Plex noob and first time poster, so please be gentle
I’m looking to buy a Synology DS920+ to replace an old DS212j from many moons ago, which used to (poorly) but no longer does run PMS.
One of the main reasons is to run a PMS natively on the NAS. However after much reading on this forum, it has come to my attention that the J4xxx CPU’s have some issues with the iHD driver… which I understand is responsible for hardware transcoding??
Presently I do not have a Plex Pass and am running just a free Plex account. I run PMS on my PC and the Plex client on my TV. The NAS and PC are each connected directly to the router.
So my questions are thus:
With the driver issue, is it worth buying a DS920+ or should I just wait? Perhaps for a 921+? I saw from another post by Stumpy that there is apparently a fix in the works by Intel.
With my current setup, am I even using HW transcoding? I’m not seeing any issues with any of my media during playback. Does that mean they’re just natively being steamed to my TV or is there some transcoding being done by my PC?
What might be the advantages of getting Plex Pass, in my situation. I’ve had a look at the promotional page, and don’t feel like it offers me anything I need beyond my current setup.
Trumpy thanks so much for your reply. You’ve helped me make up my mind to pick one up.
A few more questions if you don’t mind though, all kind of along the same vein:
what is the benefit of using hardware acceleration? Just to take the load off the CPU?
When I set up my 920+, will it default to transcode (sw)? Or just direct play like the 212j does?
As Rockstar alluded to, HW acceleration requires a Plex Pass, but as you implied, that is by no means necessary. Which is kind of the same question as #2, will it just direct play? Transcode? Magic?
With my current set up, how does Plex work to connect my NAS/PC/TV? Does the PC continuously pull data through the network/router to then push it back through the network/router to the TV? Or does it work similarly to a Chromecast where it just initiates the connection? I’d think the latter wasn’t really possible considering I have no Plex on the NAS at all ¯\(ツ)/¯
Thanks again Trumpy, those answers are really helpful.
My last question was just more a curiosity than important really.
So currently my set up is like this;
Switch in the living room next to the internet wall outlet.
NAS next to the switch and connected directly to the switch. Contains media but no Plex software, sharing media through UPNP.
PC up the other end of the house running PMS, connected wired through a Netgear EoP adapter (which also provides a wifi connection). Connected through UPNP to shared folders on the NAS.
TV in an adjacent room to my PC, running on the Netgear’s wifi, running the Plex client.
So when I fire it all up, obviously the tv Plex client talks to the PMS, which is on the PC.
I suppose ultimately my question is, when the media is streamed to the TV from the NAS, does the data:
a) go from the NAS, through the network, to the PC (PMS) then get pushed back through the network/router to then just come back again through the netgear wifi to the TV? or;
b) the PMS on the PC somehow sets up a connection between the NAS and TV and the media is streamed directly from the NAS to the TV? (Which is how understand a chromecast to work)
Again, I don’t think b is an option because there is no Plex software on the NAS.
Also, it works fine at the moment and I’m not really seeing huge amounts of network congestion or lag so I’m not really worried, I’m just curious whether the network is double handling the same data back and forth to get it to the tv.
