Best PLEX video yet. You condensed what took me years to figure out into a short video. LON you nailed it with bitrate, bandwidth, and bog (transcoding). Don’t forget to check your clients like LON said. The perfect setup is still only as good as the client can deliver. Thanks LON!
This video really covered all the bases! After googling and searching RUclips for hours, I stumbled across this video, and you really do cover so much here that multiple searches couldn’t find! Thank you for your content!
While Powerline is not the best option, it depends on the electrical wiring in the house/apartment and the size of the house/apartment. I don't expect it to get 1Gbps, it's better than 500Mbps and I am able to use it to stream to 2 different rooms with Live TV and Plex as well as other streaming apps without connection issues. I have even moved from a 2400 sq. ft. house to a 1000 sq. ft apartment without any issues.
Great video. I recently moved my Plex server from my rysen desktop to my new beefy synergy NAS. Am sure this vid will be very useful in troubleshooting during my adventures.
Thank you for these great videos. For the part where you streamed to the phone and you changed the quality to direct play - why did plex try to transcode in the first place when your device would already accept the stream?
Good video man I have a question though, why do I all of a sudden get this message after months of having a flawless experience?: "Conversion failed. The transcoder failed to start up."
The issue I have is that when playing content from either local or remote servers, even at direct-play - the videos would "skip ahead". You'll be watching something and next moment you notice the conversation missed something and it would've skipped 5 or 10 seconds ahead. Only way to solve it is to rewind, stop playback and then resuming playback. For the life of me I cannot figure out what is causing this. It's on a PS5.
My Plex server can't transcode h.265. I learned the hard way that the Android version of Plex wants to transcode subtitles, including the type used on Anime. My work around is Kodi with the Plex add on. Kodi can direct play the subtitled h.265 content with no issues. The Plex add on is open source and people are keeping it working.
I'm using Plex Directplay since 2 years(I have a PC with Plex Media server running. I access my files from Samsung TV - Plex app). Everything was working fine. But from last week when I play any file in TV, it just keeps loading and doesn't play. When I go in app's settings, it shows Media server status - Indirect). Please help!
Lon, I've never seen how you handle your music collection. I really don't want that in Plex. That works great for TV and Movies. Frustrated on why I'm even trying to understand how to streamline MusicBee on PC I feel like an idiot I didn't research what people are doing on QNAP earlier. I see random things about Roon. Is Roon the standard? What do you do? Archiving flac albums and want to do it proper.
@@LonSeidman That's Plex. And old video. My setup and understanding is old and my point on trying to understand what modern people do. Moderns players have Smart Song selection much like how Pandora Radio used to. Player being a whole other obstacle to tackle considering using an old monitor as a wall video for interesting visuals that MusicBee on PC offers, but I'm talking about server content. Plex in this aspect is useless unless one wants to babysit what gets to be played. Works great for TV and Movie consumption, but it a pretty 'dumb' app when it comes to music.
Clear and concise as always! Thank You While I'm commenting, let me second Lon's recommendation for MoCA delivery over coax. A fabulous bit of technology for those of us with older homes.
Why not pull out the coax and replace with cat 6 or higher? I would have done that but the previous owners let the installer run the coax on the outside of the house so that nastiness had to go.
Thank you for posting this video. I'm glad you recommend a hard wired connection, but I have an issue and was wondering if you ever encountered it. On my Roku Ultra, hardwired, when trying to direct play a high bit rate 1080p h.264 mkv movie, the playback stops as soon as it starts. I discovered the problem is the way Plex buffers on playback starts. It pushes as much data as it can through the network to buffer the video which crashes the playback. When direct playing the same movie on my iPhone through wireless AC, the stream hits almost 200Mbps which a 10/100 ethernet connection obviously can not handle. It doesn't bother me that much, because transcoding at 20Mbps is no problem for the dual Xeon server. I would just like to direct play 1080p content bit for bit the way is was intended to be. I can send some some screen shots if the Plex network activity if you're interested. Thanks again, your content is always informative.
