# Does Plex support 1080p on the Bolt?



## sofakng (Dec 19, 2003)

Does anybody know if Plex on the new TiVo Bolt supports 1080? Also, does it run any faster?

I'm currently using a Roamio Pro but am thinking about upgrading to the Bolt. The killer feature would really be Plex running at 1080p (direct played without transcoding) ...


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## NJ Webel (Dec 8, 2004)

According to this thread: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=532256&highlight=plex+1080

The Bolt supports it, while the Mini and Roamio have an upper limit of 720p and 4Mbps (& if the stream is higher res or higher bitrate, it will transcode). This is due to memory restrictions in the Opera browser on the older boxes.


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## n0xlf (Oct 25, 2015)

The BOLT will direct play - I haven't tried any super high bitrate videos, but it shows the Plex options all the way to 20Mbps, and including "Original". Most of mine are around 10ish Mbps and work fine.

It will also direct play DD5.1, but NOT DTS, which gets converted to DD5.1. That isn't very CPU intensive, so not a huge deal, but...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

n0xlf said:


> It will also direct play DD5.1, but NOT DTS, which gets converted to DD5.1. That isn't very CPU intensive, so not a huge deal, but...


This still bit me. My Plex server is running on a NAS which does not support transcoding of any kind, so even a simple audio mismatch causes the whole file to not play. If you're running Plex on a PC then the CPU requirements to transcode the audio should be minimal.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

sofakng said:


> Does anybody know if Plex on the new TiVo Bolt supports 1080? Also, does it run any faster?
> 
> I'm currently using a Roamio Pro but am thinking about upgrading to the Bolt. The killer feature would really be Plex running at 1080p (direct played without transcoding) ...


The direct answer to your query is YES and YES!

Its much improved and supports pretty high bitrate direct streams. have not found the upper limit yet. The UI is also MUCH better.


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## hooper (Sep 22, 2007)

I have a readynas ultra 2 with a very meager cpu and it can handle audio transcoding without really breaking a sweat including DTS. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

hooper said:


> I have a readynas ultra 2 with a very meager cpu and it can handle audio transcoding without really breaking a sweat including DTS.


My QNAP doesn't allow it. I just get a error on the TiVo saying the server doesn't support transcoding. At least in the one BD rip test I ran. Maybe I was hitting some sort of video limit and it wasn't the DTS audio causing the error?


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## ucliker (Sep 25, 2007)

Thank you for asking and answering this question!!! I recently ripped my Blu-ray collection to plex and would love to watch my movies in 1080p as intended. I think it's time to sell my Roamio plus w/lifetime


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## ucliker (Sep 25, 2007)

ucliker said:


> Thank you for asking and answering this question!!! I recently ripped my Blu-ray collection to plex and would love to watch my movies in 1080p as intended. I think it's time to sell my Roamio plus w/lifetime


Nevermind the Bolt is just way to expensive for what it does. I will admit I don't need 6 tuners I barely use 4 most of the time, but I don't understand the pricing model for the Bolt. You get way less features for a lot more money. I also don't think 2.5" hard drives will be as reliable in a DVR but who knows.

Tivo Bolt 1TB $400
Lifetime Service $600
------------------ $1000!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ucliker said:


> Nevermind the Bolt is just way to expensive for what it does. I will admit I don't need 6 tuners I barely use 4 most of the time, but I don't understand the pricing model for the Bolt. You get way less features for a lot more money. I also don't think 2.5" hard drives will be as reliable in a DVR but who knows.
> 
> Tivo Bolt 1TB $400
> Lifetime Service $600
> ------------------ $1000!


Lifetime service is pretty much out with the Bolt since it is so expensive. So for me, My two Bolts, with 4TB drives, I have no plans on getting lifetime and will just pay the yearly fee for the second year. Or upgrade to a Bolt Pro if available before the second year.

Or I might just stick with the two Bolts. I used a similar setup with the four tuner Premieres. And it's kind of nice having things separated between my two Bolts now like it was with the Premieres. I use one for the 100+ One Passes I have for news programs, reality shows, and sports. Then the second Bolt is used for the One Passes I have for scripted shows and for recording specials or movies.


