Hi all,
First time posting here. I’m looking to build my first Plex setup, and I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the different options that are out there. I want to do this on a budget, and I only plan to stream movies to one TV in my house. Where it gets confusing for me, is most of the movies i want to stream are 4K. I have an old laptop, that ideally i would use for my server, and I plan to get an Nvidia Shield to use as my client. Laptop specs are below. My question is can i setup a dedicated server on this laptop, with my media library on an external hard drive, and stream to an Nvidia shield no problem. I know that my laptop cannot transcode 4K media, but will my Nvidia Shield be able to direct play 4k files. Most of my movies are in MKV format with H265 codec (not H264). Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Laptop specs:
Asus K55N
CPU: AMD A8 4500m 1.9GHz
RAM: 6GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon HD 7640G
If you’re considering wanting to stream 4k, I would recommend reading this post:
Plex is a good “interpreter” in that it remixes files based on the wide array of clients (rokus, fire sticks, smart tvs) that it can deliver to. Making those translations for 4k is incredibly taxing, and requires a bit of a budget to pull off successfully, if at all.
The other side is remixing all of your 4k files to ensure that they play directly on the end device, which can be time consuming, and a hair pulling experience if you’re not well versed in such things.
If you’re truly only ever going to use one TV, and you want 4k with no fuss, I would recommend Kodi running on a PC dedicated to the TV. Since it runs everything direct, there won’t be a need for translation. The moment you start to consider wanting to use more than one screen, though… you’re back to Plex.
assuming shield is configured correctly and you have a 4k/truehd/atmos compatible receiver/sound bar, shield should direct play just about everything you can throw at it.
as long as your direct playing, the laptop should be sufficient, you will want to connect it to ethernet, not wifi.
you could also consider using a shield pro as a server, which should be plenty for a single tv streaming solution, but be aware there limitations to the shield server, that do not apply to a normal pc server.
Thanks for the help! If i use the Nvidia Shield as a server, it would be my server and Client in one? Or would i need a shield as the server, and one as the client. Sorry, I’m very new to all this! Also, my Receiver will support Atmos etc… Its a Denon AVR-S750H
yes, the shield would serve as both the client and the server.
you would likely need to connect an external drive (the shield storage is pretty small) and configure the shield/plex to use the external drive for plex data (read the support documents).
You would also need either an external drive for media storage, or use a NAS for media storage and configure the shield to the nas, so plex can scan the media files. (also in the support documents)
the more you are able to familiarize yourself with plex in general, and with plex on the shield, the better/more easily you will make it for yourself when getting everything set up.
Okay, Good to know! Sounds like regardless of whether or not i run the shield or old laptop as the server, the Nvidia shield is the way to go. If i run the server from the laptop, I could plug it into an ethernet cable. If i use the shield, it would need to connect via wifi (no ethernet in the tv room). Would that influence my decision. Would a hard wired server be a lot better than a server connected via wifi.
well… if the shield server is only ever going to serve to the same shield client, then I suppose wireless would be ok, assuming you have decent wireless signal/bandwidth so the server can download metadata etc. if the shield server/client are the same device, it will just connect to itself locally and not go over wifi or ethernet to get to the server.
plex (both server and client) still require internet access, so the more stable/better that is, the better your experience will be.
If the server (regardless of if laptop or shield) is on wifi, it might work, but generally wireless connections are not stable or consistent enough to serve media to multiple clients.
I suppose there is no harm in trying it, it may suffice for your particular situation.
But just be aware, that it could very well cause all kinds of weird issues that could be avoided by using ethernet.
Ran into this post while trying to build my own plex server.
I’d like to report first hand my experiences with PMS on shield. TLDR do it only if you don’t want to build a computer.
I’ve used the 2015 shield pro and when that went kaput I shifted to the 2019 version. The 16gb space is really low and a decent library will require you to add another external disk for metadata since you will over a period of time install other apps to your shield as well. The you’re left with 2 choices, either shift your entire OS and files to the external disk or to shift the metadata to thE external disk. I found shifting entire OS gave me boot up issues and the shield overall becoming slow. I didn’t go out and buy a blazing fast usb 3 disk but used a WD elements (I think) and the another WD external for the purpose. Both were usb 3.0, but the problem here is nvidia. In 2019 who launches their pro product with 16gb chip and non pro with 8gb? My 2010 Dell streak 5 phone had more inbuilt memory than Shield tune.
So once you move to the external disk, everything becomes slow with days at end to build the database (including intro detection and thumbnails).
I personally would stay away from shield as a server, it’s an excellent plex media player.
