What if Plex Won't Recognize/Play AVI files?

Plex Media Server is a sophisticated media management program that takes your entire collection of movies, music, and still images and presents it in a slick and navigable package. It can help you transfer media files to the desired devices you want automatically.Plex announced that it supports wide range of media formats. If your device supports it, Plex will stream it directly. If it doesn't, Plex will transcode it to an acceptable format for your device. However, many users still can not add AVI files to Plex Media Server for smoothly playback. And people many encounter problems 'Plex not detecting AVI files' like these:

"I finally sorted out all my media on the weekend and I'm running Plex to be able to watch my stuff on my Samsung TV using smart hub. MP4 and MKV files work perfectly, but AVI will not play. Does it mean that Plex media server cannot play the AVI movies?"

"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."

Searching Plex forum, we found many people are facing the similiar troubles "AVI files not seen in Plex", "Plex won't play AVI files"... What's the matter? Basically, Plex can recognize AVI videos, well, only in the condition of compressing with the supported codec like H.264. Namely, Plex has nothing to do with those AVI files with the unmatched codec. So for the question up lines, it may be due to the codec problem. This is not a tough problem to work out, actually. You just need to transcode AVI to a Plex-friendly format (e.g. H.264 MP4). And the article here shows you how to fix this with the professional yet easy-to-use Brorsoft Video Converter Ultimate step by step.

This video app is professional on fast converting AVI to Plex Media Server with MP4 format (the most compatible video format for Plex) without quality loss. In addition, it not only supports AVI videos, but also handles various common video formats, like MKV, WMV .MXF. MTS, MOV, MP4, etc. For Mac users, Brorsoft iMedia Converter Mac is also a helpful app to encode videos for further usage.

Simple Steps to Play AVI files via Plex Flawlessly

Step 1: Load AVI files

Click "Add Video" button on the main interface to load your AVI files to the program. (Drag&Drop function is included.)

Note: batch conversion is supported, so you can load more than one file to save time.

Step 2: Select output format

Set output video format as H.264 MP4 under Format > Common Video. In general, mp4 is a well-accepted file format for its ability to save memory storage and keep up the video quality. Here 3 H.264 presets "H.264 Baseline Profile Video(*.mp4)", "H.264 Main Profile Video(*.mp4)", "H.264 High Profile Video(*.mp4)"are supported.

Tips: 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.

Step 3: Start AVI to Plex Conversion

Finally, hit the "Convert" button at the bottom of the main interface to start the conversion. It will automatically convert AVI to Plex Media Server compatible video files.

fter the conversion, click "Open" to quickly find the converted movies. Then, Plex will recognize, catalog, play and stream these AVI files at ease.

Read More:
What if Plex won't play MKV files?
How to rip DVD for Ples streaming
How to stream and play VOB files via Plex