Why is Plex Transcoding Live TV on a HDHomeRun Extend that Has Native Transcoding?! It’s eating up my NAS’s resources! I am at 70-90% CPU.
The Channels DVR package for my NAS works exceedingly better with no transcoding and used like 10% of my old 218play NAS cpu resources. Now I have a beefier 218+ with Intel Quick Sync and Plex transcoder is taking 70% of cpu resources and the video is constantly buffering.
Its transcoding H264 to H264?! And then on top of that its transcoding AC3 to EAC3 when the Apple TV supports AC3 natively?!
InstaTV app on Apple TV has no problem letting HDHomeRun Extend do the transcoding and channels appear instantly and no buffer. Channels app is the same. Why is the Plex server transcoding for codecs that work natively on Apple TV?
HDHomeRun devs are extremely willing to help developers with using there API so I don’t understand why Plex wouldn’t implement something so important. Plex is basically neutering both a NAS and Tuner. And Plex does know to distinguish between tuners with or without transcoders because your support page explicitly states the Extend transcodes on its own and thats what the “Highest Quality” and other settings that are setup for the Extend in Plex are for.
Plex only supports 3 brands of tuners. With only about 12-15 models total. This is hardly difficult to manage to get supported fully.
For comparison, look at how many different NASes alone Plex supports. Theirs literally hundreds or more.
Please, can we get this fixed? I cannot use Plex for Live TV without it. And I paid extra for the Extend because it transcodes and leaves my other devices resources free.
I’m curious on this too. I have a Prime and Quatro OTA and both Transcode when watching live TV from Plex. However, my Channels app on Apple TV doesn’t transcode live TV from these two tuners and plays instantly. Is there a reason Plex is forcing transcoding?
There is no reason it should. But it does. And no one from Plex team even acknowledges the problem. That’s the LEAST they could do. But no, we get complete silence.
The Extend with Highest Quality setting transcodes to h264 but the Extend leaves the frames untouched so the video while converted from mpeg2 to h264 will still be interlaced or progressive based on the original transmission. If the client device, ATV, is unable to handle interlaced video then Plex will transcode the video to a format the client can play. In this case I assume it is converting a 1080i to 1080p which is why you see the h264 to h264, the incoming stream is h264 and Plex is converting the interlaced h264 to progressive h264. I would suggest trying the High Quality setting on the Extend which will drop the interlaced frames before sending to Plex. I have my Extend set to Highest Quality but my clients, Fire TV Stick and Shield, are able to stream the video coming from the Extend with no transcoding in Plex.
Yeah, even with HDHR set to “Highest quality” in Plex and HDHR’s web gui set to “heavy” it still transcodes H264 to H264. And that also doesn’t answer why AC3 is transcoded to EAC3.
AFAIK the ATV can handle interlaced video. Because then why would the Channels app and the InstaTV app be able to play them without transcoding?
I see what your saying about the “High quality” but that causes very bad artifacting which for me makes the programs unwatchable.
Also, a very simple solution Plex could add to the Apple TV Plex player and any other players with this issue is to have a “De-interlace” option. That is what Emby is planning to do. So why can’t Plex do it?
yes but what does it do to your cpu usage. They are always going to “Transcode” for time shifting - The segments of .ts files are in the transcode folder even when I direct play to my Nvidia Shield the diff is it uses next to no CPU. What does your cpu usage look like as you move down in settings levels. My ATV simply put is more finicky about file formats and I had to keep lowering until I saw CPU usage drop. I didnt really care for it thats why I dont really use it and use the Shield tV
I just tripped up on the transcoding from my HDHR Extend vs Plex transcoding. I feel sort of stupid paying the extra money for the Extends so they can transcode only to find out Plex could have done the transcoding for me.
I am not too interested in streaming outside of the home. Just to the main TVs. I want the best quality picture possible. It would seem wrong to have HDHR Extend set to transcode and Plex also set to transcode. Shouldn’t one of them be set to original format so it would not touch the video?
I know this is an old thread, but I feel compelled to comment. Yesterday I went to Frys because they had the cheap HDHR on clearance so I thought it would be a good time to dive into PLEX TV/DVR. Well they were sold out so I spent WAY more then I wanted and got the Extend. I was super bummed last night when watching live TV on my Roku Ultra with a great 5Ghz connection and Plex Transcoding was taxing my CPU. I tested on my Roku Stick that is about 1’ away from my WAP and the same thing, the CPU throttled up to transcode. I tried changing the stream to 4Mpbs 720p and noticed the CPU ran even higher. So I decided to go the other way and selected the highest quality, original, and what do you know the CPU dropped to idle. I ran downstairs to my Roku Ultra and tested CPU usage with quality set to original and it didn’t move.
TLDR; Set streaming quality to the highest (original quality).
