Server Version#: 1.14.1.5488
Player Version#: 3.83.1
I apologize, but I’m very confused by these forums and would like some guidance. I’m not even sure if I’m posting my question where I should. Here’s the deal. I’ve installed the server on my laptop, which is running a i3-7100u processor and 8 gb of memory, and I have a 500 gb solid state hard drive that’s about 90% full. I have 15 or so movies in my library. I’d like to stream them from my laptop to my television. I have Chromecast plugged into my television. I click the cast button in Plex. The movie comes up on my television but buffers perpetually. While the movie is buffering, my CPU runs between 10-15%, and the memory runs at about 50%. Also, my Chromecast uses a signal provided by a wifi booster.
I’ve tried using the support pages to solve the problem, but I’ve had no luck. I was supposed to turn on verbose logging and check the Plex Media Server.log file for “speed”; I was supposed to see whether the value was greater or less than one. Ctrl-F search for “Speed” showed no results. I’m at a loss. I love the idea of Plex and would consider a paid subscription if I could only figure out how all this works.
Turn off verbose logging, unless an Plex employee or Ninja asks for them. Second, the stability of the system is much greater if the device you use to watch the video can direct play (requiring codecs to be right for the device). Chromecast depends heavily on a network and a lot of buffering is caused by too little bandwidth in the network for the file that is being cast or sent.
Is your TV a smart TV? And what are the codecs used in your video files?
Thanks for your reply. The codec for my video file is x264 (High@L4.0). No, it is not a smart tv. And I’ve disabled verbose logging. (I’d only enabled it temporarily in an attempt to follow debugging instructions.)
Smart TV’s would be better, and you would need the Chromecast. With the Tv’s you usually only need to mindful of audio codecs. For example, Samsung’s use to be able to play DTS audio (this seems to be the only one) and now the 2018 models do not. Thus causing Plex to Direct stream instead of direct playing. To eliminate this issue files can be optimized, but that would require more storage, which you are limited. Unless you use an external drive.
