How do I improve performance of Plex Transcoder on Synology NAS when using an HDHomerun device?

General Discussions Plex Features
1

I have the latest version of Plex (1.10.1.4602 and a plex pass) running on a new Synology DS418Play (stored content plays great). I also have a new HDHomeRun Duo on the network wired with cat6/gigabit (both NAS and HDHR plug into my router). Setting up the HDHR device in Plex Live TV & DVR went effortlessly, but playing LiveTV is a whole 'nother story.

When I attempt to play LiveTV from any wired or wifi device through PLEX I notice that the CPU on the DS418Play pegs out in the 90%+ range and the PLEX served LiveTV plays for a few seconds then buffers for a few seconds then plays for a few seconds and then buffers for a few seconds… continuously. I found that the process on the NAS device that is pegging out is the Plex Transcoder process. (see attached image… fyi just happens to be scanning media folders now also but transcoder takes all available CPU regardless)

When I play LiveTV using the HDHR provided app (NOT through PLEX) on my cat6 wired Win10 PC it plays with NO buffering… ever…

  1. Is PLEX still working through transcoder tuning issues for LiveTV?
  2. Is my new DS418Play not powerful enough to handle LiveTV through PLEX?
  3. Did I configure something wrong?
2

Plex doesn’t use the mpeg2video hardware decoding capabilities of the apollo chipset yet. The intel celeron chipset is just not powerful enough to decode mpeg2video by software.

A plex employee said that adding mpeg2video hardware decoding is in the Devs backlog. Until the synology gets hardware mpeg2video decoding, I’m afraid the only thing you can do is using a player that can direct play mpeg2video without any transcoding on the server side.

Also, make sure you run the 64 bit version of pms and make sure that hardware acceleration is activated in pms transcoder settings. At least you will get the h. 264 hardware acceleration encoding.

3

Returning HDHomeRun Connect Duo and getting the HDHomeRun Extend device that has built in transcoding to convert mpeg2 to h.264

4

See latest updates here:

forums.plex.tv/discussion/303210/dvr-and-live-tv-on-synology-ds418play-using-hdhomerun-extend-not-working-right#latest