Cross platform question and several other questions

General Discussions
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Hey there,

I’m quite new to Plex and already have several questions/ideas.

Right now I’m using it mainly for my Android TV with a debian server, which seems to run fine. But I have some peeves.

First off, this debian server doesn’t exactly have the specifications for a proper transcoding server (heck it’s a VM actually) … so how does the server platform work actually? Like say if I set up plex server on my gamepc. Does it share library? (seeing, same network) and is there a way to make them play together (distributed)?

So say the following happens: I’m trying to start a 4K movie on my phone, it needs to transcode it ofc. But my VM doesn’t nearly have enough power, I want it to ask the gamepc to share some of the load (or take it all, at this stage of theorycrafting I don’t mind)

But it always has to prioritize the plex server for all queries.

Second, I’m quite annoyed that I have to work server/client, but so be it. As my android tv has the power to directly play everything, isn’t it just waste of network bandwidth to first go to plex server then to TV? That makes 2x the needed bandwidth compared to 1x if it directly goes to TV. Is there a way to make “that” play nice? Ideas I’m considering is Plex server on nas (horribly slow with indexing, but yeh if it directly sends the file it shouldn’t matter) or Plex server on TV (I’m not sure what extras the Plex server does, like is there overhead processing when it streams to itself?)

Could anyone share some insights please?

Final side question: I’m using IPTV via KingBox, is there a proper IPTV plugin I could use? I tried https://github.com/Cigaras/IPTV.bundle but it doesn’t want to play nice… are there others?

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  1. No, there is no such distributed transcoding option natively to Plex. I have heard of 3rd party attempts to mitigate it - but last I heard it was not working very well. Given the introduction of hardware transcoding that lack [of CPU] has been sort of mitigated by a work-around though.
  2. That is how Plex operates. You could use Kodi or other if you do not want the server setup. Getting the server on your TV will not be possible. Closest option is to use the Nvidia Shield. It has both a server and client software available.
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@Peter_W said:

  1. No, there is no such distributed transcoding option natively to Plex. I have heard of 3rd party attempts to mitigate it - but last I heard it was not working very well. Given the introduction of hardware transcoding that lack [of CPU] has been sort of mitigated by a work-around though.
  2. That is how Plex operates. You could use Kodi or other if you do not want the server setup. Getting the server on your TV will not be possible. Closest option is to use the Nvidia Shield. It has both a server and client software available.

  1. Such a shame. like for straight forward stream forwarding the server will do just fine, it will only need to transcode in rare occasions

  2. Problem with Kodi is that it doesn’t seem to run fine on my android tv (Sony KD-55XE8599B ) … so I’m looking for alternatives. Plex is quite popular and seems to run perfect so far.