PLEX PLAYBACK HELP NEEDED PLEASE

ashtonjay

So i sat down to watch a movie last night and it kept buffering and displaying a message saying words to the effect of

"server isnt fast enough to stream"

i have a new terra master f210 nas with 4x4tb WD Red drives and i doubled the memory on it too

its been ok for weeks to be honest so not too surer as to why its started now

also im on Virmin medias 500 mb speed and am plugged straight into the router via cat 6 cable too

is there maybe an issue with the file compatability?

i download and drag everythig to the nas maybe some files need transcoding? if so what is the best most reliable format and what software would i use to convert them


a lot of questrions i know but im just trying to make sense of it all

bubblegum57

i posted this where you first asked.

I am using a Shield as a server. Play the movie, go to settings & change the bit rate?

Somewhere in settings, I think there is a setting, to direct play. But I can't remember.

I am surprised it won't play. I was interested in the Terramaster nas's

Another option is from plex webpage settings, manage, optimised versions, & optimise the movie. This might take a couple hours.

I assume the nas is the server, are you using a different device as the client?

Lleyton

What are the specs of the movie you had trouble with playback?

What device are you using to playback your files on?

Sounds like Plex is transcoding the file, this could be due to incompatible codec, audio or bitrate is too high for your device. The error you listed above would suggest your NAS is struggling to transcode the file.

The key is to try and get all files to play without transcoding (direct play)

I have a 100TB  Emby server which has 5 family members on and they have 0 issues with playback, even with 50GB BluRay remuxes. 3 of them live the other end of town and have poor broadband during evenings. They use either Nvidia Shield or Firestick (2019) model. LAN devices also have 0 issues with 4K playback.

ashtonjay

i have 4 sheilds in various rooms all wired and my terramaster f220 nas has 4x4tb wd red drives and the nas is wired into my virmin media router
i am on 500 mb download speed

howver i watched the same fil, i had issues with last night and it was fine

i always tend to get 1080p mkvs as i like decent quality video to watch back
plex and emby are both installed on my nas and i have doubled the memory on the nas too

mij

Have you unticked "Automatically adjust quality (Beta)"?  If I remember correctly, it interferes with Direct Play.

Lleyton

If you want to find the issue check the log files for Plex or see if you had anything running in the background on your NAS. I believe Plex creates a log file for transcodes.

I moved to Emby completly about 18 months ago and even family say they prefer the Emby apps. (Android/ windows only)

Your setup is more than enough for direct play of any files you throw at the shield tv's so I'd try what mij mentioned.

Your download speeds won't matter as you are playing files locally from your NAS and all are hard wired.

If you prefer your 1080p files have you taken a look at the HEVC codec? ... same quality but much smaller file sizes.

ashtonjay

cheers fellas
i may bin plex off full stop and go down the emby route

especially now as my plex for some reason says it is unreachable

ashtonjay

did you pay for the premium version of emby?

im assumimg its the only version you can have anyway as my emby says im on a trial until the 11th Nov

next010

If you always want direct play purchase MrMC on the Shield.

Use the Plex or Emby connection in its settings and it will populate it's media library with plex listings, you can see it has an option to enable transcoding which is turned off by default, MrMC will decode everything locally using Shields video hardware and CPU.

MrMC is a modified version of Kodi you can opt to install a Plex plugin in Kodi too which will can also do the above but I think it allows transcoding by the server as default.

Lleyton

I pay for the Emby pass, I beleive there is a free version which only has basic options available but full playback is supported via the web player. Emby pass is more than worth the money especially if you have multiple users.