Great video... as always. One thing I would like to see is how to improve playback on XBox One. I loved the video where you compare the Shield to the XBONE... to your point, the Shield is definitely more responsive. I have both. But when playing through my home theater system... I find the depth of the audio much better on XBONE. Once the movie is playing responsiveness is no longer an issue. If it;s a comedy... not so relevant... If it's an action movie with surround effects... I want the better sound. So my problem is the XBONE app sometimes goes into an infinite buffering loop (even with a hardwired connection). It's a known issue that I have been unable to find a fix for. Have you heard of any solutions? Also... I tried to separate my IOT devices like you have in one of your videos but Plex became a problem because it couldn't communicate through the VLANS. I'd love to see how you handle this. Thanks for all of your content!
i was under the impression that since your playing it on you home network it doesnt use bandwidth up as much , or maybe they are referring to the outside web
Same here. My experience with Plex has been horrible. It takes way too much bandwidth. I've tried everything and the buffering won't stop. My library is on an Asus Gaming Laptop. All I want is to take my android phone and stream the movies on the laptop to the phone while lying comfortably on my bed, but no. It' impossible.
Pled was playing fine when we were using the app trough Firestick. We upgraded our TV to the Samsung Q60T QLED 4K which had the app preinstalled along with other apps and Plex constantly buffers when trying to watch. All other apps work fine. Please help!
I’m having trouble with my TV show starting over with episode one each time I go back to Plex on my Apple TV 4K and Roku express. I want it to just play the next episode of the series like Netflix does. What is the correct procedure for doing this?ë
I like the way the videos explain, they are very informative and illustrated with many technical things that enrich the content; This one from plex has helped me a lot, and I've seen many videos I congratulate you. unfortunately I cannot find someone in Spanish with this variety of topics and analyzes. English is not my first language. You could make a video with Spanish dubbing or subtitle the videos in Spanish, thank you.
Hey Lon, or anyone else - I seem to have issues with configuring plex to passthrough my vpn properly - anyone know the best way to set it up? tried what they said on their site, doesn't seem to work.
Usually the VPN providers have instructions on how to do this. I’ve had both TorGuard and Mullvad VPN running on my Asus routers and can properly access my plex server with a VPN running by using instructions provided on the VPN provider websites or by going through their support channel. The VPN provider needs to support port forwarding so you can open up a port on on the VPN provider website first and then create the forwarding rules on the router, so in my case it’s a file in a directory with iptable entries (again provided by VPN provider’s help page) that forwards to plex server. But you’re leaving out information like where is your VPN running on? Is it on a windows computer, running on a router? Either way, you’re best bet will be finding the tutorials provided by VPN company. If that VPN provider doesn’t support port forwarding then you can’t access plex while on the VPN that I know of.
Most of this just confuses me, maybe I'm finally too old to get it. If you can point me somewhere, please do. I have a late 2015 iMac / Mojave Plex Server, Apple TV 4K, Nighthawk X6 R8000. All on gigabit ethernet. I bought all my movies through itunes, used Tuneskit M4V Converter. Some of the videos are ripped DVD's - standard, not bluray. Some are videos that were downloaded that play in HD in iTunes, RUclips, or from the original websites - all on the Apple TV 4K. All the files are on an external WD drive (8TB). Unless I have it convert auto - and it does it down to 720x302 - it will not play on Apple TV 4K without the "Your connection to the server is not fast enough to ...". I honestly don't know what to do. Any help would be appreciated. Everything in iTunes plays flawlessly, even the converted videos if added back to iTunes.
8:22 That's a constant problem for me lately. I use the Nvidia Shield (2017) for my server and if someone wants to watch something on a firestick, it's usually a constant buffer wheel unless I "Optimize" the file by going to Plex on a web browser. From my experience, it's generally easier to link your Plex server to the VLC app and make shortcuts for your Movie, TV and Music folders. VLC doesn't need the files transcoded- but then again, the UI for VLC isn't nearly as good as the Plex app.
