hand.

I know the roku app is missing this, but the tivo version does so worth looking-- when you finish an episode and get back to the episode detail screen, at the top right next to the home button there should be two arrows, and they will navigate you forward/backward in a series.

Qwijib0 fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jun 17, 2016

# ¿ Jun 17, 2016 20:02

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Cornjob posted:

i5 4250u, 1.3ghz. ( i think with 1.9ghz boost), 16gb ram
128gb ssd, windows 10 pro

My concerns are:

1. Cpu wont handle 2+ 1080p streams
2. PMS needs headroom on the SSD, and 128 isnt enough. A bluray can be 25+ gigs; so to two streams would bottleneck it ( i have 48gb to spare). I have a 256gb drive, but
3 my isp has a 6mbps upload cap.

Edit: i just tried this:

Simultaneously
Direct play 1080p (full BD rip) to local Appletv4
Direct play 1080p (full BD rip) to local ipad
Remote play 1080p (Compressed) to remote iphone

The ipad played for few seconds then stopped, citing lack of power from the CPU.

When i stopped the iphone, both local streams resumed without issue.

In any event, my only hope is that i can watch a movie without interruption while my 2 other remote shares are, on the rare occasion, simultaneously playing.

Looking at the NUCs task manager, the CPU was at 100% in either scenario, and said 2.28ghz. Im smart ish with computers, but down understand how it can 2.28 when it claims 1.3-1.9 is what it rated at? Something about cores?

max turbo on that is 2.6 for a single core http://ark.intel.com/products/75028/Intel-Core-i5-4250U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_60-GHz

# ¿ Nov 5, 2016 20:15

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

EconOutlines posted:

Plex Pass: Paying to Beta Test

...and supporting genuinely useful software

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 16:43

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Internet Explorer posted:

Like I said earlier, it would be really nice if they split off transcoding so you could have processes running on multiple servers. The Plex web app and metadata database on one machine, and the ability to register X number of servers as transcoding servers. Would help greatly with scaling and it sounds like it might make adapative bitrate streaming more possible.

Plex lives in a place where every feature has at least as one if its use cases "This is for me, and my family to watch our legal media anywhere". Being able essentially roll your own netflix is a step across that line, I doubt it will ever happen. A modern i7, especially when quicksync is bug free, will cover 99% of use cases.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2017 01:59

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

I have a 650, and I love it- and I have another 650 unopened in a box so that when this one dies I have a longer time to solve that particular problem.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 16:17

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

collections are exposed in the opera/smart tv interface so I assume they're in the ATV one too-- from the all movies section go to the "all" selector at the top left and choose your collection

I've just started building mine but am finding it useful to do something similar to your use case.

To make one, edit the properties of an item in plex web then add a tag to the collections field-- this will create the collection if one does not yet exist, otherwise it'll auto complete.

Qwijib0 fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Jan 2, 2018

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 05:53

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

EL BROMANCE posted:

How�s this different to the collections stuff that�s existed since forever? Any info link? It�s a nice idea but the built in ones it uses are super loose so you get a bunch of pointless collections (like �Ant Man Collection� when only one film even exists) but doing them from scratch yourself just feels like too much effort, so I�ve never used them.

It's not _that_ much effort since you can multi-select then add the category tag. I've never used the built-ins, so I can't speak to how I like doing my own categories separately vs. that.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 17:54

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

H110Hawk posted:

oooo thanks for this. I was just looking at cobbling something like this together.

Anyone use Plex+TiVo? I can't seem to seek backwards/forwards without the whole thing making GBS threads itself. I think this is more of a TiVo thing than a plex thing. h.264 RF=24, 4.0 level, 1920x??? in a mkv with one AAC Stereo Audio stream. I'm trying out a MP4 "Web Optimized" version of this otherwise identical profile to see if it helps.

Yes, on a Roamio and first gen mini, so I'm limited to 720p 4mbps (everything is transcoded). I've had success seeking fast enough that the video doesn't resume, just the time seeks forward, waiting for about 5 seconds of video playback before trying to jump elsewhere or else the plex app crashes. Not ideal but I don't find myself needing to skip around a lot so I don't encounter it much.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 14:14

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Paul MaudDib posted:

AFAIK neither Plex or Emby has support for offloading encoding to another machine on the network, right?

IOwnCalculus posted:

I'm pretty sure I've seen that come up on the Plex forums before.

