PLEX...wow!

crazypete00 said:
for direct playing its usually better to have the files encoded as MP4 with aac audio. most devices will direct play this format. If its just playing to another PC/laptop then it will usually just direct play anyway aslong as the bit rate isnt too crazy high for your network to handle.
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This. Check out MP4 Automator, it works great when tied in with your download client. Converts all files to MP4 and create a separate 2 channel AAC soundtrack (if the original was DTS or something incompatible with a client).

Basically, unless you have low bandwidth and are streaming externally it means nothing (99% of the time) will need transcoding. Works perfectly in my situation.
 
Note MP4 isn't the encoding, it's a container format. The video stream you're talking about is most likely H.264, which is indeed very widely supported.
 
joeyjojo said:
Note MP4 isn't the encoding, it's a container format. The video stream you're talking about is most likely H.264, which is indeed very widely supported.
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Yes, sorry I should have been clearer.

What he said ^
 
Kol said:
This. Check out MP4 Automator, it works great when tied in with your download client. Converts all files to MP4 and create a separate 2 channel AAC soundtrack (if the original was DTS or something incompatible with a client).

Basically, unless you have low bandwidth and are streaming externally it means nothing (99% of the time) will need transcoding. Works perfectly in my situation.
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Just out of interest as Ive been looking more at "direct play" in conjunction with using a tablet in bed.

Do you have two different versions of your rips or are you not worried about quality as much as I am (meaning no disrespect at all)?

For the most part I watch my br rips on a big screen (and will soon be a 4k screen) and with Hidef audio and this is primarily of importance so all my rips are full quality / exact duplicate rips.

Im not too worried if my server has to transcode a lot of the files for tablet use, but occasionally server / connection crashes and Im thinking its down to the transcode load on a hefty rip.

I realise you are talking about d/l's here rather than rips but thought I would ask :)
 
FrankJH said:
Just out of interest as Ive been looking more at "direct play" in conjunction with using a tablet in bed.

Do you have two different versions of your rips or are you not worried about quality as much as I am (meaning no disrespect at all)?

For the most part I watch my br rips on a big screen (and will soon be a 4k screen) and with Hidef audio and this is primarily of importance so all my rips are full quality / exact duplicate rips.

Im not too worried if my server has to transcode a lot of the files for tablet use, but occasionally server / connection crashes and Im thinking its down to the transcode load on a hefty rip.

I realise you are talking about d/l's here rather than rips but thought I would ask :)
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Ha, no offence taken- you're prob quite right. Your files are quite different to mine and much higher quality. It's only changing the container though, so shouldn't make any noticeable difference. In terms of audio it adds a 2 channel track, I believe the multi channel track is untouched though I'll admit I'm not too bothered for it to be an issue if it is changing that.

Just means for me it's more likely to be more compatible. Since doing it my library hasn't transcoded anything except when on 4G where I've limited the bandwidth so forcing transcoding.
 
joeyjojo said:
Incidentally I was wondering something - what happens if it can't work out what a file is? Does it just mislabel it or is it possibly hiding files from me?
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Depends, if the file naming format is incorrect for the library type then it is possible that a scan will not pick it up and hence it will not show in Plex. If the file is named correctly but cannot be matched then either you can get an incorrect match, so it displays as something else, or it will just show as the name you have given it with no metadata (I have several TV series which are not on TVDB so show up like this). You can attempt to resolve these both via the server interface.

Kol said:
This. Check out MP4 Automator, it works great when tied in with your download client. Converts all files to MP4 and create a separate 2 channel AAC soundtrack (if the original was DTS or something incompatible with a client).

Basically, unless you have low bandwidth and are streaming externally it means nothing (99% of the time) will need transcoding. Works perfectly in my situation.
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You can have Plex create an additional optimised version of the file in advance so that is used during playback if necessary instead of real time transcoding. Seems to work quite well when I played with it on a friends system.
 
memyselfandi said:
Depends, if the file naming format is incorrect for the library type then it is possible that a scan will not pick it up and hence it will not show in Plex. If the file is named correctly but cannot be matched then either you can get an incorrect match, so it displays as something else, or it will just show as the name you have given it with no metadata (I have several TV series which are not on TVDB so show up like this). You can attempt to resolve these both via the server interface.
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OK thanks. What do you mean by naming format incorrect for the library type?

I've seen some incorrect matches but nothing missing yet so overall I'm pretty impressed.

Saying that the most annoying one at the moment is my DVD rips of the complete Seinfeld box set. I put them into directories corresponding to the series (Seinfeld/Season 1/01..., Seinfeld/Season 2/06..., etc.) and Plex has lumped them all together as Season 1, e.g. Season 1 Episode 51 which is nonsense!
 
joeyjojo said:
OK thanks. What do you mean by naming format incorrect for the library type?

I've seen some incorrect matches but nothing missing yet so overall I'm pretty impressed.

Saying that the most annoying one at the moment is my DVD rips of the complete Seinfeld box set. I put them into directories corresponding to the series (Seinfeld/Season 1/01..., Seinfeld/Season 2/06..., etc.) and Plex has lumped them all together as Season 1, e.g. Season 1 Episode 51 which is nonsense!
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Take a look at the Plex wiki ... it gives the naming formats and structures you need to use for TV shows, Films, etc in order to pick them up correctly. You get a bit of leeway but if you don't generally follow this then it can not find things however many times you scan.

Personally I don't bother with season sub-directories but instead name the files s01e01 .... s0xe0y etc in the one directory for the TV show.
 
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