HEVC files horrible quality with Plex in the Nvidia Shield TV

by kratoz29

Hi everyone, I just wanna know if there is a fix for the following:

I've a Nvidia Shield TV which is running as a Plex client and a server, it gets the files over my old PC (samba) everything is wired through ethernet cable but for some reason Plex lowers badly the quality of my HEVC files and I think is because it is transcoding them (regarding the now playing settings in the web) but AFAIK the Shield and the app can handle that codec.

Anyway, the video plays flawlessly without any quality loss from Kodi AND from the Plex add-on inside Kodi so what the heck is happening here? The app is dumb? why the add-on can direct play there and not in the official app? I've seen quality loss in my MacBook Pro through web as well but I rather fix the Shield TV first which is my main device.

I've set convert automatically off and always stream at maximum quality, but anyway any help is welcome cause it seems that some settings may differ from Windows/Linux servers to Shield servers.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Ok guys I think indeed is the Plex player itself as it says it is transcoding cause is not compatible with the ASS codec which I think is referring to the subtitles files inside the MKV, also it transcode when plays a AC3 codec.

I’ll stick with Kodi and PlexConnect for HD files or the ones that are not compatible in the official player.

mondocu

You said "I think it is transcoded". While playing hevc file in plex, you can check if it's transcoded by hitting A button on controller or OK button on remote, then check on the top left corner if you see "direct play/transcoded". You talked about plex web settings but have you check plex app settings?

19luck

Plex works better as a server than as player. There are only a few combinations of video + audio codec that Plex can play directly on the shield. If you use the Plex Samsung apps, it's way worse!!! I'd recommend that you continue with Plex add-on for Kodi you get the best of both worlds.

Ucla_The_Mok

The Plex app uses the built-in Nvidia player instead of building a more compatible player like Kodi.

I installed Kodi with KPC (KodiPlexConnect) addon on the Shield and use it to stream any problem files.

chrisyahoo

Directly transcoding HEVC to H.264 codec first and then running with Plex.

clear12kc

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/6q0hyy/plex_on_nvidia_shield_tv_transcoding_my_4k_files/

tb21666

This is but 1 of the reasons why I only use SMB2 shares & Kodi as a front end pointed at said shares.

Both times I tried to use Plex back in the day, not only did it get most of my metadata wrong (which was a pain to try & fix in their software; use Media Center Master for all your metadata needs) & it had issues with the size of my collection, as well.

Took forever to scan.