4k Stuttering

General Discussions
1

I’m having issues watching 4k movies. 4K stuttering issues on all players: Roku Ultra, Plex for Mac, and Plex for Android TV (Nvidia Shield TV). Plex Media server is on a Windows 10 machine. Wired connections only, Cat5e.

How do I find the weak link? Not sure whether it’s the Windows machine, or network. (The windows machine is pretty powerful, so I’m suspecting network, but unsure)

How can I diagnose this?

2

How about any general tips for ensuring I can stream 4K inside my home network?

3

server specs?

my 10 core 20 thread 1.9ghz server cannot transcode 4k hdr fast enough. not sure why its only being pushed to 30% usage. on windows

might be the same problem u have.

check cpu usage on server when trying to play the files. also try to turn off tone mapping hardware support.

4

According to this link, I’m not using sufficient hardware on the client:

Specifically, the Roku and the Shield TV “tube” aren’t powerful enough. The Mac Client was fixed by unchecking the hardware decode option. With that off, I’m seeing no issues.

5

I would start with the file sizes and what client you are using to playback the 4k files. if your clients are running a 100 Mbps network connection you’re in trouble. If you’re connected wirelessly, your connection needs to be rock solid and over 100 Mbps. So let’s start with these.

6

Try Kodi, even though it barely fixed my 4K stutters issues it might work for you.

7

I’ve verified for certain that the network links are Gigabit links. All routers, switches, clients, use gigabit network interfaces. On my Windows machine from 2013 —not the Plex server, (it uses an intel i7 and geforce gt 640 – hardware from 2013), the content plays just fine over the network using the old windows plex client for home theater pcs, but it does NOT play fine using the newer plex client (I tried hardware decoding on, and tried it off, neither setting helps). Both clients were downloaded yesterday from https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/#plex-app , and using the Plex Pass versions. It also plays fine using VLC, using “open file…” and pointing VLC at the windows network share (ie, opening file path like “\\192.168.0.201\Movies\path\to\file.mkv”)

Summary:

(All tests were using the same 4k file — and in all cases, I confirmed via the server dashboard that the file was being direct played .)

  • On my MacBook pro 2019, using the latest Plex Client for Mac (not web client), it works smoothly, but ONLY if I disable hardware decoding. (With hardware decoding on, frames are dropped sometimes. There are no other symptoms, no pausing to buffer, nothing – just frames dropped)
  • On my 2013 windows machine (not the same machine as the Plex server), frames are dropped using the newer native plex client, with or without hardware decoding on. It works just fine with the old home theater plex client. It also works fine using VLC to open the network file over windows file sharing.
  • On my 2019 nvidia shield tv, it may work fine for a while (10 mins) but then start having issues – it doesn’t buffer, it just drops frames. The video drops many frames (several seconds worth of frames at a time), but it never buffers. The shield tv stops responding to remote button presses. It really just seems that the shield tv just can’t handle it.
8

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