October 10, 20232 yr I have a question about direct play (no transcoding) with Plex, Emby and so on, and hope here is the right place. When i want to play something 4K, the playback is buffering all the time and i would like to know if anybody can tell me where my bottleneck is. I can get a smooth playback if i transcode with Intel Quick Sync but it can't be right that i have to do that on my local network with only one user ? I think it's the cpu that is not powerfull enough but i'm not sure. Network is cabeled 2,5Gb were the player is an Apple TV 4K with a 1Gb connection (No wifi anywhere) Don't run any VM's Unraid server is Asus PRIME H410M-A Intel® Core™ i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz 32 GiB DDR4 2,5 GB network card 3 spinning disks 1 cache ssd I have no Gpu in the machine, would it help if i did or is a Gpu only used for transcoding or can you also use it in direct playback ? Hope someone can help me forward, thanks.
October 10, 20232 yr 3 minutes ago, Corvo said: Gpu only used for transcoding this 1- make sure the drive where the video is stored isn't being actively accessed by anything else 2- try another device 3- check your network
October 10, 20232 yr 10 minutes ago, Corvo said: When i want to play something 4K, the playback is buffering all the time and i would like to know if anybody can tell me where my bottleneck is. I can get a smooth playback if i transcode with Intel Quick Sync but it can't be right that i have to do that on my local network with only one user Are you sure that your client device is compatible with the file format and capable of playing 4K files, as configured? Edited October 10, 20232 yr by Lolight
October 10, 20232 yr Author 8 minutes ago, Michael_P said: this 1- make sure the drive where the video is stored isn't being actively accessed by anything else 2- try another device 3- check your network 1. The server is only a storage server with Plex installed 2. Have tried with Windows and Mac machines all hardwired 3. Network run at max speed if i test it.
October 10, 20232 yr Author 9 minutes ago, Lolight said: Are you sure that your client device is compatible with the file format and capable of playing 4K files, as configured? Client is a New Apple TV 4K. Maybe i'm dumb, but should it not be able to playback mkv's ? 1080 mkv is running fine. Dont see any settings in the Apple Tv or in the Plex app regarding 4K ?
October 10, 20232 yr 3 minutes ago, Corvo said: Client is a New Apple TV 4K Sure, but if you have something else to try you can rule it out 9 minutes ago, Corvo said: 1. The server is only a storage server with Plex installed 2. Have tried with Windows and Mac machines all hardwired 3. Network run at max speed if i test it. Were the windows and mac machinese connected to the same network port as the Apple TV?
October 10, 20232 yr I have a very similar setup like you, i5-10400 CPU, but 62GB RAM an d 1Gbit Network. The CPU is more than capable to stream "Direct Play". I can even play 4K on my iPad via WiFi. EDIT: The movies are stored on 6TB WD Red Plus and 18 TB Thosiba HDDs. Edited October 10, 20232 yr by b_tob
October 10, 20232 yr 9 minutes ago, Corvo said: Client is a New Apple TV 4K. Maybe i'm dumb, but should it not be able to playback mkv's ? 1080 mkv is running fine. Dont see any settings in the Apple Tv or in the Plex app regarding 4K ? yeah, it definitely should. I don't use Plex, woudn't know where to look. You could try Emby or Jellyfin and see if it makes a difference. btw, the problem is not related to the CPU. Edited October 10, 20232 yr by Lolight
October 10, 20232 yr Author 3 minutes ago, Michael_P said: Sure, but if you have something else to try you can rule it out Were the windows and mac machinese connected to the same network port as the Apple TV? Have tried with my Sony Tv with Plex installed and it's the same And yes all on the same port
October 10, 20232 yr Author 2 minutes ago, Lolight said: yeah, it definitely should. I don't use Plex. You could try Emby or Jellyfin and see if it makes a difference. btw, the problem is not related to the CPU. Have also tried Emby and Jellyfin and its the same. Regarding the Cpu. When i try to play 4K content it pretty much runs all cores at 100% ?
