lol, just made the top level comment to say thank you. You nailed it! I may fool around with Tdarr to optimize my library. I’m working on my backup setup, so I’ll use Tdarr on a limited duplicate, but will also keep a full original. I’ve been slowly saving and getting hardware for two fully redundant systems on fiber. Overkill for plex, but I’ve been working to start archiving different family media, and don’t want to become family historian without offsite backups. I’m almost there and there should be enough space to “test drive” the conversion of the plex library without screwing anything up.

Making a toplevel comment to say thank you! Especially to @bazsy@lemmy.world , @Fribbtastic@lemmy.world and @Cromulons@lemmy.world .

1. The files are not corrupted.
2. Disabling hardware acceleration removed the issue entirely. (edit: “use hardware acceleration when available” is unchecked, “use hardware-accelerated video encoding” remains active"

So something in the way plex works with my GPU (Ellesmere Radeon Pro WX 5100) for hardware acceleration was going askew.

Thanks for educating me on some new tools! My nieces also thank you. Bluey should be blue, not green.

I’m not seeing color space, but there’s a bit depth of 8 and some schroma info. Also I’m seeing a codec: MPEG4 and a CodecID: XVID

Thank you for the walkthrough! I was loosely familiar with how transcoding worked, but wasn’t sure if this specific library (tdarr) was coded in a way it became a “default” tool to replace plexs transcoding. My background is in small embedded systems for the most part, and I’ve gotten burned by tools which by default set themselves up to be the, well, default. I’m just used to dealing with much smaller pipelines/stacks.

Based on another response it looks like the issue may actually be around some HDR formatting. I could see that as after I transferred the new machine was using a completely different hardware set, including GPU.

Thanks to you and everyone for walking be through a new tool! If it is an HDR format issue, I imagine I may be able to use Tdarr to address it.

I certainly am not sure lol. I did try disabling the HDR tone mapping to no affect. It’s possible this is the issue as when I transferred the library, it was to new hardware with a different GPU.

Is there a way to tell the color format from the file info?

Thank you!

Edit: I wanted to add context, as I think this may be the culprit. I initially transferred the files from one machine to another via filezilla. About a week after, we had a power outage, which screwed up the SSD that had the operating system (lesson learned about surge protectors). To get the Plex back and running quickly, I simply pulled the physical hard-drive, and popped it into a 3rd machine. So it does make sense to me that the file itself may be fine.

edit2: @bazsy@lemmy.world you are definitely onto it! I just downloaded the file to another machine, and it played with no color issues. So my guess is it’s something to do with the GPU on the machine hosting plex?

Thanks for explaining, but I still want to make sure I understand the purpose of Tdarr. One thing I’ve noticed about tools like this is the documentation usually gets right into the “how” and skips over the “what and why”. So Tdarr transcodes a library with intention of a new, permanent output library? Is that correct? I’m used to transcoding in the context Plex does it: On the fly to serve to a client, and temporary.

If my understanding is correct then maybe it’ll help address issues, but still an awesome tool to help optimize my library.

Thanks for taking the time. Most of my coding background is mostly from monitoring and control, so I’m still learning a lot about the nuts and bolts of the whole stack that makes stuff like plex work.

I actually do have the torrent, files for a lot of them, but I’ve moved folders and I’m not really clear how that might affect things.

By my guess it’s probably about 10% of the library that’s corrupted, so re-downloading them wouldn’t be the worst (I’ve already been doing it piece wise as they come up).

While I’m not great with system level and IT stuff, I’m OK with coding. I’m debating writing a python script to get the average color of each video file, I’d bet there’s some libraries out there to help with that.

this looks like it may be helpful, but I’m not super clear on what it does exactly. It looks like it does conditional transcoding, but I’m not clear on what that means. Would this screw with plexs own traditional transcoding? Or does it attempt to repair a file by transcoding.

Thank you for the input!

Yeah agree. They’re kind of sold as a cure all, which they’re not, but if you have a very specific problem they’ll help. I think the thing is a lot of times people use them without addressing the root cause. But it’s definitely saved me a deep clean before.

oh that is awesome! I guess I’d still have to manually input a (dynamic) IP for anyone outside of my local, but that is an awesome work around to know, thanks!

This is why I’m not quite ready for Jellyfin as a main platform. It’s pretty good, but I’m still getting a handle on how this all works.

I’ve played with it a bit, and am in the middle of upgrading my setup and will probably run both in parallel. My biggest issue with Jellyfin is the app UI is just miles behind Plex right now. I have a fair amount of people that use my server, and there is no way I could get them to use a Jellyfin client. That and, while I kinda mostly know what I’m doing, heavy emphasis on “kinda”.

But I rally like Jellyfin in concept, and I’m excited to have some proper dedicated hardware to get to know it better!

Agreed, BUT: I am really concerned about how much data Plex has, especially with their push to go legit. I set up a pi-hole and plex sends out a good amount of analytics. They know what you’re watching, which means it’s possible they’d have to share that information.

Also, if plex goes down so does your server. I love plex but if any of the 100% self hosted stuff catches up I’m absolutely jumping ship.

I didn’t know you could do this… shit there goes a bunch more hours of my life…

Fantastically helpful and really helping my learn the system. Thanks a ton!

That makes sense. I’ve been looking at upgrading the card on my usual desktop (current card is a GeForce GTX1060 3GB). If I can find a deal on something non-nvidia I’ll get something directly for the plex box though.

I had banked on all of that RAM and processor headroom being able to have it function well as a server despite the graphics card (and it did a good job encoding and sending OUT streams), but I’m still learning what does what in this whole chain. Thanks for all your help!

they were indeed both direct playback, but it’s resolved(ish)! Take a look below.

Update: I adjusted the settings in the HTPC client to force a lower quality (the TV that’s hooked up to is only 720p anyway). Smooth as butter. I think it was definitely what you were saying and forcing a conversion was a good workaround.

To anyone else who’s reading this and me see a related issue in the future: I also have an issue on this box where I can’t get my display to output at the actual resolution of the TV. The system insists on outputting 1080p, and when I manually adjust the display settings it goes black.

It works fine for some reason though. I mention for future folks because I suspect (based on the above input) the HTPC client may be taking cues from the system setting, which is wrong.

In any event, the HTPC might still think it’s outputting to a 1080p display but with the forced conversion it’s operating just fine. THANK YOU.

edit: I wanted to add I had done this from the menu available while watching a video, and it didn’t work. I had to do it at the main settings with no playback going.

This would definitely make a ton of sense! I don’t know how to validate but that’s exactly what it seems like.

Im running a dell precision 5810 with an nvs 310 for graphics and 64gb of ram. Using plasma as a DE if that trips anything up.

To each their own and all that, but for my time, I agree with you Plex still has the edge in UI by a wide margin. The advertised content is super annoying but it is possible to trim it.

also, after implementing my pi-hole, I’m not crazy about the fact plex keeps trying to send out analytics.