2013-11-15, 05:45
A bit of background. I'm using a custom CarPC in my BMW which has a custom sound system and well...the sound system is pretty revealing and powerful. I'm using XBMC as a front end and intend to use either PleXBMC or the native Plex client for Windows to access my Plex library from home. The carPC runs Windows 7 and has 4G network access (Verizon. Pretty good bitrates).
Now. This is a full Windows 7 system running XBMC/Plex client/PlexBMC. What I'd like to do is :
- have Plex transcode the video (I set the rate at 3-4mbps in the client), but NOT transcode the audio AT ALL. Meaning, I want the native audio track to come down as is, since the system can decode every format in my library.
- I don't want to use Direct play (which will work fine as such), as then the video doesn't get transcoded either and streams at the full bitrate, which is a waste of bandwidth, since the video is displayed on the OEM BMW screen, which is a 6.5" screen running at 800x480. There's no point in displaying video at 30mbps bitrate, as you cannot make out the visual difference between that and 3mbps from the drivers seat.
- The quality of the video is not important, as long as it doesn't stutter etc, but the quality of the audio is very very important. I want as pristine audio as possible.
- When I set the PlexBMC client transcoding options - the only options I have for "Audio output" are Stereo, AC3, or DTS.
- Stereo gets my audio transcoded to 128kbps mp3 which is unacceptable.
- DTS for some reason gets transcoded to 128kbps mp3 as well. (Actually this is probably because the carPC is outputting to a DAC which them goes into a JBL MS-8 preamp, so effectievly the system outputs stereo as such, and I cannot set XBMC to pass through DTS etc, because they won't get decoded outside XBMC)
- AC3 - works and gets me ~600kbps, which is much better, but I'd still like higher rates if possible.
Is there a way to tell the Plex Server/XBMC/PlexBMC to transcode video to the configured bitrate, but passthrough all audio as-is?
Now. This is a full Windows 7 system running XBMC/Plex client/PlexBMC. What I'd like to do is :
- have Plex transcode the video (I set the rate at 3-4mbps in the client), but NOT transcode the audio AT ALL. Meaning, I want the native audio track to come down as is, since the system can decode every format in my library.
- I don't want to use Direct play (which will work fine as such), as then the video doesn't get transcoded either and streams at the full bitrate, which is a waste of bandwidth, since the video is displayed on the OEM BMW screen, which is a 6.5" screen running at 800x480. There's no point in displaying video at 30mbps bitrate, as you cannot make out the visual difference between that and 3mbps from the drivers seat.
- The quality of the video is not important, as long as it doesn't stutter etc, but the quality of the audio is very very important. I want as pristine audio as possible.
- When I set the PlexBMC client transcoding options - the only options I have for "Audio output" are Stereo, AC3, or DTS.
- Stereo gets my audio transcoded to 128kbps mp3 which is unacceptable.
- DTS for some reason gets transcoded to 128kbps mp3 as well. (Actually this is probably because the carPC is outputting to a DAC which them goes into a JBL MS-8 preamp, so effectievly the system outputs stereo as such, and I cannot set XBMC to pass through DTS etc, because they won't get decoded outside XBMC)
- AC3 - works and gets me ~600kbps, which is much better, but I'd still like higher rates if possible.
Is there a way to tell the Plex Server/XBMC/PlexBMC to transcode video to the configured bitrate, but passthrough all audio as-is?
