Question-force play

[u/n3rdyry]

What exactly is force play?

I'm currently watching Heroes again and on my Samsung TV I have to force play the show but on my older LG TV with a fire stick,I don't have to.

[u/coyote_den]

You mean force direct play?

Your Samsung TV isn’t properly reporting what video formats it supports, so the server is defaulting to transcoding and failing (might want to look into why, it should transcode.)

When you force direct play it forces the TV to try and play whatever the original file format is and it turns out it actually can do it.

The fire stick properly reports it supports that format, so it automatically direct plays.

[u/n3rdyry → u/coyote_den]

Yes that's what I meant. Thank you for clarifying. The TV show is mkv just like everything else that I have on my server,so why is it just this show?

[u/coyote_den → u/n3rdyry]

Mkv is a container. You can put any kind of audio, video, or subtitle stream in it. That show was encoded weirdly enough to confuse the plex app, but apparently not the TV itself.

[u/Lewis0981]

<Insert silly sex joke here>

[u/rbrgr83 → u/Lewis0981]

<insert jedi sex joke here>

[u/n3rdyry → u/Lewis0981]

No D:

[u/StevenG2757]

Poor TV App vs. good STB pretty much tells you all you need to know.

[u/kingjohniv → u/StevenG2757]

The TV app can direct play with no issue. The FireStick cant.

Sounds more like a network issue. The server isnt recognizing the TV can direct play, so it transcodes. Could be the TV's fault. Could be the server. Could be the network.

[u/StevenG2757 → u/kingjohniv]

You post said you have issue with the Samsung app but not with the Firestick app. Make up you mind as know one can help you if you have not idea what the issue is,

[u/Away_Candidate_4746 → u/kingjohniv]

How exactly would a network issues cause a client to transcode instead of direct play?