I have a QNAP nas, that runs a plex server and all of the media is located on the NAS.
I also have NVidea Shield TV devices, located closer to the TV’s.
The nas is fairly old, so I am not expecting it to be able to transcode on the fly, particulary when multiple TVs are streaming from it.
So, my thought was,
to install Plex on each NVidea Shield, those Plex instances get simple get the stream from the Plex instance on the nas, and perform the transcoding.
Have each instance of Plex on NVidea Shield, point directly to the NAS shares.
What is the recommended approach with respect to Plex.
Theoretically the Plex for Android TV clients on your Shields should need little transcoding in the first place… so you might be perfectly fine simply connecting them to your current QNAP based server.
Even if you consider moving your server there’s no need to install a dedicated instance for each TV. While it’s technically possible to have multiple servers, those e.g. won’t sync their ratings or watched status – so you’ll otherwise end up with completely independent and out-of-sync platforms.
Each TV gets an NVidea shield, cause things like Netflix, etc. etc. Will be running from NVidea shield. NVidea shield close to TV, for remote control functionality.
So, if the Plex instances on each NVidea shield point directly to NAS shares, don’t they run the risk of overwriting each others files (assuming they do perform write operations for various reasons)
Plex consists of 2 components. Your Plex Media Server and the clients which will stream your media. You don’t need to install the server on each of those instances (each pointing to your NAS but organizing its own libraries).
Even if you have 5 or 6 different Nvidia Shields in your home, they can be simple players (Plex clients).
Question: How much transcoding is expected? As @tom80H mentions, if you are using Shields as clients, there should be very little transcoding required.
Suggestion: Install Plex on one Shield. See how it works. Then proceed accordingly.
Additional thoughts:
If using the 2019 version, it must be the Shield Pro. The non-Pro “tube” model cannot run Plex Media Server.
A Shield running PMS and accessing SMB shares over the network should be connected via wired gigabit Ethernet, as should the server storing the data. SMB is a “chatty” protocol (many ACKs, directory listings, etc) and is designed for reliable (i.e. wired) networks. SMB over WiFi is asking for trouble.
The risk of multiple servers overwriting each other is small if Plex is configured correctly. PMS only needs read access to stream media. It does need write access when performing services such as recording TV (Live TV/DVR) and creating optimized versions.
Nvidia Shields running PMS need an external drive to hold metadata, Plex database, etc (exception: older Pro models with internal hard drives). Placing the Plex data folder on a network share is not allowed.
You do not need to run PMS on every Shield. As @tom80H mentions, there is no synchronization of ratings, watched status, etc. You can run PMS on one Shield and let the others stream from it.
Ah, I understand now. The TVs are generally samsung. They have the plex client as an app on them. These are my general findings;
Some TVs kick back saying they can’t play some of the video content when I am using the Plex client app on the TV talking to Plex server on the NAS.
When I go to play music for example, the TV does not list all of my music (its a huge music library). I suspect, the TV does not have enough memory and\or processing power.
So, to the rescue is the Shield pros.
Now I understand I will be running the client on Shield pros. including stuff like Netflix, etc. etc.
As for the networking question. Everything is hard wired. There are network switches that are running link aggregation between them and the computer server rack, which hosts the NAS. So with respect to network bandwidth, there is lots.
So, I would prefer to keep the PMS, on the NAS and run the clients on the shields. My hope is that the shields will just transcode whatever content for the TV without any issues and of course I can access my entire music collection also.
As a side question; from a DLNA perspective, is there a way to control these lists? “By Album, By Genre, By Decade”, its way too much and I would like to simplify it down.
