Solve “AVI Can’t be played on Plex” Issue

Date July 18, 2016 Author Catherine Category Plex, Video Tips

You maybe think that Plex can transcode everything so you won’t have any video playback trouble on Plex. If you think so, you are wrong. From the reddit.com and forums.plex.tv, we see many AVI playback issues on Plex. Below are some “Plex Won’t Play .avi Files” cases and the solution to “AVI can’t be played on Plex” problem.

“All, Is there any chance that you can assist me in getting my AVI files to play? I have over 25 years of home movies converted from 8mm tape to AVI but plex does not play them.”

“Today, after the upgrade the same .avi files that I watched yesterday will no longer play – I select them, the screen darkens a little, the 3 little yellow boxes in the top left flash (I assume it is loading the file???) but nothing happens. Just sits there with these 3 boxes forever and doesn’t play.”

“Plex won’t play AVI or MKV after update. Also getting error updating to 0.9.12.1.1079”

Read: Plex other Problems and Solutions

Normally, Plex can play AVI video. However, it’s impossible to say for sure, since those file extensions are not formats, but containers, meaning that they can contain lots of tracks, and in the tracks, lot’s of formats. From the discussion, upgrading to Plex Media Server version 9.9.5 seems to have fixed the problem for some people and their .avi files are now working. And the auto-update of SmartHub apps is also known to give a lot of trouble. Before messing with your setup, please uninstall the app, pose off your TV, wait a minute (or two) power up and reinstall the app. This way can also fix avi failure playback on Plex from time to time.

If the two ways above can’t handle your problem. It seems that you have to convert AVI to MP4 for Plex with video converters.

Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate <Mac version> is the best choice to re-encode AVI to Plex. This video transcoder is actually a Blu-ray Ripper + DVD Ripper + Video Converter + Audio Converter. It can transcode MKV, AVI, MTS, M2TS, BDMV, VOB, ISO, MP4, FLV, H.265, etc even Blu-ray and DVD to Plex more compatible H.264/MPEG-4 MP4/MO with AAC/AC3 audio and other Plex supported format video.

In this video converter, you can choose Plex supported video and audio format and adjust A/V parameters to more fit in Plex spec. With Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate, you also can add subtitle to video for Plex streaming. It has many functions, you can learn it in its review.

Free download and install

Steps to Convert AVI to Plex for Streaming Successfully

Step 1. Import AVI videos

Launch the program, click “Load file(s)” or “;Add video” to load the AVI video file you want to convert in your PC into the program. Batch conversion feature allows you to add multiple AVI files. MKV, AVI, MTS, M2TS, BDMV, VOB, ISO, MP4 are also can be loaded to convert to Plex here.

Step 2. Select to output plex supported file format

Click “Format” bar and choose Plex supported 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.

Tip: You can click "Settings" to make sure the audio codec is right in the format video to avoid video and audio out of sync. You can refer to the chart below to set the audio codec.

Plex supports the following audio and video formats:

Step 3. Start AVI to Plex conversion

Finally, hit the “Convert” button at the bottom of the main interface. This AVI to Plex Converter will start encoding AVI to Plex friendly MP4 video automatically and will just take you for a while.

After the conversion, click “Open” to locate the converted movies. Then add the convert AVI files to Plex to stream the media on PS4, Samsung TV, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox360 or other devices using DLNA (just make sure the same local network between Plex and TV at your home).

Related Software:

Pavtube ByteCopy for Windows/Mac – This Blu-ray Ripper, also a DVD Ripper can convert Blu-ray, DVD and ISO image to Plex with original video quality. Then you can store the Blu-ray and DVD rips to QNAP TS-X53, My Cloud EX4 to stream on Apple TV 4 and Roku.