Plex Performance local video

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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1

Server Version#:1.32.0.6973
Player Version#: Version 4.106.1
I have some concerns about performance starting a video.

  • Server is windows PC. Files are stored to usb attached storage. Media is also shared via windows share
  • Player on browser on a computer on the same LAN.
  • My router is ASUS AX86 in mesh mode

My experience when trying to play a 1.4GB video. Same with other large videos.

  1. Plex Web: Click play, it takes 10 seconds to start. Click another video point, it takes ~8seconds to jump
  2. Same computer. Click on file via file manager/mounted drive. Double click icon: open VLC/starts in 2 seconds. Click another video point it jumpts immediately

What is going on?

2

Most likely transcoding.

Take a look at the Plex Dashboard and look out for indicators of Direct Play, Direct Stream, or Transcoding. https://support.plex.tv/articles/200871837-status-and-dashboard/

Also important: the connection information. It can show “Nearby”, “Remote”, or “Indirect”.
The latter two are signs for a misconfiguration of DNS or an overzealous filter.

3

@OttoKerner
Thanks, that pointed to the real issue. My connection shows “Nearby”
On Dashboard, I did see transcoding.
However this is only for some videos. Other videos play fine.
Hopefully there is a setting to bypass this (and no need to re-encode)?

4

What you are doing is to compare the video playback abilities of a dedicated desktop video player (the one that is started when you double-click the video file in your file share),
with the abilities of a web browser.
The web browser will always lose.

Install Plex for Windows/Mac/linux (download below) and repeat the comparison.

5

Thanks, appreciate it. I did some more testing. For the same video SD MPEG4

  • File share / VLC on windows: Start quick, jump super quick
  • nVidia shield Plex client. Start quick, jump super quick. No transcoding
  • Chrome Web browser on Windows: Very slow to start 10s, very slow to jump. Trasconding
  • Mi box Plex client: Takes 5 seconds to start and jump. Trascoding
  • HiSense TV with Android and Plex Client: Takes 10 seconds to start and jump. Transcoding
  • Pixel 4a 5G: Start and jumps quicks but pixelated. No trascoding
  • Samsung Tablet 6 Lite w plex client: Start and jumps quickly. No tracoding

I am a little dissapointed of my Pixel phone :upside_down_face:
Something I noticed H264 play well on all but encoded MPEG4 require transcoding on some players. I am not sure if the original resolution is a factor (would hope the client deals with that)

6

It’s the ancient MPEG4 video codec. There is no wide hardware support for that. And there were simply too many sub-variants of it back in the day to get 100% hardware support for it.
And new chips won’t get developed for it anyway, because it’s so limited in its abilities.

7

Thanks
re-encoded to h264 with VLC and there is no video transcoding. I noticed mpeg audio layer 1 was also transcoding on the browser (but not the mibox). So reencoding for audio now :slightly_smiling_face:
Thanks for clarifying.

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