Roku + Plex...what works, what doesn't

 Just my personal experience with what works, what doesn't, for my Roku device. I haven't found great up to date info on this subject so it's a bit trial and error between the various apps involved. I want my home videos encoded in the best format, but I also want them easily played with minimal transcoding. Short story so far, the Roku does not like opus in an mp4 container. This is unfortunate as some other targets(like browsers) don't play well with mkv format. AV1+Opus work fine enough in a webm container on both browser and Roku, so I'll probably have to switch to that for the time being. HEVC is a non-starter because of the lack of browser support. Annoyingly enough none of the options would play in the browser without transcoding, despite the fact I could play many of the files themselves directly in a <video> tag.

Tested on 2023-02-15, Roku Ultra 4800RW(11.50 build 4312-C2), Plex Server version 1.31.0.6654, Plex Roku version: 7.0.24.8154

720p, AV1+Opus in MP4: Transcodes to H264/aac in HLS. Setting to force direct play results in AV1 playing, no audio. I presume that even though it supports the AV1 stream in this case, since av1 is not yet a transcode target it forces the video to h264 just to get the audio fixed.

720p, AV1+Opus in MKV: Direct Play works. 

4K, AV1+AAC in MKV: Works.

4K, AV1+AAC in MP4: Works

4K, HEVC+AAC in MKV: Works

4K, HEVC+AAC in MP4: Works

720p, AV1+Opus in WebM: Works.

So it just chokes on the AV1+Opus in MP4 container.