I have finally seen the light and hope to be able to have a home set-up with one device (NAS) that I can use as a media server. I’m excited about other Plex features e.g. the photo library, but, mainly, would want to play various movie files (in a ton of formats, though a lot of .mkv and .mpg, also .avi) via DLNA to my TV.
I currently have a Synology DS416play NAS and would want to play those files on my (bit older, from 2010) Samsung TV (LE40C750). The issue I frequently come across is that, when browsing on my TV, I cannot play certain files stored on the NAS (currently using MediaServer on the Synology).
I understand that from a recent announcement it may be possible to also have ‘hardware transcoding’ (with NASes with an Intel CPU?) with Plex. So, the question is, would Plex be a solution for me? What (better, other?) NAS would I need to be able to transcode?
If you have a decent client then you don’t need to transcode. Something like a Roku 3 is able to Direct Play most anything. Prior to moving my library to Plex Cloud I was using a 4TB Seagate Personal Cloud to run PMS. This must be the lowest powered NAS on the market yet I didn’t find a single file that I couldn’t play. I even successfully tested with five simultaneous 1080p video streams to a Roku 3, Amazon Fire TV 4K, web browser, iPhone 5s & iPhone 6s Plus.
The Rokus are pretty limited in their support for different formats and codecs. They are the client of choice if you have a diversified media collection. rclone --transfers=2 --checkers=8 --drive-chunk-size=16M --drive-upload-cutoff=16M -v copy “F:/Movies/L/Loophole (1981)” “gdrive:/Master/Movies/L/Loophole (1981)”
DLNA is almost an afterthought with Plex. You really can’t get the Plex experience using DLNA. The beauty of Plex is the rich meta data associated with your files. You just can’t get this with DLNA. Using DLNA is a “last resort” type thing and not a recommendation.
What I would explore is installing Plex on your present NAS (untouched) and then purchasing an Nvidia Shield TV and hooking this to your Living Room TV.
The Shield can play back just about anything you can through at it including all the file type you mentioned and then some. It can do this without you having to worry about HW transcoding on your NAS. Transcoding is only needed when you use a client that can’t play back the file as is.
BUT before rushing out to buy a Shield TV I would check the list of clients on the download page as you may have something already that can run Plex and playback many of the format you described earlier. As an example do you have an Xbox One? Check the list.
If you have a computer which I’m sure you do I’d recommend downloading and installing Plex Media Player on your PC. This in combination with Plex installed on your NAS will allow you to explore how well the system will work for you. PMP on your PC will be about the same as a dedicated Shield for example. By this I mean if you can play your media back on the PC via PMP then a Shield TV will work as well also.
At least this will allow you to test without spending a lot of money on server/nas hardware upgrades that you may not really need.
Carlo
PS again make sure to check the list of devices that you can install the Plex client on as you may have a device that can be used and it will surely work much better than DLNA to your older TV.
@cayars said:
What I would explore is installing Plex on your present NAS (untouched) and then purchasing an Nvidia Shield TV and hooking this to your Living Room TV.
If the OP didn’t like my solution of a Roku then he surely won’t like the Shield at 3x the price. He seems determined to make his life as difficult as possible by insisting on just using a NAS & the TV when there does not appear to be a Plex app for this Samsung LE40C750 TV. I suspect the reference to DLNA is because that is that is how he currently accesses files on the NAS.
thanks both for the responses.
regarding the TV, it’s due for an upgrade, so, if for any reason that is the ‘bottleneck’ in terms of being able to play the maximum number of possible formats, then I would upgrade, that would not be an issue. preferably however it would still be a samsung.
if getting a new TV is not going to solve the problem, then i’ll have to take, it seems, the lesser favoured route of having more hardware (it would have been ideal to have less of this to not clutter things up). I currently have a PC (which I do not want to use as a media server), the Synology DS416play NAS and a satellite receiver. It seems that on top of that I would simply need to have a streaming device (e.g. Roku Ultra).
I saw the Plex post about hardware transcoding and got my hopes up that only a NAS and a TV would be sufficient.
@cayars, regarding your post: “The Rokus are pretty limited in their support for different formats and codecs. They are the client of choice if you have a diversified media collection.”
