WMV and other files being played as mp4 and no direct stream option

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So i noticed that with some files i was having a lot of “buffering” and trouble skipping to specific video parts but at first i didnt tried to figure what it could be, then i saw that they were being played as mp4 and there’s no option for direct stream. I’ve only seen this in two files so far, theyre old videos from a “mega pack” i downloaded some years ago.

Theres also a big nuisance to go back to a part of the video which was already played, you just cant. You need to go to a “unbuffered” (no grey line) part and then come back. So you basically need to watch the video not moving a lot or youre probably just skipping around to go back 5 secs everytime you want to check something or mark some sections.

I can’t remember the format of the first (but its a old file format which you barely see on videos from this decade) but the second one i encountered this behaviour is WMV.

I tried to find some topics here about these file formats but no luck, not sure if this is limitation of stash or the browser, since i recently ran into problems with HEVC (that were browser related) and that i was able to fix with some help other topic i opened here.

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WMV format is not supported by any browser as far as I know so direct playback is not possible and Stash automatically live transcodes unsupported extensions/codecs which as a result leads to the other mentioned issues.

You might want to trancode/reencode these files with ffmpeg or Handbrake into a modern format.

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Can that be done within stash itself? Or do i need to use something like handbrake?

Avidemux is ok too? I like to use it cause its very simple to use and seems a bit faster than handbrake.

Ive noticed the same behaviour with some old .FLV files, the reason and solution would be the same?

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You can use Stash. Settings > Tasks > Generated Content > Trancodes, but it uses hardcoded parameters that will cost you some quality as they are configured for speed.

Not familiar with Avidemux, but quick search shows that it uses ffmpeg on the backend, so you are good to go.

Same reason and same solution. Flash is dead and while there are ways to add web playback support via JavaScript implementations they are hardly maintained anymore these days.