4k video running on freenas issue

General Discussions
1

So I have a freenas server I originally built to run plex and the other usual suspects to go with it, Sonarr, Couchpotato, NzbGet, PlexPy. Everything works great, I share with family on the other side of the country, all is well. Until, I had to go and get a 4K TV, so naturally I want to try some 4K content on the plex app natively running on said new TV. I read Plex likes its 4K content served up in a specific format,
Container: MP4
Resolution: 3840x2160 or smaller
Video Encoding: HEVC (H.265)
Video Frame Rate: 30fps
Video Bit Depth: 8

Grabbed some media with the above specs and much to my surprise, cool, it works! Now here lies the problem I just found. My server CPU is a Xeon 1275 v3 works great for my little server matched with 32 GB of ECC ram, well, because freenas likes all that ECC ram. I am running Plex Version 1.3.0.3059-6277334 which is the newest one out. So I can watch 4K content streamed from my CPU to my tv no problems. Now when I try to play the same content on my local machine, windows box with an i7-4930k 64 GB ram with a 4k monitor from my freenas using the Plex browser on my windows machine I keep getting the message “The server is not powerful enough to convert this video for smooth playback.” or I get this message “Your connection to the server is not fast enough to stream this video. Check your network or try a lower quality.” I found that to be odd, all gigabit wired ethernet connection in the house. So I go into the folder where my media is stored on my freenas box from my windows machine and play the file using any video player, Media Player Classic Home Cinema, VLC, and they play back without any issues streaming from my freenas box to my windows machine without any lag, timeouts or stuttering of any kind whatsoever. The file I am using is 627 MB file that I can share with anyone who maybe able to help trying to figure out what’s going on.
I am adding this in as an edit to my post. In the status on the server when the video is being played it says "Plex Web (chrome) Transcoding
Video Direct Stream
Audio Transcode (aac)

Also to add more to this I just installed the Plex app on Windows 10 and tried playing said 4K video in the Windows app, well that was worse yet. If I lower the quality to 20 Mbps in the Plex app in Windows it plays no problem. But if I leave it at original it’s worse than using the Plex web browser.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help. If I posted this in the wrong forum I apologize.

2

The Web Player cannot natively play 4K H265 so your server has to transcode it. 4K H265 is going to take a lot of CPU power to transcode. If you like the Plex Web interface, you can try the new Plex Media Player and use the Desktop Mode. This will then allow playback using PMP’s MVP media player which can handle 4K H265 video without needing the server to transcode.

3

Thank you MovieFan.Plex. The clip in question is 4K H264 and it played, sorta. I would have never tried it had it not been for me recently upgrading my PC monitor to 4K as well. I know it plays the clip in question in 4K using other programs, MPC-HC, VLC, and also 4K streaming video, I was just at a loss as to why Plex was having a fit with it. Your solution worked, flawlessly. I am one of those people that need to know why, so thank you very much for your help.

4

Plex clients typically rely on player used for codec support. In the case of Plex Web, it relies on the Web Browser. Web Browsers are just getting around to supporting the type of videos common now-a-days. FireFox couldn’t even play videos natively until recently, it required the Adobe Flash Player. Supporting H265 is going to take a while. Other video players work because they use software decoding to support various codecs. Web Browsers don’t support software decoding.