MOBO + CPU for 10+ out of network stream via Plex suggestions?

[GFOviedo]

My current set up:

MOBO: ASRock - Z77M

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz

Memory: 8GB RAM

 

Lately, more and more of my family members and a few friends, have been requesting access to my server to watch my movies via Plex.  I never thought I would need to upgrade my server, but it appears I might need a faster CPU since Plex transcoding is CPU intensive.

 

At the moment, I can stream up to 4 devices without issues (depending one the movie) out of network.  However, this might be changing since most of my family are starting to get Smart TV's, Rokus or Fire TV's.

 

So, I was wondering if anyone is able to stream out of network to 10 or more devices at once?  What kind of set up are you using?  What suggestions does anyone have?

 

 

Note:  About 98% of my movies are BD quality with HD sound tracks!

[Smitty2k1]

I think you are going to need one hell of a CPU for that.

 

I'm pretty new to Plex but as far as I know, out of network transcodes will take even more horsepower, right? Because it will have to compress the files more to get smooth playback at lets say 25Mbit internet speeds (on the high end)? 5 minutes of quick searching shows that BD can transfer up to around 50Mbit/sec, which means over Ethernet you would not be limited by network transfer rate, but out of network you likely will be.

 

You mention HD soundtracks, those alone can be up to 18Mbit/sec for Dolby True HD or 24Mbit/sec for DTS Master

[GFOviedo]

I also just realized another limiting factor UPLOAD SPEED! 

[tdallen]

I also just realized another limiting factor UPLOAD SPEED!

 

Yep.  Remove the CPU bottleneck and unless you have one hell of an internet plan you are going to hit your upload bandwidth limit before you hit 10 streams.  I've got a decent plan through Comcast and Speedtest gives me 177Mbps down, but only 12Mbps up.

[GFOviedo]

I also just realized another limiting factor UPLOAD SPEED!

 

Yep.  Remove the CPU bottleneck and unless you have one hell of an internet plan you are going to hit your upload bandwidth limit before you hit 10 streams.  I've got a decent plan through Comcast and Speedtest gives me 177Mbps down, but only 12Mbps up.

 

I've got Comcast too. I get 150 Mbps down and only 12 Mbps up. So pretty much it would be useless to upgrade my server.

[interwebtech]

FIOS baby! 30mb both ways with the cheapest inet only account. $35 a month.

[tdallen]

If you stay with your current internet plan your options are limited.  If you further restrict the remote upload quality in Plex - I think it defaults to 720p 4Mbps - you could squeeze a couple more streams up your current pipe.  In that case it would be worth upgrading to a Core i7 or Xeon E3 to support the additional streams.

 

If you really want to go nuts you'll need to switch to a synchronous plan like FIOS or Google Fiber.  You'll also need a very high end Xeon E5 (preferably dual E5's) to support 10 streams.

 

Becoming a private NetFlix might be fun but it won't be cheap .

 

 

[garycase]

Convince one of your friends or family members to build their own high-performance UnRAID server to host 4-5 upload streams and share the load.

 

Then you can setup a synchronization of your content to run during off hours ... and you'll not only solve the too many uploads issue but will also have a good offsite backup of your data 

[Helmonder]

FIOS baby! 30mb both ways with the cheapest inet only account. $35 a month.

 

Hmm fiber over here... 100 Mbps down AND up.. 55 euro for internet, cable and fixed phoneline.. Including 100% free extra data on my mobile plan (now eur 35 for unlimited national calls and sms and 20gb data per month..

 

Sorry could not resist :-)

[METDeath]

Ignoring the internet side of things, you're going to need a passmark score of more than 20K to do that. Which is basically dual CPU range for a cost effective amount. There a handful of Xeons that hit that range as a single processor. I'd suggest looking at the current Xeon E5-2670 v1 thread for ideas... however, that only gets you around 18K passmark which wouldn't be enough for what you are trying to do.

 

So I'd offer to build your friends/relatives their own box and have some USB drives you pass/ship around to send out new stuff. Or teach them how to get their own stuff.

[GFOviedo]

Ignoring the internet side of things, you're going to need a passmark score of more than 20K to do that. Which is basically dual CPU range for a cost effective amount. There a handful of Xeons that hit that range as a single processor. I'd suggest looking at the current Xeon E5-2670 v1 thread for ideas... however, that only gets you around 18K passmark which wouldn't be enough for what you are trying to do.

 

So I'd offer to build your friends/relatives their own box and have some USB drives you pass/ship around to send out new stuff. Or teach them how to get their own stuff.

 

That would probably be the best solution.

[Helmonder]

Ignoring the internet side of things, you're going to need a passmark score of more than 20K to do that. Which is basically dual CPU range for a cost effective amount. There a handful of Xeons that hit that range as a single processor. I'd suggest looking at the current Xeon E5-2670 v1 thread for ideas... however, that only gets you around 18K passmark which wouldn't be enough for what you are trying to do.

 

So I'd offer to build your friends/relatives their own box and have some USB drives you pass/ship around to send out new stuff. Or teach them how to get their own stuff.

 

That would probably be the best solution.

 

Or, alternatively,. rsync those boxes together.. That way you are distributing your content so they can play it locally.. It also would serve as some kind of backup..