Plex unable to play MPEG1 on a FireStick, question on conversion to MPEG2

[Medwynd]

So I noticed something bizarre after I converted a healthy chunk of my vobs to MKV for use with plex.  Some of the movies I ripped with MakeMKV play fine and others didn't.  What happens is simply that the video will not play. I haven't narrowed this down to if this is an Amazon FireStick issue or if other clients have this issue as well.

 

I think I have narrowed this down to being an issue that some of these dvds had MPEG1 video streams.  If I force plex to transcode video by doing something like turning on vobsubs in plex or tell it to transcode the video at 720p the video then the movie plays fine.  This issue only occurs when trying to play the original stream via the "Original" format setting, which is preferred to avoid unnecessary transcoding and just use DirectPlay to play the movie.

 

For example Battle - Los Angeles has this for its video stream and does not play, this is pulled using MediaInfo.  All of my movies that have MPEG Video listed for the format and do not have "Version 2" listed do not play.

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG2
Codec ID/Info                            : MPEG 1 or 2 Video
Duration                                 : 1h 56mn
Bit rate                                 : 429 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (23976/1000) fps
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.052
Stream size                              : 3.48 GiB (87%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

 

A movie that works, such as Demolition Man has MediaInfo for the video stream of:

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG2
Codec ID/Info                            : MPEG 1 or 2 Video
Duration                                 : 1h 54mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 404 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 7 500 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 25.046 fps
Original frame rate                      : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.047
Time code of first frame                 : 00:59:59:00
Time code source                         : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed                         : Open
GOP, Open/Closed of first frame          : Closed
Stream size                              : 3.24 GiB (84%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

 

If I am reading this correctly, Battle LA is MPEG1 and Demolition Man is MPEG2.

 

Now my next question is, what would be a good way of converting the offending MPEG1 videos to MPEG2 without transcoding them?

 

If I take one of the MPEG1 mkvs and drop it into MKVToolNix and simply remux it, it seems to turn it automagically into an MPEG2 container that works properly.  I just wanted to double check before I went and reprocessed a bunch of movies that a simple remux of this fashion wont modify the underlying video and audio streams.

 

Has anyone else seen this oddity with Plex and a FireStick?

[gundamguy]

It sounds like an issue you should report to the Plex team. In theory their code should pick up on the fact that it's in MPEG1 and MPEG1 isn't supported and automatically transcode it.

 

To answer your question your process works so go with it.

 

If you want a second option, I and a lot of other people like to use handbrake, which can do a whole lot more... it's also gives you options that you can really mess up... it's a powerful tool, so if you do decide to use it, look for some basic tutorials. (my personal preference is to make .mkv instead of .mp4 files with handbrake)

[Medwynd]

It sounds like an issue you should report to the Plex team. In theory their code should pick up on the fact that it's in MPEG1 and MPEG1 isn't supported and automatically transcode it.

 

To answer your question your process works so go with it.

 

If you want a second option, I and a lot of other people like to use handbrake, which can do a whole lot more... it's also gives you options that you can really mess up... it's a powerful tool, so if you do decide to use it, look for some basic tutorials. (my personal preference is to make .mkv instead of .mp4 files with handbrake)

 

Well what I'm not sure of is if it is working as I want.  Yes, it does get the movies to play, but I need to figure out if converting from mpeg1 to mpeg2 is causing any loss of quality.

 

Isn't handbrake really only used to transcode a video?  I don't want to mess with the original quality at all, just 1:1 rips of the content.