Even though I am turning down most of my local media requirements I will continue to use a local storage for 2k, 4k, and beyond for the foreseeable future. My investment into Plex as a service is small. However, I do have a sustainable hardware investment that I wish to utilize to its potential. Plex over the past 3 years has expanded to many platforms and have introduce new features and have down well for the most part in my opinion.
The Windows 10 Mobile they have failed miserably and recently PMS for Synology has been problematic, most lyin CPU utilization on my DS3615sx. A single 1080p MKV file chokes with pauses, resume failures, and glitchy playback. In general this has always been a high value but nothing to be concerned about, but 90%+ is not expectable for a single 1080p MKV.
Frustrated with all the issues that I have had with Plex recently, Plex on my Windows 10 Mobile has been nearly non-existent, I decide to search elsewhere just to rule out that Plex is at fault. So I jumped the fence with a trial of Emby and thus far I am very impressed. Not only does Emby playback 4K at 60Mb, 80, and 120Mb it does it without going beyond 50% CPU. I also find that there is far more control over Emby than I ever had with Plex. Granted Emby may not appear as polished from an interface perspective but I am not hear to stare at what plays my media.
I have give Emby a fair trial for about a month and I have been experiencing far less issue over all. I even ran their Windows 10 Mobile app through the paces and thus far I am very happy.
With that said I am officially moving to Emby. Plex I am sorry but I spent nearly 4 years with you, not all bad of course, but I feel that my investment in Plex is failing me. I wish you good luck in the future.
Please note: I will keep my account active for a while in case someone cares to respond to this post, but I will be shutting down my Plex account in the near future and will obviously will not be responding to any replies to my post thereafter.
Nvdader2000
From a fellow Windows user I can fully understand your position, and I’m starting to feel dissatisfied with the state of PMS and UWP platforms.
I’m not jumping ship just yet, but I know why you are.
Let’s hope things improve soon otherwise a lot of Windows users might turn away from the platform.
@NVader2000 said:
Even though I am turning down most of my local media requirements I will continue to use a local storage for 2k, 4k, and beyond for the foreseeable future. My investment into Plex as a service is small. However, I do have a sustainable hardware investment that I wish to utilize to its potential. Plex over the past 3 years has expanded to many platforms and have introduce new features and have down well for the most part in my opinion.
The Windows 10 Mobile they have failed miserably and recently PMS for Synology has been problematic, most lyin CPU utilization on my DS3615sx. A single 1080p MKV file chokes with pauses, resume failures, and glitchy playback. In general this has always been a high value but nothing to be concerned about, but 90%+ is not expectable for a single 1080p MKV.
Frustrated with all the issues that I have had with Plex recently, Plex on my Windows 10 Mobile has been nearly non-existent, I decide to search elsewhere just to rule out that Plex is at fault. So I jumped the fence with a trial of Emby and thus far I am very impressed. Not only does Emby playback 4K at 60Mb, 80, and 120Mb it does it without going beyond 50% CPU. I also find that there is far more control over Emby than I ever had with Plex. Granted Emby may not appear as polished from an interface perspective but I am not hear to stare at what plays my media.
I have give Emby a fair trial for about a month and I have been experiencing far less issue over all. I even ran their Windows 10 Mobile app through the paces and thus far I am very happy.
With that said I am officially moving to Emby. Plex I am sorry but I spent nearly 4 years with you, not all bad of course, but I feel that my investment in Plex is failing me. I wish you good luck in the future.
Please note: I will keep my account active for a while in case someone cares to respond to this post, but I will be shutting down my Plex account in the near future and will obviously will not be responding to any replies to my post thereafter.
Nvdader2000
Are you playing 4k content on a 4k client? there should be any CPU usage in that case, as it should direct play?
I installed and used Emby for a couple of weeks using it side by side with Plex about 50/50. I believe I gave Emby a good test and, for me, I fund it woefully lacking. It worked and was OK in the client department but it would periodically just lock up and the server would have to be restarted. But that did always recover from the problem.
There are a myriad of little irritating issues that I ran into that are too numerous to even try to list in detail.
Emby is just not, or at least for me it is not, a mature product. Plex often feels like an advanced beta but Emby feels like a late alpha product.
I just, yesterday, ended my test of Emby and I can, for my use, pronounce it non-viable.
Plex, with all its problems and glitches and lacks of finished clients and features is head and shoulders above Emby.
Of course that opinion is just my own and others should make their own choice BUT I can strongly recommend against Emby over Plex. As much as I think Plex needs work and has many incomplete or unfinished parts it simply works quite well for me.
It should be noted that my tests were on a pretty powerful computer and that Plex and Emby were on different computers that had no other tasks.
I do not use any remote access.
I do not use so did not test Plex vs Emby for remote access, audio, advanced video, DVR, or live TV. I simply used each for playback and management of my large TV and movie library.
I will also say that I think Emby has dumbed their system down for the “regular” user so much that it is actually more complicated to use than Plex. They did not apply: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” As said by Albert Einstein.
Elijah_Baley, I do agree with most of you have stated. Plex is more polished and their backend (PMS) is fairly easier to use and to understand. Emby’s client side interface is actually far easier in my opinion. Ask my wife. 
She is far happy with the Emby interface as it is straightforward, to the point, and easy to navigate. The backend (server side) is a bit more complex than Plex, but once you have found that sweet spot there should be no need to revisit the backend.
Agreed, Emby is not as mature as Plex but if it does what you want it to do then what is the value? I guess this is all preference and everyone will have a different setup. For me Emby wins on all platforms, Android, iOS, Xbox, HTTP, and my Windows 10 Mobile.
@NVader2000 said:
Elijah_Baley, I do agree with most of you have stated. Plex is more polished and their backend (PMS) is fairly easier to use and to understand. Emby’s client side interface is actually far easier in my opinion. Ask my wife. 
She is far happy with the Emby interface as it is straightforward, to the point, and easy to navigate. The backend (server side) is a bit more complex than Plex, but once you have found that sweet spot there should be no need to revisit the backend.
Agreed, Emby is not as mature as Plex but if it does what you want it to do then what is the value? I guess this is all preference and everyone will have a different setup. For me Emby wins on all platforms, Android, iOS, Xbox, HTTP, and my Windows 10 Mobile.
Actually, since I posted in this thread I have reevaluated Emby and, mostly, changed my opinion. It turns out that part of the Emby issues I was running into was related to a corrupted support file.
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/286528/still-on-the-fence-about-switching-systems-but-something-has-changed
I am still running Plex and Emby side by side BUT I am almost exclusively, at least for now, using Emby clients to actually play anything.
