Make Plex' internal precache buffer for direct streams configurable (~5 seconds?)

Feature Suggestions
1

Hi all,

I am trying to playback some 4K content on my LG tv using XPlay.

This works excellent when the 4K file I am playing back is available for Plex on a local SSD.

But, the very same 4K file makes XPlay buffer when Plex plays back the file from storage with slower access times (high latency).

The transfer speed of the storage is fine (80-100MB/s - only 10MB/s is needed for the 4K stream), but the roundtrip for a single read request from the storage is slow - think cloud storage using rclone.

Is there a way to make Plex precache a little more of the file internally, so the LG tv never has to wait for the whole storage request to be performed end to end when it is ready to retrieve the next part of the stream?

My LG tv / XPLay unfortunately does not appear to have a buffer size parameter that I can raise - setting the option there would of course have been the right way to remediate this issue.

So, I was wondering, would I perhaps be able to make Plex do a little more internal buffering instead?

I imagine, if Plex would have the option to precache maybe 5 seconds of the direct stream, that would solve this issue completely for me.

Anybody else encountered this kind of issue already? And, how did you solve it?

2

I don’t have this problem as I transcode. my transcode buffer is set to 60 seconds. My server has plenty of memory but I would like Plex to use more of it. I think your issue could be server related. You might be able to adjust precache through the OS. Either way, Plex should be buffering sufficient data and if it isn’t then I would call that a bug.

3

Thank you, daveboy865 - it sounds very good, if Plex already precaches.

That means I am not looking for a new feature, just a way to have it precache even more.

How would you go about precaching through the os?

I would be very interested in knowing about this - so far I have a Plex server on both WIndows, Mac and Linux, and so far the problem is the same on all platforms.

4

Wow, so the issue is apparent across different operating systems all running a Plex server. Why hasn’t anyone else come across this issue? I mean, you can’t be the only 4K streamer.

As far as controlling os buffers. I think Linux does it automatically very well. Have you tried capturing a log and posting it somewhere for the forum team to see? They might be able to suggest a fix.