I have a i7 76700 transcoder box using 1 TB m.2 buffered drive 1080 ti transcoder 1 gb up and down yet when streaming out if the home it buffers and its vexing me
I know this video is old but I'm running into multiple users telling me that when trying to steam 4k direct play content with high bit rates it's stuttering and saying connection to server is not good enough. I'm an IT professional with lots of background in tch and I've already eliminated local network issues the people reporting has lg oled tvs with nvidia shields and apple Tvs, wired ethernet, fiber internet. I'm running a very stable 120mbps upload and have also reviewed all my local hw and software situation to eliminate any issues. For the last year these users have streamed the same content fine. The last possibility is isp throttling plex traffic. Could you help do some research to find out more on how to confirm this, how big of an issue it is and some possible solutions and work arounds?
@@LonSeidman definitely not a bandwidth problem. Speed tests consistently get 120mbps and bit rates on these 4k files are between 20-40mbps. The same files in some cases streamed fine preivous now stop and start and get message of not fast enough connection.
@@LonSeidman in 4k all of a sudden a single 20-40mbps stream stutters preivously 2 atleast just fine.. What are some tools and strategies to identify if it's the server side or the client side that's throttling and is vpn the only work around?
Thanks for this. I'm able to download videos from RUclips in either the mp4 or mkv format, and they play fine on my computer, but Plex can't decode them. I just continue to get a spinning cursor and then an error message. This started about six months ago. Is anyone else encountering this and found a solution to it?
AMD has their own hardware acceleration that support Plex too, the AMD VCE technology is also capable to help the Plex for its transcoding tasks. Theoretically both NVIDIA and AMD graphic card are able to help transcoding, but comparatively, NVIDIA performs a better efficiency than AMD's hardware transcode support.
Lon, could you show me, or make a video showing how to deal with Plex pixelating during certain content under hardware transcoding? I have some files on my Synology NAS server, a DS920+ and the files in question are in a VC-1 format, trying to play on Plex on a Roku TV. In order to play the files, Plex uses hardware transcoding, and the media plays back without a problem, except for there's certain scenes with heavy pixelation. I've tried everything I can think of, from playing around with the transcoder settings, to making optimized versions of the media, in which case the optimized files are permanently pixelated as Plex still uses the hardware transcoding in order to optimize said media. If there is a work around, I've been unable to find it. But you are an expert and look forward to your content!! Thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to offer.
I run my plex server off my HP microserver gen8 that has an intel celeron g1610T cpu (ivy bridge). My client is an nvidia shield (2015). Would I be better off using the shield as the plex server instead?
I have no playback issues when playing ripped concert blu-rays (1080P) from my PMS on my PC to my Nvidia Shield, over wi-fi, except when I choose the highest audio format (e.g., DTS HD MA). It plays for about 15 seconds then buffers. Do you think hard wiring will solve the problem? Is there a setting to check before going through the expense of hard wiring? Is DTS HD MA that much more data? By the way 4K movies stream just fine.
Dear Lon, I have been using Plex (I'm a lifetime member) for some time now on my Nvidia shield Pro. I m streaming the content from my Synology NAS DS218 Play. Recently the movies are randomly jumping forward from a couple seconds to over 20min. Would you know what causes this and how to fix it? Many thanks for your help!
I’m having trouble with the quality of my remote streaming. I have movies ripped with 8-15mbps bitrate, 1080p, but they look crappy when I play them remotely. Locally they can stream in their original and transcoded quality just fine. I have an i5-6600 cpu. My upload speed/bandwidth at the server is usually 20-30mbps, the download speed in my remote client is also the same. My settings are all set to maximum. I never actually experienced streaming with the supposed quality set. That’s why I’m wondering is it because that I don’t have Plex Pass, that’s why my uploads are probably limited in quality? Or am I really supposed to be able to stream with original or at least 8mbps, 1080p given the capacity of my system/network, even though I don’t have Plex Pass?
