PLEX : Problem with VIDEO_TS playback

I think you'll find this is a generic Plex issue and not specifically related to the Linux/ReadyNAS server. Check the Plex forum (http://plexapp.com) for more info and possible fixes

I have the extract same issue, I can't directly access video_ts files stored on the ReadyNAS Pro with path of /c/Films using the addin

I have been 'encouraging' the Plex team to address this issue.

Plex Media Server stores a file path defining the location of the media, in this case the media is a VIDEO_TS folder (but this problem also affects .ISO files). Being that in this case the Plex Media Server is running on the ReadyNAS itself, this file path will be a Unix style file path since the ReadyNAS runs a version of Linux.

If you connect to the Plex Media Server running on the ReadyNAS from a Mac running the Plex.app then even if the Mac has mounted the ReadyNAS as a network volume the file path will be different and hence the file will not be found. In this case Plex is designed to switch to streaming the media. Currently Plex Media Server cannot stream VIDEO_TS or .ISO media.

The Plex team are working on being able to stream this type of media to a Mac client, and in theory the approach they are planning to use should also work with the PleXMBC plugin for XBMC. This approach should work because both the Mac and XBMC already have the ability to play DVD type media (with menus) as used in VIDEO_TS and .ISO media. However this approach will still not work with iOS clients i.e. iPhone, iPad etc., as these have never had and still don't know how to play DVDs. I get the impression they are unlikely to ever add support to iOS clients to handle this and they recommend extracting the DVD main title to an MKV file.

I had myself suggested a different approach but it still would not have helped for iOS clients. My suggestion was that since Plex Media Server now exists on a variety of different operating systems (Linux, Mac and Windows), each of which uses different file path formats, that they should add the ability to use network URLs like smb://username:password@server/share/folder/filename something that XBMC still supports and Plex used to support. This network URL format is the same no matter what operating system you are running.

thanks a lot for your detailed response!

so... if i get this right, the iOs plex client is not able to handle .VOB menu structures by design. but it /is/ able to play back .MP2 streamed to it from the sever. hence... couldn't the devs implement a mechanism by which the server auto-selects the biggest movie chunk from the VIDEO_TS/.iso (which on a movie dvd is almost ALWAYS the main movie), then streams that movie to the iOs client?

Feature Requests posted:

https://plexapp.lighthouseapp.com/proje ... mac-client
https://plexapp.lighthouseapp.com/proje ... os-devices

jelockwood wrote:
If you connect to the Plex Media Server running on the ReadyNAS from a Mac running the Plex.app then even if the Mac has mounted the ReadyNAS as a network volume the file path will be different and hence the file will not be found. In this case Plex is designed to switch to streaming the media. Currently Plex Media Server cannot stream VIDEO_TS or .ISO media.

The path issue can be worked around for Mac clients by creating symbolic links on the NAS to mimic the mount path used by the client.

Won't solve the iOS issue however. There have been *many* requests for this feature but the general response is that diskimages and related formats are just not suited to streaming and so it is better to rip the DVDs to a suitable format, particularly as there are now 'lossless' ways to do this.

@ sphardy: great ! can you please elaborate on how to do this ?

Requires SSH access to your NAS and you have to guarantee that the NAS mount is made on the client machine before you start Plex for it to work

Example: If you mount your media on the Mac at the default location of /Volumes/media, then on the NAS you create a Volumes directory in the root and a symbolic link inside that to the media share so that the NAS can also access media at the same /Volumes/media path

mkdir /Volumes
ln -s /c/media /Volumes/media

You then setup PMS on your server so that media is loaded from /Volumes/media rather than /c/media

sphardy: thanks a lot, it works !

however, having to mount an afp volume each time before using plex is kind of odd no?
afp is slow and full of overhead, which is one reason why i opted for direct network playback via plex...

plus, the odd thing is: playback with FILES works "out of the box"... only VIDEO_TS folders are a problem.
a fix on the plex side should be rather straightforward to implement, so let's hope the devs get a chance to look at this...

on the iOS side, it seems like there is a client issue AND a server issue

# 1 the client needs way to select a .VOB from a VIDEO_TS folder for playback (and, optionally, choose the audio and subtitle track)
# 2 the server needs the ability to transcode streams from the selected .VOB and send them to the client

we do not need DVD menu navigation capabilities to solve # 1 . Presenting the VOBs in a file-browser-style interface would be enough !
"fancy" features could include: display of playback length, audio streams, subtitle streams plus an "auto-select main feature" option that pre-selects the VOB with the biggest file size

for #2 we need MPEG-2 transcoding - but plex server is already capable of doing this ! what it lacks is being capable to select individual streams from a .VOB file for transcoding

this seems like a bunch of work, but who knows ... ;)

bozolino wrote:

sphardy: thanks a lot, it works ! however, having to mount an afp volume each time before using plex is kind of odd no? afp is slow and full of overhead, which is one reason why i opted for direct network playback via plex... plus, the odd thing is: playback with FILES works "out of the box"... only VIDEO_TS folders are a problem. a fix on the plex side should be rather straightforward to implement, so let's hope the devs get a chance to look at this...

I think you are misunderstanding how Plex works and what direct streaming actually means in this context

The Plex client will access the media in different ways depending on the client capability and the network setup.

If media is discoverable in the same location on both server & client, and the client is suitably capable, then the client can access the media directly - just as any other media player can access the same - and the sharing protocol is whatever you choose to use (AFP, CIFS, NFS etc). Else the media will have to be streamed via the Plex server.

When streaming, Plex will either stream the media as-is, or it will transcode and/or remux the stream, again depending on the capability of the client.

"Direct streaming" as supported by Plex simply refers to there being no transcoding - that the client plays the original media though it may or may not be remuxed, and may or may not actually be streamed via the server

As streaming is only supported for media files, not for VIDEO_TS folders, this is why the share must be mounted first on the remote client such that the client can access the VIDEO_TS folder directly at the same logical path and the client must understand the DVD file structure of the VIDEO_TS folder. Both requirements therefore preclude iOS access