I just realized, that I was not entirely clear about the problem in the very beginning. It is buried in the conversation, but not outright obvious.
We DO NOT use Live TV for anything, we record from TV and view later. So that is not an issue.
All my problems are trying to play .ts files… And not all .ts files, but they all come in the same way from almost all the same source. I have a Hauppague WinTV-dualHD tuner that records 98% from OPB in Portland.
To make matters worse, if I find a troublesome file and try to replicate the problem the next morning 80% of the time it does not fail.
Technically I don’t think I am live streaming. I’m just playing from my captured TV programs (.ts files), at a later time or watching my MP4 TV shows or movies, etc.
So trying to accomplish your last request seems a waste of time.
Last, I installed the Aug 4 update of the AMD drivers this morning. I was using the ones from Jul 7th.
I keep going back to — WHY can’t Plex use my AMD RX 540 for any and all transcoding required? The log files and the task manger prove Plex is not.
Sometimes there is a journey to get to what IT is.
.ts, .mp4, .mkv are just containers, what is inside could be mpeg2, h.264 or h.265.
The transcoder is always called and if the the video were actually being transcoded it might choose to use the HW for the task, in this case it isn’t. Assuming that you haven’t done any post processing of the DVR files it appears that you are receiving h.264 encoded broadcasts which is the default for Plex + Apple. The only work that Plex has to do is open video + audio in the .ts file and repackage it into HLS for consumption by the Apple TV (Direct Stream). This all happens on the CPU and your server should be capable of at least one stream problem free.
Which brings us to all these messages in your log files:
DEBUG - Failed to stream media, client probably disconnected after 9175040 bytes: 10054 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
You will need to eliminate WiFi from the equation by either dragging one of the devices into proximity of the server and using ethernet or a really long ethernet cable. Alternatively, install Plex Media Player or Plex for Windows on the server and playback some of the files to see if you still get the your server is not fast enough error.
If you are still concerned about HW transcoding.
To check for HW transcoding, you could use PMP, PFW or the hosted https://app.plex.tv to play a recording. Change playback to lower quality on the fly and then check the dashboard to see if (hw) used.
I can not find how to do this. I tried while playing a video, but it stops the playback and I can not get it to resume. How is this done? This would be #1 on the troubleshooting list to me. Do you know of an app note?
Meanwhile according to Hauppauge TS: North America, digital TV is mostly MPEG-2 TS with several programs transmitted in one frequency. We are starting to see some TV broadcasts (cable TV) which are H.264.
But for the last 20 years, North America TV is MPEG-2."
Attached is the media info from Plex for a typical file.Media Info.txt (4.1 KB)
Running the no WiFi test is totally impracticable. The offending location from the router is over 150’ and totally isolated.
I’m beginning to suspect it is the Apple TV app that is causing the problem. Last night I got the circle of death (all black screen with a small white circle spining in the center) and did a restart on the Apple TV, it played fine. This morning it also played fine.
It happened again, while playing an MP4 movie, and I managed to catch it in the process. Attached are screen shots, the log file and the xml data.
It played the movie “Argo” for 2 hours without any problem and then I selected “Behind The Scenes”, a 5 minute documentary at the end of the movie and it started buffering, pausing, whatever. I repeated the scenario today, same conditions. Normally I am in the house using a WiFi repeater which is about 50’ away and 4 walls between. That is where it happens most often.
Does this help you “see” the problem better? Thanks, Fred
This is with the PMS computer connected to the modem via cat5 and the modem 15’ from the Apple TV with direct line of sight.
Notice the extremely low bandwidth being used and it is still buffering.
Verified it was still buffering before I did a reset on the Apple TV.
Had no effect, it is still pausing during playback of “Behind The Scenes”, but not “Argo”
As an aside both the Plex Info screen and Media show the bit rate = 901kbps, while Dashboard > Now Playing show 2Mbps
I do not understand the above statement. Doesn’t PMS drive the entire process? Doesn’t it decode and send the file for streaming? My WiFi is N from the modem/router to the Apple TV 20’ away.
I will reconfigure an old modem into a network switch and test that scenario.
From my fumbling around and inane questions you can tell I am a novice at this.
Is there a good support article that describes the inner workings of Plex so I can better understand what is happening?
Since I am using Plex only for local viewing I doubt I give a rip about transcoding, for example.
To drill down on just this, my client device is my Apple TV 4 correct? Plex has found the file I requested and has “handed” it off to the ATV 4, which becomes the demand in the sequence, Plex is out of the loop.
IF the only thing happening at the time was my movie streaming, would bandwidth and speed be the same? Obviously this is not the case.
Sadly the forum has about a 1:25 ratio good to not helpful and mostly overwhelms me in terms I do not understand. They are very experienced users talking way past my skill level.
Way back in the beginning was the ultimate answer.
I dumped 802.11N, by shutting down my WiFi from the modem, getting rid of the Netgear AC1200 with 802.11ac wifi.extender and going to a TP-Link S4 Mesh WiFi 802.11ac network instead. Not that TP-Link has the best Mesh network, but that they were the most reasonably priced. 3 nodes for $150.
Everything else was a red herring.
So on a typical night, I have two videos playing, using WiFi, with no errors. Also, sometimes it is recording 2 incoming videos for the next nights viewing entertainment.
Incidentally I found a video that caused Plex to transcode and it was using the Radeon 540 discrete graphics card, contrary to the log files.
Thank you both for putting up with me and helping me through this ordeal.