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## hooper (Sep 22, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> My QNAP doesn't allow it. I just get a error on the TiVo saying the server doesn't support transcoding. At least in the one BD rip test I ran. Maybe I was hitting some sort of video limit and it wasn't the DTS audio causing the error?


I will say the plex client has a lot to do with things here. For example the plex firetv client doesn't think it can handle 1080p h264 videos so it tries to transcode video and audio which fails (on my nas). Short of launching into kodi to play the video it is very inconsistent with that plex client. The roku plex client on the other hand is very good and will only transcode audio.

It is possible the TiVo plex client support is finicky or detected improperly which will cause a complete transcode.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

hooper said:


> I will say the plex client has a lot to do with things here. For example the plex firetv client doesn't think it can handle 1080p h264 videos so it tries to transcode video and audio which fails (on my nas). Short of launching into kodi to play the video it is very inconsistent with that plex client. The roku plex client on the other hand is very good and will only transcode audio.
> 
> It is possible the TiVo plex client support is finicky or detected improperly which will cause a complete transcode.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


No, the tivo does not support DTS audio. From any source. So if the video the Plex server has contains DTS, the audio must be transcoded. Although even most NAS based plex installations can handle an audio transcode. But not all. If your NAS cannot handle the audio transcode, don't store the video that way on the NAS. Convert to AC3 ahead of time and store the video in a format that can be direct streamed to your Tivo. Very few people could tell the difference between a DTS audio track and one recoded to 640kbps AC3.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't actually use Plex. I just ran this as a test. I ripped a BD disc using MakeMKV and copied it to the NAS, where I have the Plex server installed for testing. I tried playing it and got the transcode error. I don't know what triggered the error. Based on other responses the Bolt should be able to play the file without transcoding the video, so I assume it's the audio that's the problem. But I don't know for sure.


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## apw2607 (Nov 17, 2012)

I've yet to see the bolt play a h264 high bit rate MKV (35Mb/s) without transcoding the video on the plex server. My plex server is running on a mac mini.

Although there is a option to select "original' bit rate in the tivo client i think the tivo client is still restricted to a max bit rate, however i dont know what the ceiling is, as all my mkvs are above at least 20Mb/s.


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## hooper (Sep 22, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> I don't actually use Plex. I just ran this as a test. I ripped a BD disc using MakeMKV and copied it to the NAS, where I have the Plex server installed for testing. I tried playing it and got the transcode error. I don't know what triggered the error. Based on other responses the Bolt should be able to play the file without transcoding the video, so I assume it's the audio that's the problem. But I don't know for sure.


Might want to try handbrake. I have had much better success with it versus makemkv. For whatever reason the video output has needed to be transcoded. I haven't played with it to much to tweak though. I am sure it can be made to work.

I also don't usually store videos with bitrates over 8 Mb, so can't offer any suggestions. The file sizes are just way too large for my preference.

Once folks get this all figured out some tutorials would be great.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> I don't actually use Plex. I just ran this as a test. I ripped a BD disc using MakeMKV and copied it to the NAS, where I have the Plex server installed for testing. I tried playing it and got the transcode error. I don't know what triggered the error. Based on other responses the Bolt should be able to play the file without transcoding the video, so I assume it's the audio that's the problem. But I don't know for sure.


Dan,
Have you ever tried Handbrake? I used it to compress and transfer a ton of DVD rips. I feel it gave pretty good quality especially considering the file size. There are various settings you can adjust for quality and many other settings. It can be set to output .mkv, m4v, or mp4.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I did a raw BD transfer because I was trying to see if Plex supported full bitrate BD rips. Handbrake recodes the video, likely to a lower bitrate, so that would have broke my test.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

If a test, that will run on your NAS is what you would like, try MeGUI to remux the file and only convert the audio to AC3. Leave the video as ripped. Put in a streamable mp4 container.

There are other utilities that will accomplish this as well. I use mkvtomp4 for this and full tags including artwork embedded in the mp4.


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## Andrew_S (Nov 12, 2001)

hooper said:


> Might want to try handbrake. I have had much better success with it versus makemkv.


Handbrake and makemkv are so not the same thing.


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