Hello! I have a bit of an issue here I was hoping someone could help me out with as I am new to Plex Pass.
I just tested out scheduled recording to record one of my favorite TV shows, Dateline NBC. Today I am trying to watch it (it showed up on recently added TV) and it is barely playable.
On my NVidia Shield TV, Android phone, and iPad Pro, the video causes the app to lock up after waiting forever for it to load. Once in a while I can get the picture to show up (after waiting a long time), but it’s so janky that if I so much as fast forward or anything, it will
cause it to lock up. At one point I was able to get my iPad Pro to show near the end of the episode and the audio sync was completely off.
My Plex Server is an intel Core i7 with 16gb of RAM and 70 tb of hard drive space, so I don’t think the server is an issue (not to mention I have no problems with ANY other videos; even completely uncompressed RAW blu-ray rips). The server is running Windows 10.
Is there any reason this might be happening? I noticed Plex is recording in the .ts format so I am wondering if maybe this is the issue? Thanks in advance!
Since this apparently is the level of support I can expect (being completely ignored) I am cancelling my Plex pass subscription today.
Guessing you did not see all the notices about the forums being moved from Vanilla to Discourse. The Vanilla forums have been read only since Monday, except for one temp forum that was created for questions during the transition. The transition was just completed last night and users are just now starting to get back into the forums.
There really isn’t much information you have provided other than you are running on an i7 what model?
For the recording, what is the video codec used in the ts file? The ts is just a container for the video, audio, subtitles, etc.
It sounds like you are getting transcoding occurring when trying to view the recording. What are the settings in the different client apps for video quality? Some apps have different settings I am not sure about the iPad app. But the Android devices you mentioned should have settings for Home Streaming, Internet Streaming. I have mine set at maximum and am able to direct play or direct stream everything from my Plex server. My son can also direct play or direct stream using his Fire TV Stick from his apartment.
You can determine what Plex is doing when playing a recording by looking at the Now Playing section when connected to your Plex Media Server using a web browser on a computer. If you hover the mouse over the image of the show playing it will give you information about what Plex is doing with the recording before sending it to the client device/app.
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Thanks so much for the reply. I misread the migration as being to “Discord” and I was thinking to myself that Plex was getting a Discord channel for support. I feel like an idiot. Sorry about that.
It’s an Intel core i7 930 (Bloomfield) running at 2.8 ghz with 12 GB of Ram running Windows 10 64 bit pro. Is it possible this is too slow of a system?
For the direct stream question, I usually choose “no transcoding” in the various apps (ios and Android) because I know that’s easier on the CPU, and also gives better picture quality, but for live TV and recorded live TV it makes Plex work poorly. I can watch an uncompressed Blu-Ray rip with no issue on Plex at highest quality settings but live TV at 1080p and stuff recorded with Plex absolutely chokes the app no matter what app I am using on any device. I know it’s not the Happauge WinTV PCI-e card I am using because when I watch live TV with Windows Media Center all the stations play fine at the highest settings.
As for the .ts file for the recordings that barely play; I guess my question would be, how do I choose what format Plex uses for live recordings? I don’t mind lower-quality recordings. I just don’t see the option anywhere on how to tell Plex what format or quality to use for recordings?
I am not familiar with the Hauppauge cards as I don’t have any myself. I use all SiliconDust HDHomerun devices myself: 2 Extends, 2 Connects, and a Dual. I also have a Prime but since I don’t have cable it is no longer connected.
I am really interested in why the Shield TV in particular is unable to play Live TV or the recording. I have 2 Shield TV’s and they Direct Play everything I have in my library, I transcode all recordings to HEVC or h265, as well as Live TV with no issues.
Above is a 1920x1080 Live TV session playing from one of the Shield TV’s. The Shield has been my most reliable Plex Client which is why I bought a second. I also have a Fire TV 4K and a Fire TV Stick and they both work as well as the Shield, just don’t like their interface as much.
The settings on my Shield and Fire TV devices are:
Video Quality
Adjust automatically - Off
Home Streaming - Maximum
Internet Streaming - Maximum
Play smaller videos at original quality - On
Audio Quality
Internet Streaming - Original
Just looked up the processor and while it is older the Passmark score is 5150 so it should theoretically be able to transcode 2 HD video streams at the same time. If we can somehow get the client devices configured so they can Direct Play or Direct Stream then there won’t be any transcoding happening on your server.
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Thank you. So I will make sure all of the client devices are doing direct stream/play. The odd thing is that there’s a channel my kids love (PBS Kids) that I can never tune into unless I change the bitrate to like 720p 2mbps. Is there any reason it would be like that just for that one station?
And is there any way to tell Plex what format to use for recordings? These .ts files are too gigantic or something because they choke all of my Plex devices and they lose audio sync and stuff.
Can anyone let me know how to tell Plex what format and bitrate and such to use for recordings?
Plex is going to record whatever is being transmitted by the Broadcaster. You can setup a Post Processing script to transcode the recording to whatever format you would like the recording saved.
