I have 4K content, about a 20GB 2 hour file (which I made - I’m an animator) that plays fine if I play it off a USB drive on my new Samsung TU-8000, but if I serve it off a Windows 10 i7 Plex server (data on the local hard drive) networked hardwired to the TV it skips and buffers and generally is horrible. Data playback rate never rises above 30mbps (measured), so even though my network is not gigabyte that shouldn’t matter, right? (No other traffic on the network at the time). I’m wondering what the bottleneck is – could the Samsung App just not be very good?
I have both a Roku and a Shield ordered so I will test those as an alternative to the Samsung native app but I was hoping some experts here might give me an idea of whether this is the way to proceed. Do I need a more powerful server? I understand the Shield can also be a server but I thought my Windows machine would be powerful enough. But I can also try this if folks here think it’s worth doing.
I’d really like to get Plex to serve my 4K media – it works great for my HD stuff but it would be SO nice to have it all consolidated in the same place.
Please post the contents of the ~20 first lines of the Plex XML info of that file.
Okay but this may be a mess – not sure how to copy/paste the XML code here properly. I just went ahead and tried a copy from the info so here it is:
Darn. I pasted the XML code but it doesn’t show up in my message. Let me see if there’s a way here to make it “immune” from formatting this message.
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="4" librarySectionTitle="Other Videos" librarySectionUUID="d3da63ba-4e52-4adc-a26f-dc6c50c70973" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1606833032">
<Video ratingKey="261" key="/library/metadata/261" guid="com.plexapp.agents.none://d181a8003144e44962d8f2f3575413d9cd8ef974?lang=xn" type="movie" title="Eat Your Brains" librarySectionTitle="Other Videos" librarySectionID="4" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/4" summary="" year="2020" thumb="/library/metadata/261/thumb/1607088629" art="/library/metadata/261/art/1607088629" duration="7876896" originallyAvailableAt="2020-12-03" addedAt="1607047380" updatedAt="1607088629" chapterSource="media" createdAtAccuracy="epoch,local" createdAtTZOffset="0">
<Media id="461" duration="7876896" bitrate="25453" width="3840" height="2160" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="8" audioCodec="truehd" videoCodec="hevc" videoResolution="4k" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" videoProfile="main 10">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="461" key="/library/parts/461/1607047380/file.mkv" duration="7876896" file="M:\My Stuff\Eat Your Brains.mkv" size="25061107224" container="mkv" videoProfile="main 10">
<Stream id="1497" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="25005" bitDepth="10" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="2160" codedWidth="3840" colorPrimaries="bt2020" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt2020nc" colorTrc="smpte2084" frameRate="23.976" height="2160" level="153" profile="main 10" refFrames="1" width="3840" displayTitle="4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)" extendedDisplayTitle="4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)"/>
<Stream id="1498" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="truehd" index="1" channels="8" bitrate="5414" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="7.1" bitDepth="24" samplingRate="48000" title="Atmos" displayTitle="English (TRUEHD 7.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="Atmos (English TRUEHD 7.1)"/>
<Stream id="1499" streamType="2" codec="ac3" index="2" channels="6" bitrate="448" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" samplingRate="48000" title="AC3 5.1" displayTitle="English (AC3 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="AC3 5.1 (English)"/>
<Stream id="1500" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="3" bitrate="0" language="English" languageCode="eng" title="Stripped SRT" displayTitle="English (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="Stripped SRT (English)"/>
<Stream id="1501" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="4" bitrate="0" language="English" languageCode="eng" title="SDH SRT" displayTitle="English (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="SDH SRT (English)"/>
Good that seems to have worked (I have a tech staff that prepares my animation files so this old man doesn’t have to deal with such issues anymore so forgive me if I seem incompetent).
Could you let it sit overnight, so Plex server has a chance to do its in-depth analysis during the scheduled maintenance? I see the requiredBandwidths are still missing from the XML. So it must have been added just now (or the in-depth analysis is disabled).
Well, I did do that with other ones and it didn’t seem to help any. Some of the stuff has been there at least two or three days.