I didn’t quite get that - are they pretty limited or are they the client of choice? or NOT the client of choice? that is what I gather from your info re the nVidia shield, but wasn’t sure.
Someone else mentioned the Roku as being able to play back anything and I just wanted to say it’s limited and doesn’t compare to what some other devices are able to do.
I have a modern Samsung 75" and still don’t use Plex on the TV and will use a different device such as the Shield TV. It’s easier to use then the built in Plex apps (don’t care which brand TV), is faster and support more formats which is the key to running many different formats off a low end NAS.
If the TV is 1080p then putting a Shield TV or similar in front of it will make it a very good smart tv so to speak. I personally don’t worry about smart features on TVs I purchase since I’d never use them anyway. They just can’t compare to a dedicated hardware box designed for that job. Just my opinion.
Regardless, try installing Plex on the NAS and then installing the client on your computer in order to test and see if your NAS it up to the job for your library with it’s different formats. What client/tv you use later doesn’t matter for testing part.
The Roku is generally considered the best of the Plex apps due to the talented efforts of it’s lead developer. That makes the Roku one of the best solutions as a Plex Device.
I have no issues with media played through my Roku, but I do take care to give it - and the other devices listed in my signature - what they want as far as video and audio streams. It’s easy actually:
Video Streams consisting of h264 Level 4.1 at 4 or 5 reference frames, with 3 B frames. That’s pretty standard actually. Audio streams for me are AAC 2.0 - I have two speakers and the customary number of ear holes in my head so I need nothing more. AC3 2.0 or 5.1 are also fairly commonplace. DTS sucks in big way as does FLAC or MP3 streams inside video files. The worse case is that an audio stream will require transcoding and that’s easily done by just about every piece of junk on the planet.
If you can get a video stream to Direct Play - this junk server issue (NAS = Not A Server) is pretty much solved.
Smart TV’s are not a Smart Choice when dealing with Plex - period. They’re not that Smart and their Plex apps leave something to be desired - like a real Plex app capable of using something other than the DLNA server.
@cayars said:
What I would explore is installing Plex on your present NAS (untouched) and then purchasing an Nvidia Shield TV and hooking this to your Living Room TV.
If the OP didn’t like my solution of a Roku then he surely won’t like the Shield at 3x the price. He seems determined to make his life as difficult as possible by insisting on just using a NAS & the TV when there does not appear to be a Plex app for this Samsung LE40C750 TV. I suspect the reference to DLNA is because that is that is how he currently accesses files on the NAS.
I see what you’re saying although the op has suggested he is looking to upgrade the TV anyway and a minimal number of devices is the most important thing for him.
Although I agree with @cayars comment about the smart TV in general I would definitely limit that to anything that can only run the official app. Back in the day before I foolishly updated my TV, there was nothing a Roku could do that an @Orca friendly Samsung couldn’t. It can certainly direct play an MKV with DTS flawlessly.
Which brings me to the Roku itself. I find it truly baffling that a device is being pushed as the “can play anything simplistic device” followed by “convert all your media to MP4”. If that really was needed (and it really isn’t) then aren’t we actually saying that the Roku can’t play very much at all ? But as said this isn’t the case as two users I share my server with can also happily direct play an MKV or AVI remotely to their Roku’s.
You need to have some pretty off the wall stuff to shut down a Roku. MKVs are fine. DTS sucks, but if you require a lot of suck in your audio don’t be surprised if it transcodes.
The Roku’s main selling point in the Plexiverse is it’s Plex app. The other Plex apps are disaster zones. Plex has developed themselves in to a corner with this whole ‘app parity’ thing. A Plex app should be developed for the platform it runs on, not a ‘one size fits all’ design that has to be beaten into submission.
Not at all. It’s very easy to cause transcoding for a Roku compared to a Shield. This becoming more problematic as well since HVEC is catching on more and more.
The problem with something like a Roku is that it’s not versatile enough. For example you have an MKV with HVEC and DTS, atmos, flac, AC3 or some other audio that the Roku can’t play. Plex server can’t just transcode the audio portion like it would an h.264/AVC file. In a case like this Plex will have to use the HLS protocol which doesn’t support HVEC so it must now transcode both the audio and video. That will put a hurting on your CPU and will require more bandwidth to transfer since h.264 isn’t as efficient as h.265.
