My QNAP TS-219P II NAS (5 years old) is hardwired to my router and so is my TV. All 3 devices are in the same physical location.
When I run Plex on my laptop (i7), connected via wi-fi my TV is able to play my 4K videos wirelessly using Direct Stream with the media on my laptop. I am also able to play the same 4K content stored on my NAS via the filesystem on my laptop, again wirelessly. Unfortunately however I can only get reliable DirectStream output (to my TV) for DVD’s when running Plex on my NAS. HD content and 4K does not work.
I’d like to understand why my laptop can play the 4K content wirelessly off of my NAS but my TV can’t with a wired connection using Plex. I was under the impression that a high performing CPU was only needed for transcoding and that DirectStream did not need high processing power. When I attempt to play the 4K content on my TV (from the NAS using Plex Server on NAS) using Direct Stream I get network errors and the CPU useage on the NAS is around 42%. Hardware wise what is my NAS lacking and will a new NAS work flawlessly with DirectStream and 4K content? I’m only really interested in getting everything working on my TV so don’t necessarily need transcoding.
I’m interested in the QNAP TS-453A NAS. Will it run Plex well enough for DirectStream playback of 4K content?
I think you are misunderstanding what direct stream is. If you are referring to remuxing a file to a compatible container but keeping the codecs intact, you can’t do that with 4k content and Plex. If a 4K file cannot be direct played, which means as-is, with nothing done to the file, then the video HAS to be transcoded to 1080p. Your NAS is not going to be able to handle that. Even the TS-453A might not be able to handle transcoding 4K content.
Why does the TV play about 20 seconds and then give up with a network error? My current NAS can’t handle any transcoding so how is it able to play 20 seconds or so at a time? The CPU is only at 42% during playback. I really wish I could try the TS-453A before I buy. I need to know if DirectStream will work with my TV for 4K with that NAS. Surely a modern 4K TV should be able to play 4K via Plex without needing to do anything complicated. My phone is able to send the same 4K videos to the TV wirelessly so surely Plex should be able to handle it?
It turns out that blu-rays in MKV format play fine from my NAS (TS-219P II). When I originally posted this query I did not have a blu-ray drive. (Over the weekend I got a lead that allowed me to connect up my old internal blu-ray writer to my new laptop externally). I was really pleased to see that blu-rays played fine, as I was not expecting them to. So my new questions is, why do MKV files in 1080p play fine but 1080p MP4 files do not - I get network errors. I should have said that my 1080p and 4K tests were home videos in MP4 format, not blu-rays. The same MP4 files play fine (on my TV) when I run the Plex server on my laptop.
It is my understanding that blu-ray converted MKV files will contain videos using the m2ts codec, but I may be wrong. I’m using MakeMKV
My 4K home videos are 21 Mbps but I think the bit rate of the blu-rays is far less. Not sure if it’s the codec or the bitrate that’s the problem when it comes to my home videos. For my 1080p footage I could create a blu-ray disc image (iso) and then convert that to MKV but that’s an extra step I would like to avoid if possible.
You can stick many different codecs into the MP4 container so just because it’s MP4, does not guarantee it is H264. See this support article on how to get the XML info for a video in Plex. If you can save the output from that into a text file and post the text file, I can take a look.
It is my understanding that blu-ray converted MKV files will contain videos using the m2ts codec, but I may be wrong. I’m using MakeMKV .m2ts - Wikipedia
m2ts is also a container. Blu-ray videos are typically 1 of 2 codecs. H264 or VC1. MakeMKV will take these as-is and copy them into an MKV container. VC1 is not a friendly codec and PMS will struggle to transcode this.
My 4K home videos are 21 Mbps but I think the bit rate of the blu-rays is far less. Not sure if it’s the codec or the bitrate that’s the problem when it comes to my home videos. For my 1080p footage I could create a blu-ray disc image (iso) and then convert that to MKV but that’s an extra step I would like to avoid if possible.
It is most likely a codec and a transcoding issue. If the client can direct play (i.e. play as-is) then there is no load on your NAS except a file transfer. If the file cannot be direct played, then the NAS has to transcode (convert the video on-the-fly) which does take a lot of cpu power. On your laptop, if you use Plex Media Player, it can play almost any format so it doesn’t need your NAS to do anything. Your TV, however, has limited support so it most likely does need a transcode.
Last night I took one of my 1080p MP4 (H264) videos that wouldn’t play properly and changed the container to MKV. Now it plays perfectly.
Before editing any more home videos I need to make a decision
a) Convert all of my MP4 H264 home videos to MKV H264 and carry on using my current NAS with a new extra drive. Disadvantage - Not sure how to edit chapters once in MKV format. Advantage: Cheap option but only for the short term.
b) Leave my videos in MP4 H264 format and buy a new NAS that can handle these properly for playback to my TV.
c) Switch to Plex Cloud which can handle my existing MP4 H264 videos - Disadvantages: Way to expensive, no affordable plans above 1tb, file size limit of 10 Gb on OneDrive (so no blu-ray MKV’s) very slow upload speeds.
My current NAS is completely full but has a spare bay so I could put another drive in it. I would like an 8tb drive but no compatible drives are listed on QNAP’s website. A new NAS + an 8tb drive is going to be expensive but at least I will have options to expand. I’m leaning towards option b despite the initial cost. Would love a raid 1 setup but 2 x 8tb drives is so expensive + there’s the large NAS cost.
Can’t decide the way forward but I think Plex Cloud is a non starter, at least for now.
@DarrenL81 said:
Last night I took one of my 1080p MP4 (H264) videos that wouldn’t play properly and changed the container to MKV. Now it plays perfectly.
That sounds like the header info in the original file is bad and remuxing it into another container fixed the error. If you can get me a sample of one of these videos, I can check if there is something that can be done on PMS’s side to get around the error.
