# How To Reduce Buffering

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Tags:** server-truenas\
**Created:** [June 12, 2019, 2:16pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151 "2019-06-12T14:16:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![cmcigas](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/cmcigas/32/117591_2.png) [@cmcigas](https://forums.plex.tv/u/cmcigas)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:16pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/1 "2019-06-12T14:16:30Z")

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Hello everyone, so Im trying to use my Plex server more after fixing my metadata after a few months and I noticed even with two CPUs at 2.5GHz/3GHz and 6c/12t I get some buffering. I’m not sure what my settings should be at for my server.

I have a few 720p and under videos, mainly a 1080p library and quite a few 4K files. My latest attempt was a couple of 1080p shows that out of the 5, one or two of them buffered 2-3 times in the hour. I know its not bad, but I plan on opening up my server to friends and family so I want to make sure it is stable as possible.

Any settings I could check for this? Right now, I am only streaming on my LAN and not remotely.

Thank you

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**Author:** ![mikec\_pt](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/mikec_pt/32/4651_2.png) [@mikec\_pt](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mikec_pt)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:32pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/2 "2019-06-12T14:32:19Z")

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What the exact CPU if I may ask? does it support intel Quick Sync?

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**Author:** ![thomy22](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@thomy22](https://forums.plex.tv/u/thomy22)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/3 "2019-06-12T14:33:22Z")

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> [@cmcigas](#):
>
> Hello everyone, so Im trying to use my Plex server more after fixing my metadata after a few months and I noticed even with two CPUs at 2.5GHz/3GHz and 6c/12t I get some buffering. I’m not sure what my settings should be at for my server.
> 
> I have a few 720p and under videos, mainly a 1080p library and quite a few 4K files. My latest attempt was a couple of 1080p shows that out of the 5, one or two of them buffered 2-3 times in the hour. I know its not bad, but I plan on opening up my server to friends and family so I want to make sure it is stable as possible.
> 
> Any settings I could check for this? Right now, I am only streaming on my LAN and not remotely.
> 
> Thank you

It would be important to know which players you use and how they are connected.

Also the files would not be bad. Are they MKV, MP4 or AVI? How are they coded? What bit rates do you have? With or without subtitles etc. the more information the better you can get.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cmcigas](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/cmcigas/32/117591_2.png) [@cmcigas](https://forums.plex.tv/u/cmcigas)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/4 "2019-06-12T14:41:58Z")

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They are both E5-2640s.

As for the files, they are a mix of MKV and MP4, I believe most if not all are all H264 codec in my library, the files mentioned are around 9000Kbps bitrate.

Actually, after checking, one of the 4K titles I have is HEVC and the bitrate is 31379 kbps, MKV. I havent watched this movie in a while, only recently I did change my raid to be correct in FreeNAS (5x RaidZ2s of 6 disks for one pool) but at the time it buffered ALOT, for the whole 2hr20m movie, it probably buffered over 10 times. I mainly use my Plex app on my LG 4K TV, but have used it on my Amazon Fire stb (not the stick).

EDIT: no subtitles.

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**Author:** ![emripoohie](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/emripoohie/32/12105_2.png) [@emripoohie](https://forums.plex.tv/u/emripoohie)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/5 "2019-06-12T14:42:21Z")

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“With or without subtitles etc.”

This is very important when you direct play, subtitles will cause buffering on movies/shows unless they are burned in.

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**Author:** ![emripoohie](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/emripoohie/32/12105_2.png) [@emripoohie](https://forums.plex.tv/u/emripoohie)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:53pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/6 "2019-06-12T14:53:30Z")

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What is your general playback settings on your Plex TV app? Do you have direct stream enabled?

I would say enabling this is important when your playback source (TV) cannot handle certain files. It could just be that your files need to be encoded (transcoded) in order for your files to play on your TV.

This article should be super helpful to help understand the difference in direct play/stream and should help with buffering as Plex will automatically encode the files to playback on your device.

[https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cmcigas](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/cmcigas/32/117591_2.png) [@cmcigas](https://forums.plex.tv/u/cmcigas)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/7 "2019-06-12T15:08:18Z")

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Ill check that out thank you, did think it could be related to the player but didn’t want to mess with anything until I got more info. Ill check it out tonight and reply back with the player info as well.

