Media does not stream at a steady rate. Bandwidth spikes are normal. When the client buffer needs refilling, PMS tries to refill it as fast as possible. The spikes are more noticeable when streaming locally (instead of remotely) because of the available bandwidth - server on gigabit Ethernet, clients on wi-fi can support hundreds of megabit/sec.
I do not think the problem is HW vs SW transcoding, but that transcoding the video cleans up some other issue. You could test by disabling HW transcoding. PMS would then transcode video using the CPU. You should see the same results as when using HW transcoding.
Unsure if the problem is with the Plex LG app. I’ve not noticed similar reports (but I don’t monitor that section of the forum regularly). You could try using another client such as Plex Web (mentioned below).
Some things to try:
Delete codecs in Plex Data Folder.
There may be a problem with the codecs. Deleting them will force PMS to download new copies from plex.tv.
- Stop Plex Media Server
- Go to
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Codecs - Delete the contents in the Codecs directory.
- Start Plex Media Server.
- Give the server a couple of minutes to start, then play something.
Try a different client, such as Plex Web.
This takes the Plex LG app out of the loop.
Plex Web supports H264 video, but not DTS audio, so it will force the audio to transcode.
See if you still have playback problems.
Remux the file with MKVToolNix or similar tools.
The container may be damaged or the tracks may be poorly interleaved. Remuxing will clean up both. The video/audio/subtitle tracks are not transcoded, just copied into a new file.
You can also remux using ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0 -c copy output.mkv