October 10, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, Corvo said: Have tried with my Sony Tv with Plex installed and it's the same And yes all on the same port OK, you can try moving the movie to the cache drive if you have one and try playing from there to rule out the drive, or try another computer to play the file from, next you can start swapping out network components
October 10, 20232 yr Just now, Corvo said: Have also tried Emby and Jellyfin and its the same. Regarding the Cpu. When i try to play 4K content it pretty much runs all cores at 100% ? As if software transcoding?
October 10, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, Corvo said: When i try to play 4K content it pretty much runs all cores at 100% ? That suggests you're transcoding from the CPU - when you're playing the movie, what does plex show in the now playing dashboard?
October 10, 20232 yr Author Just now, Lolight said: As if software transcoding? Yes, but there is no transcoding going on
October 10, 20232 yr Author Just now, Michael_P said: That suggests you're transcoding from the CPU - when you're playing the movie, what does plex show in the now playing dashboard? Plex is not showing anything in the dashboard, and yes i know where the info is it is transcoding
October 10, 20232 yr Author 6 minutes ago, Michael_P said: when playing the movie and the cpu is pegged, what is the top process running Sorry i dont know how to see that, i'm not that tech savy
October 10, 20232 yr Author 1 minute ago, Michael_P said: open a terminal on the server and type: top It seems it's transcoding but i dont know how to disable it top - 15:15:02 up 5 days, 4:28, 0 users, load average: 4.75, 2.86, 1.62 Tasks: 339 total, 2 running, 336 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie %Cpu(s): 70.2 us, 2.2 sy, 7.1 ni, 20.4 id, 0.2 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.1 si, 0.0 st MiB Mem : 31951.9 total, 22039.6 free, 3284.1 used, 6628.2 buff/cache MiB Swap: 0.0 total, 0.0 free, 0.0 used. 27896.6 avail Mem PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 32407 nobody 20 0 1277080 1.0g 13296 R 457.3 3.2 4:00.66 Plex Transcoder 5741 root 20 0 10.9g 212476 48968 S 3.3 0.6 146:13.07 unraid-api 28606 nobody 20 0 253932 79588 28496 S 1.3 0.2 4:32.91 Plex Media Serv 28155 root 20 0 721016 12236 1740 S 1.0 0.0 2:55.55 containerd-shim 6336 root 20 0 695596 26700 516 S 0.7 0.1 33:57.75 shfs 9351 root 20 0 95564 30688 24056 S 0.7 0.1 0:00.22 wg_poller 10819 999 20 0 449104 11424 5704 S 0.7 0.0 1:54.78 pihole-FTL 698 root 20 0 95512 14328 7816 S 0.3 0.0 0:00.03 php-fpm 2203 root 20 0 4748 2800 2544 S 0.3 0.0 0:00.01 intel_gpu_top
October 10, 20232 yr Make sure you've touched the appropriate file to enable the igpu Make sure the Plex container is set up to use it Make sure you have a plex pass That will solve your issue
October 10, 20232 yr Author 3 minutes ago, Michael_P said: Make sure you've touched the appropriate file to enable the igpu Make sure the Plex container is set up to use it Make sure you have a plex pass That will solve your issue I will have to look at it later, no more time today. Thank you for the help
October 10, 20232 yr If you confirmed that the video is actually Direct Play (check in Plex dashboard), there shouldn't be stuttering or high CPU usage. Try some other videos to eliminate it being a file issue. Are subtitles turned on? This will usually cause a file to need to be transcoded. A shot in the dark, but one I've recommended and has solved many peoples' issues - Delete the Plex codec folder from your appdata. Sometimes a corrupted codec can cause issues. Restart Plex, and it will download a fresh set of codec.
October 10, 20232 yr In the past Apple TVs have could not natively play MKV files. All MKV files were transcoded to MP4 file. My apple tv was a couple generations old thou. Also if your tv and apple tv share the same hardwired port you could also possibly have a cabling issue. Try plugging in another device at your TV drop. Edited October 10, 20232 yr by Gragorg
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