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/178320/plex-remote-transcoder-a-distributed-transcoding-backend-for-plex

and yeah, if you have enough clients you're building an encoding farm, it's real hard to handwave it away as "family and close friends sharing some media" so you'll never see it officially supported.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2018 23:30

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Lifetime at the offer rate is what, 2.5 years of sub fees? Plex is great and worth throwing some bucks at.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2018 03:56

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Unless your remote clients are on garbage internet and your primary local client is a 7 year old TiVo :haw:

# ¿ Jul 12, 2019 16:28

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Bonzo posted:

so Plex will soon have ad supported, free, movies from Warner Brothers.

https://9to5mac.com/2019/08/29/plex-warner-bros-streaming/

More partnerships mean more reasons to exist as a default app on STBs, so I'm all for it.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2019 04:59

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

https://twitter.com/TristanACooper/status/1194298167824650240?s=19

This is exactly why I hoard hard drives and Plex baby

literally an app, the decision to not just default zoom locally but let you turn it off is bizarre.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2019 00:25

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

I'm looking to replace an ancient nvidia ion box running the now defunct Plex media player distro.

If I want a similar appliance experience, is a shield the best option for the widest format compatibility with little hassle? Can it be configured to just boot into the Plex interface?

# ¿ Jul 14, 2020 16:14

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Trabant posted:

Hello thread. I think I posted here a while back about video file conversion to x265 for obvious reasons, so I'm hoping you can help me tweak my approach:

x265 is just processor intensive. On a ~5 year old i5 I get 10fps on my conversions. If you want it to go faster, an nvidia GPU and an ffmpeg build with NVENC is probably the right option. I've never been happy with intel quicksync output.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 02:08

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

IOwnCalculus posted:

Yeah, TVDB has a lot of loving issues for something "paid".

like continually loving up every 30 min kids TV show by making each half a separate "episode"

# ¿ Nov 17, 2020 15:49

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

My beef is mainly with PBS kids shows like elinor wonders why and daniel tiger-- shows with two stories and a bridge segment, that are designed to live together, and are never aired separately. I just turned off tvdb for them and hand curate those at this point.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2020 20:17

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Khablam posted:

A better option would be to let partners (like PLEX) cache a copy on their own CDNs and have them worry about the costs. Of course, I presume TVDB would see that as their IP and would never do that.
If anything it'll probably just spawn an open-source copy.

just like tvdb was, like cddb was, etc.

From 2007 tvdb:

quote:

Facts about the Online TV Show Database:

The database is currently being used by Spiff's scraper for XBox Media Center (SVN rev 8044); the meeTVshows and TVNight plugins for MeediOS and Meedio; the MP-TVSeries plugin for MediaPortal; and a handful of smaller projects.
The database schema and website are open source under the GPL, and are available at Sourceforge.
I'm happy to make changes to the tv database's interfaces and data in order to accommodate programmers and users.

Other HTPC software developers are welcome to use our XML interface. Please contact me for details.

Please do not scrape this site or the XML interface for more data than you really need. Just email me and I'll provide the database for you.

I'm sure something else will pop up for the free projects, and plex will pay gracenote or rovi since they are already paying for TV listings

and the cycle continues

# ¿ Nov 18, 2020 16:58

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Dsmif posted:

Plex updated on our Apple TV and now we can�t switch users. The indicator is still at the top of the menu but navigating up from search takes to the other side of the screen. I�ve tried force closing the app and restarting the Apple TV but no luck. Might try uninstalling and reinstalling.

This was my issue this morning, but it was fine just moments ago so whatever it was solved itself

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 03:54

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

CopperHound posted:

I think the question we are all wondering is:
Will this fix the ordering of my Firefly episodes without my manual intervention?

Or will it use actual rational episode ordering and naming for PBS kids shows that are 30 minutes with two ~12 min stories that the pedants at tvdb insist are two episodes but have never ever aired apart.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 22:59

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Endless Mike posted:

Is there a way to have Windows automatically backup a file from one drive to another? I realize local backups are not ideal, but I figure the chances of me losing both my OS SSD and storage HDDs simultaneously is pretty low, so I'd like to just have it copy the Plex database from the SDD to the HDDs daily or something.

I guess if I knew anything about scripting, this is a thing I could knock together lol.

Yes, they rolled backup into what is now called windows file history, and you can definitely tell it to take the files from "here" and make copies "there"

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 14:48

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

I assumed that if anything would get completely boned with that change it would be my 7 year old TiVo minis but they haven't had any issues once I set them to not use encryption.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2021 03:18

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Plex has for me pulled metadata from MP4s in the iTunes tag fields as a last resort, this has caused problems for me in the past when I didn't want this to happen. MP3tag can be used to bulk put it there from filename substring matching if you have no other utility you like.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2021 15:03

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Your GPU files are encoded at a level 6 profile which can be (and in your case probably is) more complex in terms of the feature set of HEVC used to encode it. most playback software/hardware is optimized for level 4, which is what your CPU encodes are at. Find the setting in the GPU encoder to do them at level 4 as well.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2021 14:46

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

ringu0 posted:

How do people organize cartoons like Invader Zim or Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, where TV DB splits out every segment into a separate episode?