Here’s one that does have the required bandwidths (prepared mostly the same way, although it might need more):
requiredBandwidths="44383,41246,35460,31497,28607,26340,20181,17820"
And while I don’t understand that, I’m guessing the first number is to play back at 4K, right? So 44mbps which, while higher than the other one, still should be handled by my network, right?
Okay, now I’m looking at a ton of other stuff, most of which has been on the server for at least a week, and required bandwidth seems to be missing from all of them. Is there some way I can force this? However, even on that one file I posted the bandwidth above it still won’t play properly, so that doesn’t seem to help any.
No, these numbers correspond to different sizes of a network “receive” buffer memory on the various client types.
The first number is the worst case, a buffer size of just 5MB.
The full list is 5/10/25/50/75/100/250/500MB.
Settings - Server - Scheduled Tasks - Perform extensive media analysis during maintenance
The server must be actually running during the set hours for maintenance. (And media storage must be available as well)
Okay, I will do that. But – still doesn’t answer my question (unless you’re saying that perhaps the Samsung client app needs a bigger buffer than I have). Do you think Roku or Shield will work better? (I’ll know tomorrow). Oh, and server and media storage is always running here at home.
At least the Shield Pro has a good track record with high-bandwidth files (but not the “tube” model).
You might also have better results if you select the AC3 audio track and don’t try to play the TrueHD track on this TV.
The Shield Pro is what I ordered (along with the Roku Ultra). I don’t really not want to play the best audio, as that is what most people will be doing when they watch this. Again, though, I don’t understand why I don’t have enough bandwidth to play it. I realize Netflix et. al have very efficient routines to serve 4K data, but my TV seems to handle all of that easily and I was told by my staff our video files are as efficient as anything the big boys produce (with less than 10mb per hour including high quality sound). I just don’t know why Plex/Samsung won’t handle it but maybe I’ll have better results tomorrow.
One more stupid question – I’ve gotten just not into Plex and Settings and I don’t see server. Do I need to be on the Windows Machine that’s running the server to see them? So I can’t set them remotely?
You should be able to set the server preferences from anywhere in the world – provided that both your server and the web app are logged in to the same plex.tv account.
If you don’t see your server options, but can access your media you are either
Okay, I didn’t see a “Server” tab per se, but I did finally find a “Scheduled Tasks” one and it has the upgrade media analysis during maintenance checkmarked. But things may have gotten confused – I started off with Plex servers on my NAS devices (two of them) but because I couldn’t play the media properly I switched to a PC so now I have three servers. I need to move everything over to the PC (using mapped NAS drives for the media) and perhaps then in a few days all will at least have those bitrates mapped (although, again, it doesn’t seem to make much difference even on the movies it HAS done that to – unless you tell me there is any way to change a network “receive” buffer memory on the Samsung client. I’m guessing no – but perhaps either the Roku or the Shield will just have better buffer needs and perform better).
Unfortunately not, That is ultimately a hardware restriction. And experience tells us that “smart TV” devices usually have very stripped-down innards with costs cut wherever possible. Which means very limited hardware resources.
In some ways that actually makes me feel better – gives me “hope” that one of the devices I get tomorrow will work. Which I really want, otherwise I’ll need to play all my media except for what I make myself off of Plex, and then have a hard drive attached to my TV (which kind of sucks - although I guess I can use one of those huge USB drives they make nowadays, so it won’t be TOO bad. I’ll miss the pretty Plex interface, though. Oh – I also seem to remember having sound issues that way, in that my Samsung wouldn’t play my audio channel properly. Sigh. I’m too old to live long enough for all this to get sorted out before I die).
Thanks for all your (prompt) help, though. Plex looks fantastic – just wish it worked better for 4K.
If you get the Shield, wire it up thusly:
Shield -> AVR(surround decoder) -> TV
(All with premium HDMI cables. Avoid optical or even SPDIF, it cannot handle the newer formats.)
Only this configuration will enable you to forward the full quality of lossless surround sound to your surround decoder (if it has support for that format).
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Thanks – I will try that tomorrow.
(I did try the Roku Ultra which came in today early – would not work. Plex app there played better – buffered every few minutes and then played fine, whereas on the Samsung app it wouldn’t play at all. So maybe, if the Shield has a larger buffer, all will be well. I’ll know soon).
