I have what seems to me to be an extremely weird problem. I got some AVI movie files, and want to play AVI files via Plex. Anyway, I received no luck. Searching Plex forum, we found many guys are facing the similar troubles “AVI files not seen in Plex”, “Plex won’t play AVI files”…
In the very end, I astonishedly found a workaround to fix the issue by converting AVI to Plex compatible format with an amazing tool. Here is how.
First download and install Brorsoft Video Converter.
Overall, this video app is professional on fast transcoding AVI to Plex Media Server with MP4 format without quality loss. In addition, it not only supports AVI videos, but also handles various common video formats, like MKV, MXF, TiVo, MTS, MOV, VOB, WMV .etc. Plus, with the built-in video editor, you can also choose to trim, crop, add watermark to your original videos. For Mac users, Brorsoft Video Converter Mac is also a helpful app to encode videos on Mac OS X(El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks included) for further usage.
How to convert AVI to Plex for playback
1. Import AVI videos > Launch the AVI file converter program, and click “Add” button on the main interface to load your AVI files for converting. (Drag&Drop function is included.) It supports batch conversion.
2. Select output format > Click “Format” bar and choose MP4 from “Common Video” as output format, which can be recognized by Plex easily. If your source video is in 1080p and you want to keep 1080p resolution as source movie, you can choose HD Video > H.264 HD Video(*.mp4) for Plex Media Server.
3. Further Settings > With the right settings you can retain the quality of the original videos while also saving space. This is particularly helpful when streaming over your network, depending on your network quality. Simply click Settings bar and you can tweak the settings to your satisfaction and even save it as preset.
4. Start AVI to Plex Conversion > After all necessary settigns, hit the “Convert” button at the bottom of the main interface to start encoding AVI to Plex friendly MP4 video.
After the conversion, click “Open” to quickly find the converted movies. Now you can stream AVI files through Plex Media Server to HDTV, PS3, Xbox360 or other devices with ease.
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