I hate that Plex requires the paid Plex Pass for hardware encoding (on PC servers). And apparently you need a separate Plex Pass for each user with their own server, even if you are in a Plex Home with someone who has a Plex Pass.
i have noticed, on my rpi4 where im running plex, if i share movies with friends over the internet they have problems, and it might be my upload speed, but when i reencode it and lower the audio to lets say 160 bit and keep the video bitrate where it is then it runs fine for them
Best plex upgrade I ever did was move it from windows to Ubuntu on an esxi server. The windows was running on a high end workstation chip with 8 cores. The Linux one has slower core speeds because I have 24 cores but only assign 8 vcpus to plex. Both old and new are connected to media library via 10gig but now library scan take a couple of seconds with thousands of items.
Is there a chart that exists with all the different types of audio and video codecs that work the best with Plex? I would love to see if x264 works better with AAC 5.1 or AC3 51 or even DTS 5.1. I find that if i have videos with x264 video codecs with AAC 2.0 Audio, the sound is very very low. I have to turn my TV up so much. A performance chart would be great with Plex. love the videos .
Hey Lon, first Love your channel!!! Great stuff about Plex. More to the point... I have tried to move my Plex server from my everyday desk top computer to its very own (new to me) computer. I did have an issue with the data being moved over to the new computer but i have corrected that. Now, I believe in the process i am getting an error message telling me the "server is currently unavailable ". Plex Media server is the only thing installed on this computer. I have installed and reinstalled plex many times, even completely uninstalled the whole thing. Also, my data/files are installed on another 22TB Nas Synology drives, so that is not an issue. I have not deleted the old plex from the previous computer so maybe I can use that as a source to get files from What would you suggest doing at this point? Wayne March 1 2024
Wonder how the Servio compares to using a Shield for DVR recordings. Servio seems like simple solution, with no need to even own a Shield or other solution.
Anyone who updates their Raspberry Pi Plex Server apps on the IPhone or iPad have to update the Plex media server manually. It’s not easy doing it manually. So I put up a video how to manually update your raspberry pi Plex media server
Informative video, unfortunately didn't help at all. Sadly Plex worked way better when I was still using my 360. On my series S its completely un watchable even know I have high speed internet using cables not WiFi. I just get a pic quality that looks like a 80's home video
@@TheFbiFilesRepeat I was just about to come back and apologize because my response was a bit dickish. Yea something must be wrong. The best thing I did was switch from using windows to Ubuntu for my plex server. I also hear the Mac version is good but I’m a Linux guy at work and Mac for client stuff so went with Linux for plex
Best PLEX video yet. You condensed what took me years to figure out into a short video. LON you nailed it with bitrate, bandwidth, and bog (transcoding). Don’t forget to check your clients like LON said. The perfect setup is still only as good as the client can deliver. Thanks LON!
This video really covered all the bases! After googling and searching RUclips for hours, I stumbled across this video, and you really do cover so much here that multiple searches couldn’t find! Thank you for your content!
Thank you for your videos on Plex! Super helpful! Keep up the wonderful work!
While Powerline is not the best option, it depends on the electrical wiring in the house/apartment and the size of the house/apartment. I don't expect it to get 1Gbps, it's better than 500Mbps and I am able to use it to stream to 2 different rooms with Live TV and Plex as well as other streaming apps without connection issues. I have even moved from a 2400 sq. ft. house to a 1000 sq. ft apartment without any issues.
Great video. I recently moved my Plex server from my rysen desktop to my new beefy synergy NAS. Am sure this vid will be very useful in troubleshooting during my adventures.
Thank you for these great videos. For the part where you streamed to the phone and you changed the quality to direct play - why did plex try to transcode in the first place when your device would already accept the stream?
You sir are the Dr Plex of RUclips... awesome video as always
Good video man
I have a question though, why do I all of a sudden get this message after months of having a flawless experience?:
"Conversion failed. The transcoder failed to start up."
The issue I have is that when playing content from either local or remote servers, even at direct-play - the videos would "skip ahead". You'll be watching something and next moment you notice the conversation missed something and it would've skipped 5 or 10 seconds ahead. Only way to solve it is to rewind, stop playback and then resuming playback. For the life of me I cannot figure out what is causing this. It's on a PS5.