On a Shield it has a Tegra GPU (like a GPU based video card) and can do HW transcoding locally. Heck you can run Plex server on the Shield itself and do transcoding. So on the Shield the software client can be smarter and except files as is and make an audio adjustment locally instead of forcing the server to transcode the video due to lack of HVEC support in HLS.
The shield can also handle different color spaces & refresh rates and change them according to your media. 25fps for one movie while 60fps for another and every combination you would encounter. Same with interlaced vs progressive material. The Shield can de-interlace if needed for a cleaner picture which is important if you DVR 1080 content which is interlaced. Because of the Tegra based hardware there is just a lot more that can be done locally on the client to direct play your media. Not to mention that you have 3 different clients you can use on the Shield (Plex app, Kodi with Plex for Kodi, SPMC with Plex for Kodi). SPMC is a version of Kodi specifically for Android so it’s better suited on the Shield.
So yes the Roku does have a nice polished interface and is very easy to use but it just doesn’t have the advanced functionality to handle a diverse library of codecs and containers that the Shield TV can do. The only client that might compare to the Shield would be a PC/NUC running PMP if it has HW decoding for HVEC or enough CPU to handle HVEC 10 bit.
HEVC may be catching on with ‘users’, but it will be a while before it becomes as well accepted as H264. I will buy a Shield when H3!! forms an icecap 500 miles thick. Until then I’ll keep buying HDDs and make sure my streams conform to Roku’s (arguably) limited acceptance list. On my Planet those round wheels are still working just fine so there is no need to re-invent them.
That pretty much tells me everything I need to know about Shield at this point. I have a gaming rig that’s also my PMS. I don’t need a glorified game-boy to play media.
Poor @llama_thumper
He came here asking for help and advice for HIS setup only to be told by others why THEY don’t need a particular device. Just a regular day in PlexVille!!
After the stark reality that the DLNA Server/Samsung app leaves a lot to be desired the only thing left is discussing options.
We can’t sew a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Totally agree with the DLNA part. However he doesn’t have a Plex app on that TV it’s too old. That’s why he is using DLNA.
I’m pretty sure if he had Orca’s app he wouldn’t even be here posting.
Anyways he doesn’t have it and it doesn’t matter how many times we go back and forth with the pros and cons of a Roku it doesn’t negate the fact that he doesn’t want more than two devices for his infrastructure if possible…that’s the point I’m making… It is possible.
hi guys, thank you for all the input.
it seems my (realistic) options are as follows:
-recoding my media library (e.g. all to mp4, ignoring .mkvs which should be fine)
-getting a roku/shield on top of my existing set up (i.e. NAS, Samsung TV).
@llama_thumper said:
hi guys, thank you for all the input.
it seems my (realistic) options are as follows:
-recoding my media library (e.g. all to mp4, ignoring .mkvs which should be fine)
-getting a roku/shield on top of my existing set up (i.e. NAS, Samsung TV).
thank you for the input, really appreciated!
Bear in mind that the other advantage of shield is that it can in fact also be used a server although the Shied Pro would be recommended for this due to the lack of storage space (needed for metadata) on the basic Shield.
As for the converting to MP4 I have a 40+ TB server that is almost exclusively MKV (with a few avi and mp4). I never have a playback issue even with direct play.
It may be worth converting a file or two and then checking they play. I really don’t believe that NONE of your files playing is down to media format.
One other thing you could try… I think you said that you didn’t want to install PMS on your PC?
Well you could still install PlexMediaPlayer (a client) on it just temporarily to test out playback. At least it will confirm if your current issue is purely down to DLNA.
Anyway good luck and it would be great if you reported back with the route you take and how it works out.
@JuiceWSA said:
The Roku is generally considered the best of the Plex apps due to the talented efforts of it’s lead developer. That makes the Roku one of the best solutions as a Plex Device.
and hope to be able to have a home set-up with one device (NAS) that I can use as a media server. I’m excited about other Plex features e.g. the photo library, but, mainly, would want to play various movie files (in a ton of formats, though a lot of .mkv and .mpg, also .avi) via DLNA to my TV.
