I’ve really been struggling with streaming 4K without buffering and pixelating. I have 1GB ethernet from Plex server to router and 5GHz to Samsung Qled TV. Asus ROG AC5300 router and still can’t seem to get through a movie without issues. Plex server is an I7 7700 with Raid 5 array. Computer is doing almost NOTHING in terms of memory and cpu but still getting buffering. WTF?
The 5Ghz band does not guarantee high speeds of connectivity. Do you know what mode you are using? Have you looked at throughput? Is anyone or anything else using the 5Ghz wireless in our house. Wireless is a shared network.
The only true way to trouble shoot here is to eliminate the weak parts of the network. In the case of streaming 4K, a wireless network is the weakest part.
Try Hard wiring the connection even if its just a cable across the floor to either factor in or out the wireless network.
Also be sure the server is NOT transcoding or no subtitles are in use.
(Encode 4K mp4 / h.265 / AC3)
don’t stream 4K via WIFI. with all it’s theoretical throughput, there’s so many factors influencing your real-world bandwidth. in a bad setting you might even have trouble to stream decent-quality 1080p content.
Yes, it seems that hardwire is the only real solution until wifi gets up to par…
I stream 4k files from my lan connected server to my wireless tv. They do need to be H264 though and mp4. Maybe just try reducing the wireless devices in use and connect the server via lan?
This topic is still relevant today. Still having the same problem with my i5-6500 (@3.20GHz) Plex server wired through a DLink Green switch, to my Verizon FIOS router, to the TV. Every few seconds, the stream stops and the Plex buffering message comes up.
I don’t even stream original MKVs which can be in excess of 80GB sometimes. The largest 4K file I have is probably 12GB. Even when you have an H265 12GB 4K file that takes 2.5 hours to play (4.8 GB per hour), that’s only about 1.4 megabytes per second, which should be NOTHING for a 12.5MB/s wired connection to handle (note MB/s is megabytes per second, not megabits). Ethernet cables, ports and routers cannot possibly be blamed for Plex’s failure to stream 4K via standard ethernet connection when so little streaming data is required even for 4K content.
That said, I don’t understand why in so many similar threads I find the recommendation to use H265. That codec isn’t going to help speed anything up - H264 will be faster, even if the file is larger.
It’s kind of sad when you think about the fact that cable companies have mastered sending extremely high quality 4K content to our TVs from miles away, and yet in the year 2019, streaming the same content 5 feet away through an ethernet cable is still impossible.
I have a Windows 10 based i5 Plex server, and a couple Nvidia Shield TV boxes hooked to 2 4k TVs in my house. One is hard-wired ethernet, the other 5GHz wifi. Both direct play my 40+ GB 4k HEVC files flawlessly.
Have you verified that your TV’s Plex client fully supports direct play of those mkv 4k files? Have you checked the Plex server and client side logs to see if there is anything relevant in there?
It’s most likely the 5Ghz connection that is failing you. My TV would buffer on 5Ghz too when direct playing high bitrate 4k HDR movie. I had to deploy another AP closer to the TV to get stronger signal and the problem disappeared. Sadly my TV only has 100Mbit ethernet port which was sometimes not enough.
Once I managed to get it to direct play I had no problem streaming a 50g 4k movie over 5Ghz.
The key thing is to check the way it is being sent before worrying about hardware.
Stopping subtitles was what did it for me.