My Plex server can't transcode h.265. I learned the hard way that the Android version of Plex wants to transcode subtitles, including the type used on Anime. My work around is Kodi with the Plex add on. Kodi can direct play the subtitled h.265 content with no issues. The Plex add on is open source and people are keeping it working.
I'm using Plex Directplay since 2 years(I have a PC with Plex Media server running. I access my files from Samsung TV - Plex app). Everything was working fine. But from last week when I play any file in TV, it just keeps loading and doesn't play. When I go in app's settings, it shows Media server status - Indirect). Please help!
Lon, I've never seen how you handle your music collection. I really don't want that in Plex. That works great for TV and Movies. Frustrated on why I'm even trying to understand how to streamline MusicBee on PC I feel like an idiot I didn't research what people are doing on QNAP earlier. I see random things about Roon. Is Roon the standard? What do you do? Archiving flac albums and want to do it proper.
Did you see this one ? ruclips.net/video/3MWTvCrrQZE/видео.html
@@LonSeidman That's Plex. And old video. My setup and understanding is old and my point on trying to understand what modern people do. Moderns players have Smart Song selection much like how Pandora Radio used to. Player being a whole other obstacle to tackle considering using an old monitor as a wall video for interesting visuals that MusicBee on PC offers, but I'm talking about server content.
Plex in this aspect is useless unless one wants to babysit what gets to be played. Works great for TV and Movie consumption, but it a pretty 'dumb' app when it comes to music.
@@Paperclown Have you seen Plexamp? Much smarter.
Clear and concise as always! Thank You While I'm commenting, let me second Lon's recommendation for MoCA delivery over coax. A fabulous bit of technology for those of us with older homes.
Why not pull out the coax and replace with cat 6 or higher? I would have done that but the previous owners let the installer run the coax on the outside of the house so that nastiness had to go.
@@lordgarth1 When building the house, I ran coax through the walls while framing the 2 story structure. Pulling out the coax would be a nightmare
Thank you for posting this video. I'm glad you recommend a hard wired connection, but I have an issue and was wondering if you ever encountered it. On my Roku Ultra, hardwired, when trying to direct play a high bit rate 1080p h.264 mkv movie, the playback stops as soon as it starts. I discovered the problem is the way Plex buffers on playback starts. It pushes as much data as it can through the network to buffer the video which crashes the playback. When direct playing the same movie on my iPhone through wireless AC, the stream hits almost 200Mbps which a 10/100 ethernet connection obviously can not handle. It doesn't bother me that much, because transcoding at 20Mbps is no problem for the dual Xeon server. I would just like to direct play 1080p content bit for bit the way is was intended to be. I can send some some screen shots if the Plex network activity if you're interested. Thanks again, your content is always informative.
Great video! Thanks! Once I tinkered with my playback settings Plex Live works great now!
Great video... as always. One thing I would like to see is how to improve playback on XBox One. I loved the video where you compare the Shield to the XBONE... to your point, the Shield is definitely more responsive. I have both. But when playing through my home theater system... I find the depth of the audio much better on XBONE. Once the movie is playing responsiveness is no longer an issue. If it;s a comedy... not so relevant... If it's an action movie with surround effects... I want the better sound. So my problem is the XBONE app sometimes goes into an infinite buffering loop (even with a hardwired connection). It's a known issue that I have been unable to find a fix for. Have you heard of any solutions?
Also... I tried to separate my IOT devices like you have in one of your videos but Plex became a problem because it couldn't communicate through the VLANS. I'd love to see how you handle this.
Thanks for all of your content!
You made it sound as if you can watch OTA TV on Plex without a Pass unless you want DVR then you need the Pass. I don't think that is right.
Live was free for the last couple of months but it looks like the free period may have just ended.