Anything else I could check out on the server in the mean time?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mikec\_pt](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/mikec_pt/32/4651_2.png) [@mikec\_pt](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mikec_pt)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/8 "2019-06-12T15:43:42Z")

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> [@cmcigas](#):
>
> They are both E5-2640s.

No support for quick sync then, when transcoding it could help to use Hardware Transcoding, however for 4k HEVC then its much better if you can direct play them.

One other note on subs " subtitles will cause buffering on movies/shows unless they are burned in." to do this the rest will still be transcoded, even if the container,and codecs are support (this is stated in the article posted).

> **Note** : Subtitles can introduce a wrinkle here sometimes. Even if a file’s audio, video, and container are all compatible with a Plex App, if a subtitle stream is selected and is not compatible with the Plex App, then the Server will “burn in” the subtitle text within the video. This requires a full transcode of the video stream.

But if subs are not at play, I would just check the container (mkv,mp4 etc) and codecs and confirm in the Server Dashboard its actually DirectPlaying and not transcoding.

You can also use the `transcode/session` API endpoint that will show a bit more info (including `speed`)

The Full url would be `server_ip_or_address:32400/transcode/sessions?X-Plex-Token=YOUR_TOKEN` this will list info like this:

```auto
<MediaContainer size="1"><TranscodeSession key="d2vxu5snkbiotvvme7uu8ff3" throttled="0" complete="0" progress="66" speed="7.9000000953674316" duration="5302090" remaining="220" context="streaming" sourceVideoCodec="hevc" sourceAudioCodec="aac" videoDecision="transcode" audioDecision="copy" protocol="dash" container="mp4" videoCodec="h264" audioCodec="aac" audioChannels="2" transcodeHwRequested="1" transcodeHwDecoding="vaapi" transcodeHwEncoding="vaapi" transcodeHwDecodingTitle="Intel (VA API)" transcodeHwFullPipeline="1" transcodeHwEncodingTitle="Intel (VA API)" timeStamp="1560353472.0625875" maxOffsetAvailable="3501.0004999999987" minOffsetAvailable="1"/></MediaContainer>

```

In this case I’m using HWT via VAAPI (audio is copied so this is DirectSteam and as you can see speed is prety nice)

```auto
<MediaContainer size="1"><TranscodeSession key="pfqbrz0a7ch2zg9tzvzbkh94" throttled="0" complete="0" progress="0.80000001192092896" speed="2.7000000476837158" duration="7011088" remaining="2385" context="streaming" sourceVideoCodec="hevc" sourceAudioCodec="ac3" videoDecision="transcode" audioDecision="transcode" protocol="dash" container="mp4" videoCodec="h264" audioCodec="aac" audioChannels="2" transcodeHwRequested="1" transcodeHwDecoding="vaapi" transcodeHwEncoding="vaapi" transcodeHwDecodingTitle="Intel (VA API)" transcodeHwFullPipeline="1" transcodeHwEncodingTitle="Intel (VA API)" timeStamp="1560353878.1368451" maxOffsetAvailable="55.987000000000059" minOffsetAvailable="1"/></MediaContainer>

```

This is for HEVC 4k with ac3, so its full transcode no buffering but see the speed massively dropped 🙂

Now same thing with subs (SRT) :

```auto
<MediaContainer size="1"><TranscodeSession key="ofwfldw0zgggssch4sybkw2b" throttled="0" complete="0" progress="1.7999999523162842" speed="1.2999999523162842" duration="7011088" remaining="6585" context="streaming" sourceVideoCodec="hevc" sourceAudioCodec="ac3" videoDecision="transcode" audioDecision="transcode" subtitleDecision="burn" protocol="dash" container="mp4" videoCodec="h264" audioCodec="aac" audioChannels="2" transcodeHwRequested="1" transcodeHwDecoding="vaapi" transcodeHwEncoding="vaapi" transcodeHwDecodingTitle="Intel (VA API)" transcodeHwFullPipeline="0" transcodeHwEncodingTitle="Intel (VA API)" timeStamp="1560353988.7215016" maxOffsetAvailable="124.04070737404071" minOffsetAvailable="1"/></MediaContainer>

```

With PGS this would buffer for sure 🙂

EDIT: Actually I have burn enable here, so the speed would be about the same.

So checking this endpoint can offer you some help on what going on, without the need to look into the Logs.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-reduce-buffering/422151/9 "2019-09-10T15:43:49Z")

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