Unable to direct play as source media has higher x264 level (51) than supported (41)
I am not 100% sure what this means -- that the server has an issue - that the client has an issue - that the cross communication and handshaking reported back from the client to the server that it only supports level 41?
I am not that familiar with x264 and its levels ... but it seems the player thinks it has to transcode the video because of the high profile?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels
I noticed that a show my kids were watching on their Roku TV - was transcoding - because the MKV had DTS for audio.
So - I transcoded the audio to AC3 - merged it back in - and now they should pick the AC3 and not transcode anymore - but have DirectPlay. But that didn't work as expected.
So I played the same video on my Shield TV - and IT was transcoding as well -- with the message:
Unable to direct play as source media has higher x264 level (51) than supported (41)
I actually assume that is why the Roku TV also still transcoded. (My attempt to add an AC3 audio track has worked before but on <= level 41 I assume)
I tried transcoding the video stream down to 41 ... my CPU has been SCREAMING hot for last 60 minutes with 30 minutes to go (Plex transcoder on the fly is much better )... But the file and quality went down -- which wasn't my goal.
I normally leave my Direct Play as Auto on the Shield TV... for this video I tried Direct Play set to Forced -- and sure enough - it plays wonderful w/o any issues ... which is what I would expect from the Shield TV w/all of its capabilities.
Again - is it the Shield Client? The PMS Server? -- who is deciding it cannot play the video -- and why not? Since DirectPlay : Forced works great..
But I cannot leave it Forced -- but there are still some items in my library that will have issues and actually NEED to be transcoded by Plex unfort --
I am running the 2nd DVR Beta on Windows 10 as my PMS... but this has been happening for quite some time before going to the DVR Beta version ---
Thanks!