You don’t need to; that was the point.
MKV (Matroska) and MP4 are simply “containers” for the video/audio/subtitle/etc.
The codec that the video and audio are encoded in is what matters.
Assuming all your files are encoded using AVC/h.264/MPEG-4* then whether they are in an MKV container or an MP4 container means Plex can convert them to a file format your player can use with almost zero CPU overhead.
Converting them prior to watching gains almost no speed advantage - as even Atom processors can do real-time conversion from an MKV with MPEG-4/h.264 to the mp4 container - and wastes hard drive space at best if you keep both copies, or reduces quality if you only keep the new copy.
*Note - NOT the same as MP4 which is a container, although almost all MP4 containers are either AVC, h.264 or MPEG-4. The MP4 container can use HEVC/h.265 encoded video as well h.263 but you’ll likely never see that
I believe MP4 supports one subtitle track. Plexus should automatically encode subtitles that already exist within the file, but it won’t look for external subtitle files to encode into the file, though this could be a great feature to implement.
Ah, PGS subtitles aren’t supported, so that would be why. MKVs should support PGS subtitles just fine, but I’ve always had issues with FFmpeg whenever trying to handle them. I’ll do some more testing with newer revisions of FFmpeg and get back to you.
Thank you for testing this, I’ll do some research and hopefully work on a fix Remember that MP4’s only support a single subtitle stream. Could you try encoding to MP4 again with the --verbose flag, please?
So if I understand it correctly it doesn’t matter for plex if the container is mkv or mp4. I just have to select h.264 as coded and AAC for audio? Even if it will have to transcode? I sometimes have 4 people watching on apple devices and then I see “transcoding”. I’m a bit allergic to it :).
Correct. The container doesn't matter that much in regards to transcoding with Plex. MKV supports more than MP4 does. The video, audio, and subtitle codecs matter more, but primarily the video codec.
Right on.
I prefer MKV because it allows for multiple audio and subtitle streams/formats.
I.E. I can include a 7.1 DTS file for when I’m watching on a home theater and a 2.0 AAC for cell or stereo device, as well as add downloaded.srt subtitles (which don’t require transcoding from Plex, unlike some subtitle formats.)
The problem with Plex remains that even if you store multiple files of different resolutions or types, by default it will play the highest quality file and transcode it. Say you have a 4K, 1080p and 720p version of a video, and the user wants 720p. You’d think it would just stream the 720p right? WRONG. It will play the 4K file - which is often also 10bit color - and transcode it to 720p (and 8bit color making it look washed out).)
This would be awesome. I'll have to wait a bit until this feature is implemented because I have some shows which use PSG and I don't want to lose the subtitles...
Likewise, I have quite a few files that annoyingly use PGS. I can't find a reasonable way to encode PGS into MKV files using FFmpeg, however, I should be able to export the subtitles into the media directory, which Plex should support.
The subtitle extracting functionality is working, but for some reason, the end phase of the encode command (move or upload the newly encoded files) is failing when trying to upload the subtitles via RClone. Weird. Hopefully, I’ll figure out the issue soon.
Remember that MP4’s only support a single subtitle stream. Could you try encoding to MP4 again with the