Very useful, you have a very underrated channel !
i was under the impression that since your playing it on you home network it doesnt use bandwidth up as much , or maybe they are referring to the outside web
I've had nothing but trouble with PLEX. I regret paying for it! I don't recommend it to anyone!
Same here. My experience with Plex has been horrible. It takes way too much bandwidth. I've tried everything and the buffering won't stop. My library is on an Asus Gaming Laptop. All I want is to take my android phone and stream the movies on the laptop to the phone while lying comfortably on my bed, but no. It' impossible.
Pled was playing fine when we were using the app trough Firestick. We upgraded our TV to the Samsung Q60T QLED 4K which had the app preinstalled along with other apps and Plex constantly buffers when trying to watch. All other apps work fine. Please help!
some ideas for what i'm doing wrong! When I try to put other audio track on my plex freezes. 🥺
I have 600 fiber and it still stays when I try it on any of my other device that might benefit isn’t enough.
I’m having trouble with my TV show starting over with episode one each time I go back to Plex on my Apple TV 4K and Roku express. I want it to just play the next episode of the series like Netflix does. What is the correct procedure for doing this?ë
Great video, thanks!!
I like the way the videos explain, they are very informative and illustrated with many technical things that enrich the content; This one from plex has helped me a lot, and I've seen many videos I congratulate you. unfortunately I cannot find someone in Spanish with this variety of topics and analyzes. English is not my first language. You could make a video with Spanish dubbing or subtitle the videos in Spanish, thank you.
Hey Lon, or anyone else - I seem to have issues with configuring plex to passthrough my vpn properly - anyone know the best way to set it up? tried what they said on their site, doesn't seem to work.
Usually the VPN providers have instructions on how to do this. I’ve had both TorGuard and Mullvad VPN running on my Asus routers and can properly access my plex server with a VPN running by using instructions provided on the VPN provider websites or by going through their support channel. The VPN provider needs to support port forwarding so you can open up a port on on the VPN provider website first and then create the forwarding rules on the router, so in my case it’s a file in a directory with iptable entries (again provided by VPN provider’s help page) that forwards to plex server. But you’re leaving out information like where is your VPN running on? Is it on a windows computer, running on a router? Either way, you’re best bet will be finding the tutorials provided by VPN company. If that VPN provider doesn’t support port forwarding then you can’t access plex while on the VPN that I know of.
do i need plex plass for direct play of HEVC files? i dont see this option on my chrome web browser
Most of this just confuses me, maybe I'm finally too old to get it. If you can point me somewhere, please do. I have a late 2015 iMac / Mojave Plex Server, Apple TV 4K, Nighthawk X6 R8000. All on gigabit ethernet. I bought all my movies through itunes, used Tuneskit M4V Converter. Some of the videos are ripped DVD's - standard, not bluray. Some are videos that were downloaded that play in HD in iTunes, RUclips, or from the original websites - all on the Apple TV 4K. All the files are on an external WD drive (8TB). Unless I have it convert auto - and it does it down to 720x302 - it will not play on Apple TV 4K without the "Your connection to the server is not fast enough to ...". I honestly don't know what to do. Any help would be appreciated. Everything in iTunes plays flawlessly, even the converted videos if added back to iTunes.
8:22 That's a constant problem for me lately. I use the Nvidia Shield (2017) for my server and if someone wants to watch something on a firestick, it's usually a constant buffer wheel unless I "Optimize" the file by going to Plex on a web browser.
From my experience, it's generally easier to link your Plex server to the VLC app and make shortcuts for your Movie, TV and Music folders. VLC doesn't need the files transcoded- but then again, the UI for VLC isn't nearly as good as the Plex app.
I have a i7 76700 transcoder box using 1 TB m.2 buffered drive 1080 ti transcoder 1 gb up and down yet when streaming out if the home it buffers and its vexing me
I know this video is old but I'm running into multiple users telling me that when trying to steam 4k direct play content with high bit rates it's stuttering and saying connection to server is not good enough. I'm an IT professional with lots of background in tch and I've already eliminated local network issues the people reporting has lg oled tvs with nvidia shields and apple Tvs, wired ethernet, fiber internet. I'm running a very stable 120mbps upload and have also reviewed all my local hw and software situation to eliminate any issues. For the last year these users have streamed the same content fine. The last possibility is isp throttling plex traffic. Could you help do some research to find out more on how to confirm this, how big of an issue it is and some possible solutions and work arounds?
