Hello All,

 

    I've been doing Unraid for a couple years now. Never used any addon until now. I've installed Plex following the guide. I can stream locally and at a friends house as well using Plexbmc. My goal at the moment is to force stream video files 1080p and transcode to say 3 or 4 Mbps 720P. If something was already 720P it would direct stream or transcode if the bitrate is to high but only if needed.

In the Plex Web Setup (My.Unraid.IP:32400/web/index.html#!/settings) the Transcode folder is left blank. I've done some searching but have not found a difinitive answer to what goes here or if it even makes a difference. As you can see in the Unraid Plex setup picture my 2 chosen Cache folders I setup(Until new ssd drive comes in) Would I maybe put the same folder line used in the Unraid setup Temp folders location? (/mnt/disk11/Apps Cache/Plex/tmp) or leave it blank. I just want to make sure it transcodes when it's really needed.

 

Setup:

Unraid Pro 5 Rc4

Plex version: v0.9.9.7.429-f80a8d6

 

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual-Core Processor 260 3.2GHz Retail

8GB memory installed

I do something similar, and your names look fine. MY library, though is lowercase 'l'.

"/mnt/cache/applications/Plex/library"

"/mnt/cache/applications/Plex/tmp"

 

Also check the settings on this page:

Thank you Dale for the reply. I found the screen your showing me and the settings are the same as yours. I just don't know how else to tell this Unraid server how to transcode my videos. I drove back to my friends house today and tried it again. A 1080p movie came to me in 1080P and was to much for my up and their down. Thus why I want to transcode the video. I made sure my folders are moving information into them as they both have large amounts of data in both Library and tmp.

Any other ways you all know of that tells me it's actually transcoding the video. This would also help me find out if the processor and memory are enough. I would think so only handeling 1 stream but you never know.

Thank you again for your help,

Chris

In Plex, try turning off Direct Stream...and then reduce the remote bandwidth limit allowed.

That should force transcoding to your friend's PC...

You may have to play around with the speed on his end as well. As I recall, on the Plex 'viewer', there's a speed selector.

 

Dale Thank you for the info. I've tried your suggestions and found them not to work as of yet.

Local streaming it will do all day with my XBMC /Plexbmc App. No need for transcoding locally.

Last night I upgraded both Unraid servers from 5.0 Rc4 on one and Rc8 on the other to 5.0.5 Pro. This fixed the problem I was having on the Rc8 Unraid server to work in the Plex/Web interface and allow the library to populate. Rc4 was working without a problem.

 

I guess I'm not understanding the whole transcoding thing but I'm under the impression that the Unraid server loads the file(movie/tv show) and converts(transcodes) the video on the fly (to a lower bitrate making the video file smaller) and sends it out orver the web to the remote location where a Plex Media player (say Xbmc/Plexbmc or a Ruku3) can play the video on a connected display at the converted resolution.(Say 720p@2 to 3 Mbs.

 

In order for this to happen I've tried all of these available settings to get this to work. I haven't tried the phone app yet but am doubtful as it may not work or crash also. At the moment I'm kinda at a loss as I wonder why this wont work.

 

Any help from all would be great

 

This is a better question for the pex forums, to include a prelim search for others that had the problem.  Not that you can't ask here, just saying it isn't an unraid problem, and there are more users using plex in the plex forums. To include the Ask a Ninja section if you are a plex pass member.

Okay thank you I'll continue to ask over there.

Thanks for pointing out the blank temporary directory line. I had been unable to transcode using either a Roku 3 or an iPhone with the Plex app. While I had a temp directory on the cache drive and specified that location in the Plex settings of the unRaid Network tab, the application seemed incapable of transcoding and only Direct Play would work. I specified the Temp directory (in my case it is /mnt/cache/apps/Plex/Temp) in the Plex/Web Transcoding page and immediately transcoding started working! I can now see temporary files being written to the cache drive.

 

Note that the "Transcoder temporary directory" setting is only available when Advanced Settings are enabled.

 

Jerry

That is very odd since mine is also blank but I am 100% able to transcode and watch the hls segements being created.  Also adding anything to that setting has never been a part of the install instructions (not even for non-unraid installs) and there aren't a rash of people with that problem.

 

Sooo while it is working great for you, and that is all that matters to you, it does raise a larger question of why? [shrug] Not that I'm going to try to track it down mind you, but I have to wonder if your install was corrupted and the tmp directory wasn't properly set from the unraid gui.

That is very odd since mine is also blank but I am 100% able to transcode and watch the hls segements being created.  Also adding anything to that setting has never been a part of the install instructions (not even for non-unraid installs) and there aren't a rash of people with that problem.

 

Sooo while it is working great for you, and that is all that matters to you, it does raise a larger question of why? [shrug] Not that I'm going to try to track it down mind you, but I have to wonder if your install was corrupted and the tmp directory wasn't properly set from the unraid gui.

 

After closer examination I found the path entered in the unraid gui was missing the "/" before mnt, which I had correctly included in the Plex/Web setup. I cleared the Plex/Web temporary directory field and corrected the unraid gui entry. Upon restarting the Plex server it transcodes correctly.

 

Glad I was prompted to take another look!

 

Jerry

 

I swear I was going to suggest that was the problem [sigh] oh well now no one will believe me

 

Really though, just glad you solved the problem and the mystery is solved.

I swear I was going to suggest that was the problem [sigh] oh well now no one will believe me

I believe you, jumperalex