So h.264 will transcode if the h.264 level is too high?

[mark19721964 13]

Most, if not all of my library should direct play with no transcoding. Something just hit me after having used Emby from Plex or the last few weeks....I noticed this series is transcoding instead of direct playing, yet it's h.264 AAC 2.0.. I was scratching my head and then I remembered something. On the Plex app on Roku, in advanced settings, you could set the max h.264 level to higher if it would direct play with no issues....but I don't see anything like that in the Emby Roku app settings... Am I correct the reason that this is transcoding is the level is too high? There's no way to raise the level in settings?

[ebr 16169]

Yes that would be why.  Providing you with a setting like you ask for would just make it so that people could break playback.

The proper answer is to set the video level correctly in the source material.  What is it for this item?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Yes as most players are documented to L5.1.

Returned protocol info from client 

&h264-level=51

But would need to see your ffmpeg log.

[mark19721964 13]

After writing this... I was able to change the level in the source using level editor... it was at level 4.2, but changed to level 4.0 and they now they direct play...

I do remember having a conversation a few years ago on Plex forums about changing in plex settings on the roku player "the max h.264 level"  I can't remember where it was set but in the post it was asked something about is it safe to raise it. I remember someone saying if you're using Roku Ulra's for playback then yes as they support the higher levels with no issues.. so I raised it and never had an issue with playback for years.... however, I do remember there being a warning saying that playback could break (but it never did)

 

[mark19721964 13]

Well. this is weird and interesting (at least to me) I've fixed it so it doesn't matter at this point but I'll share. So in my movie libraries (theater movies, not tv movies) I don't have a huge collection (at least I don't think I do) maybe about 800 total movies... and I rarely watch movies... more tv shows...but the other day I just playing random movies (on roku) with the server dashboard opened on my laptop... a few of them I would run into this weird stuttering with frames (almost like it was in slow motion) like they were recorded at like 5 FPS or something...I noticed they were MP4 when this happened...I remuxed them to MKV using mkvtoolnix (because I had remembered running into this same thing on Plex and that fixes it! I don't get it, but whatever...

another thing: I would occasionally see an MP4 movie being transcoded... and the level was AVC 3.1... I was like? HUH? It was playing fine but I can tell when the movie starts taking a bit longer to load that it's transcoding. I simply remuxed that movie to mkv and it direct plays... Oh well.... I would say 30% of the movie library is MP4, the rest MKV... I'm almost thinking I just want to remux all the MP4s to MKV just to get it out of the way because for whatever reason, that seems to fix any issues with some random movies that do that... and don't want to go through them individually..

[Luke 42077]

On 5/15/2025 at 11:46 PM, mark19721964 said:

 

another thing: I would occasionally see an MP4 movie being transcoded... and the level was AVC 3.1... I was like? HUH? It was playing fine but I can tell when the movie starts taking a bit longer to load that it's transcoding. I simply remuxed that movie to mkv and it direct plays... Oh well.... I would say 30% of the movie library is MP4, the rest MKV... I'm almost thinking I just want to remux all the MP4s to MKV just to get it out of the way because for whatever reason, that seems to fix any issues with some random movies that do that... and don't want to go through them individually..

Hi, did you explore the stats feature in the video player to learn why it was transcoding?

[ebr 16169]

17 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, did you explore the stats feature in the video player to learn why it was transcoding?

That information is also shown on the server dashboard.