Questions about Codecs

[Trachr]

Hi, Im in the process of trying to find out what works on my smart TV since things are not working that I thought should work...

From the Samsung Website I see this:

File Format: *.avi *.mkv *.asf *.wmv *.mp4 *.mov *.3gp *.vro *.mpg *.mpeg *.ts *.tp *.trp *.mov *.flv *.vob *.svi *.m2ts *.mts *.divx

Container: AVI MKV ASF MP4 3GP MOV FLV VRO VOB PS TS SVAF

Codecs: H.264 BP/ MP/ HP HEVC (H.265 - Main, Main 10, Main 4:2:2 10) Motion JPEG MVC

For Audio under music formats and codecs I see AAC listed

Yet when I encode a mkv with H.265 and AAC it can not be directly played on my television, Ive tried various setups and so far all I can get running is H.264 with AC3 audio

So am I doing something wrong here?... What does the (H.265 - Main, Main 10, Main 4:2:2 10) mean exactly since I cant get a H.265 running I assume the rest of that info means something I did not understand.

Also, do you know on most TVs will it pick the audio track it can handle? for instance if I did it primarily in AAC but did a second track in AC3 would that confuse smart tvs?

Thanks

[Deleted User 13735]

Kindly post your logs per the link in red above.

[Trachr]

Logs of what? I cant post logs of trying to get various things to play directly on a TV as for the (H.265 - Main, Main 10, Main 4:2:2 10) I took that off their website, its nothing that I did.


heres my last few encodes though: https://pastebin.com/6KmJwSX4 I was playing around just seeing what would play on my TV so I am well aware the quality of these codes are horrendous

[mduell]

Yet when I encode a mkv with H.265 and AAC it can not be directly played on my television, Ive tried various setups and so far all I can get running is H.264 with AC3 audio

Logs of what?

You claimed in the OP you made encodes that did/didn't work, so logs of those encodes.

heres my last few encodes though: https://pastebin.com/6KmJwSX4

I only see one encode here. We'd need to both see the various working and not working encodes, clearly labelled.

[Woodstock]

"Smart" TVs are rarely as smart as you think they are. The codecs Samsung (and the other manufacturers) supports actually varies by the container, and some audio codecs are only supported if you're passing the audio off to an external sound system. You get weird interactions such as features not working unless the file extension is "correct", regardless of the container used to house it.

For learning about the "levels" or "profiles" of h.264 and h.265, the articles in Wikipedia are OK. The links take you to the profiles section, which is more important to you right now than the technobabble about how it works at the bit level.

[Deleted User 13735]

Woodstock makes an excellent point.
"Smart" TVs usually come with limitations on such things as Bitrate, Profile, Level, Framerate, and associated audio.

A little more digging may reveal limitations of your teevee, that Handbrake may overshoot. A good starting point is x264 mp4 with the Normal preset. If that works, start adding stuff, ONE AT A TIME, until you reach a limitation.

[rollin_eng]

Can you also post the link to your TV's specs.

[Trachr]

Sure

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owner ... roductInfo

Thats my TV

[Woodstock]

Well, h.265 is NOT a supported format on your TV, and frame rates above 30 are not supported for any codec.

Video decoders
H.264 is supported up to Level 4.1. (does not support FMO/ASO/RS)
VC1 AP L4 is not supported.
GMC 2 or above is not supported.

[Trachr]

Yeah, that chart is different than the chart they linked me in a support chat, I'll believe the one I linked you over what they told me... Guess I should of searched out the full manual before asking them what codecs my TV supports, would of saved a lot of headaches.


So if it wont support more than 30 fps what does that mean for my encoding, I had always done same as source on FPS but I wont know if I need to decrease a Frame rate down to 30 or if 30 would be too high to just set since from what I understand if I set a FPS at 30 and the source rate was 23.976 I would end up with some issues in the file.


Another question, which I'll probably need to take over to the Plex forums... will I see a quality difference if I stored the file in say H.265 on my server and allow the server to transcode it vs encoding it it H.264 and make it direct play possible.

I know 265 is the future according to a lot of people so I may encode it in 265 and store the file so I dont need to rip the blurays later but the question is should I encode it a second time in a lesser format to use now.

[Woodstock]

30 FPS is not a big restriction, as non-interlaced video is usually under that. Interlaced video only sends half the frame at a time, so while it might have a "60 Hz" frame rate, it's effectively 29.97 FPS. So "Variable, same as source" should work.

h.265 is A future for video. There is a good chance it might be "the" future, if enough devices implement decoding it in hardware, like most do now with h.264, and a lot of past devices did with MPEG2. But it could lose the marketing war to a different codec. Who knows what fickle consumers will be cattle-prodded into accepting next year. You've seen how well 3D worked out, right?

Just remember that transcoding on the fly uses a LOT of CPU power in a Plex server. Having an Intel processor with QSV hardware can help a lot. But the more things that feed off Plex server that need transcoding, the worse its performance will be. Encoding with handbrake to what the device can handle may not save a lot of space, but will allow the media server to feed more devices. My Synology server can feed MAYBE two devices under Plex with transcoding turned on. It can handle over a dozen when it doesn't have to transcode.

I keep two copies of (almost) everything - one copy matches what my Samsung TV accepts (also works on tablets), the other requires a (separate) more powerful media player, and has "all features" enabled.