Written by Sony update PS4 Pro to play 4K video from USB or media server
Four and a half months after the debut of the PlayStation 4 Pro, Sony updates the PS4’s built-in Media PLayer app to allow owners of a PS4 Pro and 4K television to play 4K-resolution MP4 files – not MKV or other formats – in the app saved on a USB stick or streamed from a home sever.
Will PS4 Pro play 4K H.265 video?
Update PS4 Media Player’s version 3.0 update, testers try to play two different versions of the same 4K video: one encoded in H.264/AVC and one encoded in H.265/HEVC. Only the former video played in the app, indicating that Media Player does not support the H.265 compression standard. From this information we can see that you can only play 4K video wrapped in MP4 container file format and compressed with H.264 compression codec with the built-in PS4 media player app.
For those people who try to play local 4K H.265 video on PS4 Pro via the Plex app, the Plex Media Server will try to perform a codec transcoding process for you due to the incompatible codec and container file format. However, the transcoding with the server requires a decently powerful CPU, while the transcoding of 4K H.265/HEVC requires significantly more CPU power. If the CPU the Plex Media Server using is not powerful enough, you will receive a very poor performance when playing 4K H.265 video on PS4 Pro via Plex.
Related article: Play Audio on PS4 Pro | Play MKV on PS4 Pro | Play 4K Video on PS4 Pro
Best way to transcode 4K H.265 for PS4 Pro playing via Plex
To get a smooth video streaming experience, it would be much ideal for you to perform the transcoding process with a third-party conversion app. Here, we highly recommend our best 4K H.265 Deocoder software – Pavtube Video Converter to you. The program has full importing for 4K H.265 video wrapped with both MP4 and MKV container file format. Thanks to its batch conversion mode, you can import multiple 4K H.265 video into the application at one time for conversion to save your precious time.
Another important reason why we choose this program to decode H.265 to H.264 is that the program supports hard-ware encoding acceleration function. You can get up to 6x faster H.264 codec encoding speed as long as you run your computer on Graphic card that supports Nvidia CUDA or AMD App technology.
To get better output file quality, you can flexibly adjust output profile parameters including video codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate, audio codec, bit rate, sample rate, channels, etc as you like in the program’s “Profile Settings” window.
For Mac users, please go to download Pavtube Video Converter for Mac to complete the conversion on macOS High Sierra, macOS Sierra, Mac OS X El Capitan, Mac OS X Yosemite, Mac OS X Mavericks, etc.
Step by Step to Transcode 4K H.265 for PS4 Pro Plex Smooth Streaming
Step 1: Load 4K H.265 files into the program.
Start the program on your computer, click “File” > “Load Video/Audio” or “Load from folder” button to import 4K H.265 video files into the program.
Step 2: Output PS4 Pro supported 4K file formats.
Click “Format” bar, from its drop-down option, choose PS4 Pro supported 4K MP4 video from “Common Video” > “H.264 High Profile Video(*.mp4)” to output.
Tips: Open “Profile Settings” window, here all the profile parameters including video codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate, audio codec, bit rate, sample rate, channels, etc are adjustable to facilitate you to make a balance between the video quality and the file size.
Step 3: Enable GPU Encode Acceleration.
Click “Tools” > “Options”, in the opened “Options” window, click “Acceleration” menu, then check “Enable GPU Encode Acceleration” otpion so that the program will accelerate conversion speed when encoding H.265 to H.264 codec.
Step 4: Begin the conversion process.
Go back to the main interface, click right-bottom “Convert” button to begin the conversion from 4K H.265 video to PS4 Pro supported 4K file H.264 formats conversion process.
When the conversion is completed, click “Open Output Folder” to pop out the folder with converted files, then add converted files to Plex Media Server for smoothly streaming to PS4 Pro.
