I’m having a problem on my Synology DS214play NAS with the SiliconDust EXTEND. The only setting that doesn’t result in lots of buffering is “Low quality (240p)” - which looks terrible. Connecting directly (via an IOS app over my LAN) to the EXTEND works great at highest quality setting. Is the processor (Intel Evansport CE5335 1.6 GHz) on the Synology not enough?
Ok. I’m told that the NAS isn’t up to transcoding live TV, but that since I’m using the HDHR “Extend” which is capable of transcoding before it gets to Plex, I should be getting better performance than I am. The suggestion from Plex was to come back to this community with some log files for some further help. What log files would be helpful?
I’ve attached recent log files which were captured during an attempt to watch live TV. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
@larsonjd – I have the same setup, well almost. DS216+II. No buffering through Amazon Fire TV/Stick. Absolutely beautiful picture with Plex app on Samsung 4k TV. Roku… well… it used to buffer, but with 1.7.6 I haven’t noticed it (yet). And I have two TVs hardwired, and one on ac-band router. IMHO, I’m quite pleased.
I have the SD Extends (I have 2) set to transcode to Original Format, and the Plex transcode setting to Automatic. Do I really know what I’m doing? No. But it seems to work. It’s had its ups and downs for the last month or so. Seems ok now. Jinx.
I can’t do live tv yet because I don’t have the requisite streaming hardware. Just the most popular streamer out there, the Roku, and the ubiquitous Amazon Fire devices. Just a little gripe thrown in for good luck.
Thanks for the info. Plex works great for all my other media, just the Live TV is having issues. The PMS is 5 feet from the Extend and they are both plugged into the same (smart) switch, so they should be communicating at Ethernet speeds. Plex to IOS seems to be where the issue must be. Since Extend to IOS works perfectly, that leads me to believe that my network should be ok - which leaves Plex?
Hopefully the experts here will be able to help!
For anyone following this thread - I’ve discovered that the transcoding capabilities of the Extend box do not get leveraged by the Plex server, so the issue appears to be that the Synology NAS just isn’t up to the task. So now I’m looking for a new host for the server.
Sorry for the late response. I’ve been trying to track down this issue since I saw you mention it. The Extend can transcode LiveTV, but there is a current limitation when viewing on iOS that the Extends’ internal transcoder cannot be used. If you used Android TV, you would not have this issue. We are working to get around this limitation on iOS but don’t have any news to share at this time.
Thanks for the update. Curious about the technology- it seems that whether the Extend transcoder is used would be a decision made by Plex, based on the target client, but agnostic as to what that client is. What does it matter what the target is? The transcoding is done before it gets sent isn’t it?
Regardless, I’d love an update if/when it’s fixed!
@larsonjd said:
Thanks for the update. Curious about the technology- it seems that whether the Extend transcoder is used would be a decision made by Plex, based on the target client, but agnostic as to what that client is.
In theory, that is correct. And with other Plex clients that support Live TV, it should be that way. There is something with iOS/TvOS that doesn’t work for LiveTV.
