Plex clients skipping/buffering - all clients same issue

General Discussions
1

Having recent trouble with my plex server. TV Shows seem to work fine, however movies are the main issue maybe a codec issue with higher quality sound?

Server is running on a 6 core x5650 xeon cpu @ 4ghz with 32gb memory. The issue happens on my Amazon Fire, PS4 and the web client on a separate pc. PC is definitely fast enough to support multiple 1080p streams.

Watching a movie it skips and occasionally says its not powerful enough or not enough network to support the stream. I know this can’t be true as I’m on a wired gigabit network (pc actually has dual port nic) and the cpu speed on the stream logs shows 3.5x on the 15mbit stream. CPU usage is at 15-20% when streaming and memory usage is only in the teens. Everything looks good on the server but the playback issues I dont know where to start looking for.

Running 0.9.16 server and whatever matched client comes with it. Issues noticed on the PS4 for buffering but on my pc it just skips alot then says its having trouble. Where in the logs do I need to look for issues?

Thanks for the help

Ben

2

Hi,
my best guess although you didn’t mentioned your hard disks setup is… well… your hard disks setup. Since your computer/server is doing transcoding that means you need write speed. You can get write speed using SSD drives or using cheap Tosiba 7200rpm mechanical hard drives in a RAID10 setup.
If you don’t want to invest in a raid setup you could consider converting your video files to a supported native format for your devices, for PS4 for example is this:

MKV
Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
Audio: MP3, AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)

MP4
Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
Audio: AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)

3

@bjamm said:
I know this can’t be true as I’m on a wired gigabit network (pc actually has dual port nic)
What is it connected to? Does that have gb ports? The Amazon Fire TV and PS4 only have 100 Mbps ports, so these will limit your network performance. Are they connected directly to whatever your server is connected to or are there other devices in between?

4

Hello
would it be rude of me to jump on this thread . Having the same issue with similar hardware.

5

If the issue is with transcoding. Is there a media player that can run plex and direct play everything. I was hoping to be able to rip my blu rays in original quality and play them via plex as if I had put the blu ray in my blu ray player, as far as video and audio quality was concerned.
Is this possible?

Kev.