I have taken to manually fixing them all. There is no easy answer, especially for pbs shows where there's a bridge segment between the two halves which is totally unaccounted for in the tvdb mentality.

The thumbs are all wrong for the most part, I haven't had the drive to fix that part yet, and it's incentive for them to read the words.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2022 16:26

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

I would pay $50-60/year if they integrated TVe streaming into the DVR product.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 03:36

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

EL BROMANCE posted:

What�s TVe? Google is bringing up a whole different bunch of stuff when I look it up.

"TV everywhere". It's the auth system that pretty much every cable company uses to let their subscribers access live TV from their branded apps. I'm still that guy with a linear TV sub and a house of tivos and it would be nice to have a migration path.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 14:24

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

EL BROMANCE posted:

Ah gotcha! I have cable too but hoping to dump the tv side in a few months.

While it wasn't the case even a few years ago, at this point I'm getting the Linear cable for almost "nothing"-- the TV bundle discount cuts enough off the internet service, and the cable logins work for peacock, HBO, paramount, and ESPN to the point where cord cutting and living the app life wouldn't save me enough to deal with the multiple interfaces. I know this is tangentially the stuff that fell off a truck thread and that is a solution, but for a lot of throwaway TV I like the DVR recording workflow. Momentum is a hell of a drug etc.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 16:52

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

phosdex posted:

Wait, Pi's are being scalped?

chip shortage means they can't make enough hobbyist SKUs to keep up with demand.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2022 20:07

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Tea Bone posted:

This isn't a Plex issue but I expect this thread is likely to have people who know what's up.

I have a shield which I use as a streaming box (TV is a Sony Bravia if that matters, I'm not sure of the model). When watching Plex or Netflix on it a banner intermittently pops up at the top of the screen showing the HDMI channel, sound mode, resolution and time, as though I'm switching HDMI channel. Sometimes the sound will cut for a split second as it happens.

It's always happened but it's gone from once in a while to almost every 5 minuets or so.

I've tried to Google what's up but it's either just me whose experienced it or I haven't hit on the right search terms.

Did anyone in this thread have any ideas?

sounds like you're dropping sync for a fraction of a second. I'd try a new cable to start.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2022 21:48

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Are you trying to use Plexamp rather than the main player? If not, seems like shoving the mp3 audio in an MKV with no video track and naming them like the video scanners expect is a much easier path.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2022 15:04

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

ID3 tags seem like the cleanest option for your use case then-- tv show is the "artist", season is the "album" and then the ep is the track number. A utility like mp3tag can use file names to bulk edit tags, and then just make a new music library that's those files, and not worry about directory structure really.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2022 19:19

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

The appleTV app isn't perfect either, I still have to use the old video player or else half the time my audio sync is off. Also there's a weird bug where at the user switch screen whatever was paused just starts playing so you miss part of a show ad you're choosing a user.

Despite all that it is still the easiest way to get media on devices in and out of my house including on tivoes and other deprecated endpoints that continue to work, mercifully.

plex is a land of contrasts.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2022 17:46

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Gay Retard posted:

This new Discover feature is awesome....

Step 1) Add every streaming service to it, even if you aren't subscribed
Step 2) Setup an Import List in Sonarr for your Plex Watch List and have it set to automatically search for episodes when you a show gets added to your Watch list
Step 3) Add items to your Watch list within the "Discover" section
Step 4) Let Sonarr/Sabznbd/Plex do its thing behind the scenes

I'm not sure if you can do this with Radarr yet, but this is great.

I was wondering how long this workflow would take. Thanks for the tip

# ¿ Apr 6, 2022 19:54

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

Gay Retard posted:

I've been running Unraid for a few years now and TrueNAS seemed a helluva lot harder to figure out than Unraid. Maybe I didn't give it a chance, though.

Truenas has received a lot of polish over the past several years since the rebrand from freenas.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2022 17:29

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 03:27

Qwijib0: Apr 10, 2007; Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?; Fun Shoe

the workaround is to do a hostile takeover of TVDB so that they stop being pedants about kids shows that have always been in pairs or triplets and just make them single episodes like they aired originally.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 18:52

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