Server Version#: Plex Version: 1.16.2.1321
Player Version#:
OS: Win 10 x64 (Running on Intel NUC I3 81098 (Intel IRIS Plus Graphics 655) with external 2 x 6TB HDD.
Hello,
I appear to have found a fault with my plex setup setup locally on my network. I also run a Windows Server 2016 setup which runs 4K better from a remote location (with less buffering) but decided to create a local copy of content to prevent this.
I currently have W10 x64 setup on an Intel NUC I3, with 16GB RAM (RAMDISK of 12GB), 240GB M.2 for C drive data.
I am able to run content locally through direct play on two Samsung TV’s but it transcodes audio usually from TrueHD to ACC, which I can live with and the CPU should be able to cope with. Generally, it will only be playing 1 stream at a time and aware it’s only an i3 but went for a low-power 24/7 solution that was capable of playing 4K with either direct play or just audio transcode. 1080p works fine from what I’ve seen and generally a smaller 20Mbps 4K file would play OK but still buffer, it just buffers intensely on 50Mbps 4K. CPU usage throughout a video playing is a moderate 50-60% on average, by no means 100% (think I’ve previously looked up and checked logs to see that it has no problem exceeding CPU etc).
At the moment the NUC is using 1Gbps LAN for it’s network rather than Wi-Fi and the TV is using Wi-Fi (though I can try ethernet to see if that resolves the issue).
I’ve attached logs and XML of a file that really struggles to play but would load fine on the remote server, locally it buffers every few seconds or minutes. Also unsure whether RAM disk is the issue but it seemed to act slightly better on the inbuilt M.2. for transcoding but this is a WD green so by no means had fast read/write times.
Looks to me from the log files that both video and audio are being transcoded. The movie is 10 bit HDR, with both TrueHD and AC3 audio. If the video is not transcoding it would display the HDR on screen when it starts, and be 2160p. If no HDR shows up, the colours are washed out and is only 1080p, then it is transcoding. The log shows Direct Play is disabled: DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol dash; container: mp4 DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 86 DEBUG - MDE: Thor: Ragnarok (2017): Direct Play is disabled DEBUG - MDE: Thor: Ragnarok (2017): media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol DEBUG - MDE: Thor: Ragnarok (2017): no direct play videoprofile exists for http/mkv/hevc DEBUG - MDE: Thor: Ragnarok (2017): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/truehd DEBUG - MDE: Thor: Ragnarok (2017): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/ac3 DEBUG - Codecs: testing aac_mf (encoder) INFO - [FFMPEG] - MFT name: 'Microsoft AAC Audio Encoder MFT’ DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec truehd when profile only allows aac DEBUG - MDE: Thor: Ragnarok (2017): selected media 0 / 86
Neither the Samsung Smart TV or Samsung Tizen profiles have direct play listed for mkv/hevc.
You also appear to have IPV6 enabled on your network card. I believe this is an issue for Plex, as well as multiple network cards. Disable the IPV6 to verify if it is/is not causing issues for you.
You can try changing to the second audio stream before playing to choose the AC3 track, especially if your TV supports Direct Play for this audio codec. Check the options on the Plex client on your TV that Direct Play and Direct Stream are enabled as well as the audio codecs.
If your TV will support mkv/hevc/ac3 you can copy the existing Samsung Smart TV.xml and Samsung Tizen.xml to your user profile directory, then modify the line under DirectPlayProfiles for container mkv to add hevc to the existing list of codecs. This will work only if your TV supports mkv/hevc/ac3.
