I am using a 5930k cpu which has no Quick sync built in. I have a Nvidia Shield tv that is used for my media playback. I have issues playing certain files as they require transcoding and are very large rips of 4K content. How can I improve the transcoding abilities of the Plex server? I currently have 4 CPUs pinned to Plex and my unraid server has a total of 16GB ram along with an SSD cache drive.

I have added the Emby docker to see if it is any better at Transcoding, there appear to be options in the Emby server to setup a Transcoding temp path, has anybody used this with their Cache SSD or RAM, if so does it work and how did you do it?

14 hours ago, wedge22 said:

I am using a 5930k cpu which has no Quick sync built in. I have a Nvidia Shield tv that is used for my media playback. I have issues playing certain files as they require transcoding and are very large rips of 4K content. How can I improve the transcoding abilities of the Plex server? I currently have 4 CPUs pinned to Plex and my unraid server has a total of 16GB ram along with an SSD cache drive.

 

Your CPU should be more than enough to transcode one 4k rip of any size (though the Nvidia Shield should be able to direct play anything you throw at it without transcoding anyways). I have an i5-8400 that has a similar Passmark score than yours and it can almost, but not quite handle two 4k remux transcodes. With one, CPU usage is around 55%. I don't pin any cores to Plex though, I just let it do its thing.

I do not really understand what is happening as I have set Plex to play the content with Original quality but it continues to attempt to transcode the files, Emby on the other hand is capable of playing the same files with no issues at all.

1st obvious question.. you have a 4k tv?

2nd question do you have a sound system?

 

I have not used Plex on an nVidia Shield but I have used it on my Amazon Fire TV. I believe there is an option to play original when you're on the same network as your server. I know there is an option on the web client.

Playing original quality doesn't matter if your endpoint (plex client device) doesn't support the format the video is in. Unless your endpoint is 100% compatible (able to decode video AND audio formats AND report that correctly to plex server) then plex will always transcode.

 

I have plex transcoding directory set to a ram drive.

 

Specific information about the video file you are trying to playback such as the codecs used and the bitrate would be useful information. It would also be helpful to know how your shield tv is connected to your plex server. Wired/Wireless local or remote plex server, etc.

On 12/6/2018 at 7:29 PM, wedge22 said:

I do not really understand what is happening as I have set Plex to play the content with Original quality but it continues to attempt to transcode the files, Emby on the other hand is capable of playing the same files with no issues at all.

I have issues with Transcoding when trying to play 7.1 as there is not native support on Shield just pasthrough. selecting 5.1 normally allows direct play without transcoding.

I’m looking at my Fire TV now. The setting is “Play smaller videos at original quality”. You also probably want to make sure “Home streaming” is set to maximum.

I have a wireless 5G connection between the Shield and the server, the server is wired to the router, this is the same local network. I am trying to play a 4K remux file encoded with X.265. I will add that Plex is set to play at Original Quality only and that Home streaming is set to maximum. Plex likes to default to 7.1 audio on the playback of these files, they also have the 5.1 option which I usually switch too. 

 

Hopefully this information helps.

I found that running Plex in Kodi on the Shield will direct play more files.  I also like the UI in Plex/Kodi better