Bitrate issue

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
1

Hello,

My brother is using Plex for Playstation to see movies etc from my Plex server. When he plays a movie with 10.5 Mbit/s bitrate, the video stutters and Plex need to buffer. He sets the bitrate at 10.5Mbit/s, but at 10Mbit/s and 8 Mbit/s the movie still need to buffer. Only at 4 Mbit/s the movie plays flawless. All the divices are connected by cable, not wireless. My brother has a stable download speed, and i have a stable upload speed.

I can play any movie with direct play within my own network, no stutter.

I have tree questions:

  • Is there a possibility to implement a 6 Mbit/s bitrate option in the Plex for Playstation?
  • Does Plex need more Mbit/s then the bitrate for the movie? (Example, 4Mbit movie needs 6Mbit total)
  • Anyone an idea why the movie stutters at 8Mbit/s?

We’ve used Frozen as a test case, it have a bitrate of 10.5 Mb/s and we used DTS als the audiotrack.

The server:
Intel I7 3770 (3.4Ghz) (Passmark score 7899)
10GB RAM

My internet connection: 120 down, 12 up (stable)
My brother’s internet connection: 40Mbit down, 4 up (stable)

Thanks!

Movie info:

Media

Video Resolution 1080p
Duur 1:42:13
Bitrate 14195 kbps
Width 1920
Height 856
Aspect Ratio 2.20
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate 24p

Deel

Duur 1:42:13
File Frozen.mkv
Size 10.14 GB
Container MKV

Video

Codec H264
Bitrate 10537 kbps
Bit Depth 8
CABAC 1
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Space yuv
Duur 1:42:13
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
Frame Rate Mode cfr
Has Scaling Matrix 0
Height 856
Level 4.1
Profile high
Ref Frames 5
Scan Type progressive
Width 1920

Audio

Codec DCA
Kanalen 5.1
Bitrate 1509 kbps
Taal English
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Bit Depth 24
Bitrate Mode CBR
Duur 1:42:13
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

Audio

Codec DCA
Kanalen 5.1
Bitrate 1509 kbps
Taal Nederlands
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Bit Depth 24
Bitrate Mode CBR
Duur 1:42:13
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

Audio

Codec AC3
Kanalen 5.1
Bitrate 640 kbps
Taal dum
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Bit Depth 16
Bitrate Mode CBR
Dialog Norm -31 dB
Duur 1:42:13
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Titel Flemish

Ondertiteling

Codec SRT
Taal Nederlands
Format SRT

Ondertiteling

Codec SRT
Taal Nederlands
Format SRT
Titel non-Dutch
2

How does the movie playes when you run it from a laptop at your brother’s appartement with the same bitrates?

3

Your server and network conditions sure look like they could handle 10.5Mbps w/o blinking.

Great post asking for help. Let me get to it:

  • Is there a possibility to implement a 6 Mbit/s bitrate option in the Plex for Playstation?

Not at the moment. We’ve had several long conversations about making the quality controls more granular. In the end the current setup always wins. I’m in the camp more more control; will keep this as context for when the conversation resurfaces.

  • Does Plex need more Mbit/s then the bitrate for the movie? (Example, 4Mbit movie needs 6Mbit total)

Definitely yes. The Mbps we display in video metadata and in the settings dialog are average bitrates. A file may have a low overall bitrate but has some much higher bitrate scenes. This a view of my Frozen movie seen through the Bitrate Viewer. Notice the average bitrate of only ~6ish but several huge spikes:

  • Anyone an idea why the movie stutters at 8Mbit/s?

I think it comes down to something in the way the PS3 buffers video segments. Our ninja’s have reported the exact same behavior you’ve noted. All network and server requirements are met or exceeded yet the PS3 behaves differently when playing remote videos than when playing local videos.

The one bit I’ve always wanted to test but been unable to yet is, what is the download speed of the Playstation? Some routers have real-time network speed graphs, my Tomato firmware does for instance. I’m curious if the PlayStation is downloading segments fast enough.

Is there a chance you guys can check how fast his PS3 is downloading and how fast your PMS is uploading?

4

It’s several months now that i started this topic The PS3 isn’t stuttering for a long time now. I’ve configured the PS3 that it always use transcoding. The PS3 can’t handle AC3 that well.

Thanks for the support!