How high a bit rate? The 120 upstream seems like it’s getting overly saturated. A Blu ray mkv can use 100 megabits just for a single film.
@@LonSeidman definitely not a bandwidth problem. Speed tests consistently get 120mbps and bit rates on these 4k files are between 20-40mbps. The same files in some cases streamed fine preivous now stop and start and get message of not fast enough connection.
@@ckirkyg Could be your ISP throttling, peering issues, etc. How many people are streaming at once?
@@LonSeidman in 4k all of a sudden a single 20-40mbps stream stutters preivously 2 atleast just fine.. What are some tools and strategies to identify if it's the server side or the client side that's throttling and is vpn the only work around?
Thanks for this. I'm able to download videos from RUclips in either the mp4 or mkv format, and they play fine on my computer, but Plex can't decode them. I just continue to get a spinning cursor and then an error message. This started about six months ago. Is anyone else encountering this and found a solution to it?
Hi, is it possible that plex does NOT show mkv files ??? I have a series with mkv files and plex does not recognize any file. can you help ?
Strange my Main rig is a 5900X wtih 6700XT and I have no issues transcoding
AMD has their own hardware acceleration that support Plex too, the AMD VCE technology is also capable to help the Plex for its transcoding tasks. Theoretically both NVIDIA and AMD graphic card are able to help transcoding, but comparatively, NVIDIA performs a better efficiency than AMD's hardware transcode support.
I cannot get any 1080p HEVC files to play on my iphone when I am away from home
Error message: “File can’t be played”How do I get my Plex media to play off of a new external drive?
Lon, could you show me, or make a video showing how to deal with Plex pixelating during certain content under hardware transcoding? I have some files on my Synology NAS server, a DS920+ and the files in question are in a VC-1 format, trying to play on Plex on a Roku TV. In order to play the files, Plex uses hardware transcoding, and the media plays back without a problem, except for there's certain scenes with heavy pixelation. I've tried everything I can think of, from playing around with the transcoder settings, to making optimized versions of the media, in which case the optimized files are permanently pixelated as Plex still uses the hardware transcoding in order to optimize said media. If there is a work around, I've been unable to find it. But you are an expert and look forward to your content!! Thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to offer.
I run my plex server off my HP microserver gen8 that has an intel celeron g1610T cpu (ivy bridge). My client is an nvidia shield (2015). Would I be better off using the shield as the plex server instead?
excellent informative video as always lon much apreciated
I have no playback issues when playing ripped concert blu-rays (1080P) from my PMS on my PC to my Nvidia Shield, over wi-fi, except when I choose the highest audio format (e.g., DTS HD MA). It plays for about 15 seconds then buffers. Do you think hard wiring will solve the problem? Is there a setting to check before going through the expense of hard wiring? Is DTS HD MA that much more data? By the way 4K movies stream just fine.
Dear Lon, I have been using Plex (I'm a lifetime member) for some time now on my Nvidia shield Pro. I m streaming the content from my Synology NAS DS218 Play. Recently the movies are randomly jumping forward from a couple seconds to over 20min. Would you know what causes this and how to fix it? Many thanks for your help!
I’m having trouble with the quality of my remote streaming. I have movies ripped with 8-15mbps bitrate, 1080p, but they look crappy when I play them remotely. Locally they can stream in their original and transcoded quality just fine. I have an i5-6600 cpu. My upload speed/bandwidth at the server is usually 20-30mbps, the download speed in my remote client is also the same. My settings are all set to maximum. I never actually experienced streaming with the supposed quality set. That’s why I’m wondering is it because that I don’t have Plex Pass, that’s why my uploads are probably limited in quality? Or am I really supposed to be able to stream with original or at least 8mbps, 1080p given the capacity of my system/network, even though I don’t have Plex Pass?
I hate that Plex requires the paid Plex Pass for hardware encoding (on PC servers). And apparently you need a separate Plex Pass for each user with their own server, even if you are in a Plex Home with someone who has a Plex Pass.
i have noticed, on my rpi4 where im running plex, if i share movies with friends over the internet they have problems, and it might be my upload speed, but when i reencode it and lower the audio to lets say 160 bit and keep the video bitrate where it is then it runs fine for them
That's because it's trying to use your pi 4 to transcode for their devices. And I doubt a pi4 is fast enough
Multichannel sound can often trigger a transcode DTS or something like that
Best plex upgrade I ever did was move it from windows to Ubuntu on an esxi server. The windows was running on a high end workstation chip with 8 cores. The Linux one has slower core speeds because I have 24 cores but only assign 8 vcpus to plex. Both old and new are connected to media library via 10gig but now library scan take a couple of seconds with thousands of items.
Is there a chart that exists with all the different types of audio and video codecs that work the best with Plex? I would love to see if x264 works better with AAC 5.1 or AC3 51 or even DTS 5.1. I find that if i have videos with x264 video codecs with AAC 2.0 Audio, the sound is very very low. I have to turn my TV up so much. A performance chart would be great with Plex. love the videos .
Hey Lon, first Love your channel!!! Great stuff about Plex. More to the point... I have tried to move my Plex server from my everyday desk top computer to its very own (new to me) computer. I did have an issue with the data being moved over to the new computer but i have corrected that. Now, I believe in the process i am getting an error message telling me the "server is currently unavailable ".
Plex Media server is the only thing installed on this computer. I have installed and reinstalled plex many times, even completely uninstalled the whole thing. Also, my data/files are installed on another 22TB Nas Synology drives, so that is not an issue. I have not deleted the old plex from the previous computer so maybe I can use that as a source to get files from
What would you suggest doing at this point?
Wayne
March 1 2024
My problem was fixed by play original format.
They have had mistitling issues, too, please notie..they mis title episodes, took a film called EXPECTING and passed IT off as WHAT 2 EXPECT..
I've never used plex before but getting a playback error :(
Wonder how the Servio compares to using a Shield for DVR recordings. Servio seems like simple solution, with no need to even own a Shield or other solution.
The story is entrily different 33 mbps the android work perfectly fine but the plex have buffering issues a pause . May be need more bandwidth.
I'm have sound issues
Anyone who updates their Raspberry Pi Plex Server apps on the IPhone or iPad have to update the Plex media server manually.
It’s not easy doing it manually. So I put up a video how to manually update your raspberry pi Plex media server
Isn't it about time we lose the word "film", because it isn't film. OBVIOUSLY
If there's anyone who knows about a video that tells you how to expland bitrate on plex that isn't 7 hours long, let me know please
Informative video, unfortunately didn't help at all. Sadly Plex worked way better when I was still using my 360. On my series S its completely un watchable even know I have high speed internet using cables not WiFi. I just get a pic quality that looks like a 80's home video
use QOS on your router
4K streams with no issues over wifi if decent equipment is used.
Not true. I have a great pc and good wifi and cannot play 4k smoothly
@@TheFbiFilesRepeat then you don’t have good WiFi or your pc is crap.
@@lordgarth1 no its all good something else is wrong
@@TheFbiFilesRepeat I was just about to come back and apologize because my response was a bit dickish. Yea something must be wrong. The best thing I did was switch from using windows to Ubuntu for my plex server. I also hear the Mac version is good but I’m a Linux guy at work and Mac for client stuff so went with Linux for plex
This is all so much more of a hassle that it's worth. EVERY DAY, I run into some bullshit problem! F*** this!
I have fast internet... Trying to watch a 1080... should be cake... but it's shit... total shit... PLEX SuX!
Ethernet is not always faster than Wifi. ac wifi is sometimes much faster
Not true