I tried to put this into the NAS category but it was dimmed out.
I am looking to put a Synology DS916+ 8gb on the network. I am currently using my Windows PC to act as my Plex server. Will it be best to move Plex server to my NAS. Or leave the server on my PC and point to the NAS to access the my media?
NAS = âNot A Serverâ. Can be used as a server if you create (encode) media that will Direct Play across every client you have - locally and remotely.
PC = Depending on horsepower - can be a server.
Event tho Synology says their NAS supports streaming media in 4k and digital audio. It is still best to have a beefy PC to act as the Plex server and pull media across the network from a NAS?
Always.
4K is going to require h265 - add to that mess Digital Audio - it will take the best, most powerful computer and turn it into a sniveling girl scout and thatâs when Plex canât deliver and has to transcode that mess down to 1080p for delivery to something that canât handle it (just about everything falls into that category).
You can forget your âNot A Serverâ in that capacity and youâll probably find out pretty quickly your PC is far from adequate.
Youâll still be spending most of your time creating (encoding) 4k material in an effort to get it to Direct Play.
A lot of people give up on that idea right about here. Yea, 4K and owning a Maserati is nice if you donât mind fiddling with it (or having it fiddled with by somebody else) all the time.
NAS horsepower vs my PC horsepower. My pc wins hands down. What I do not understand is how are they claiming this if what you are saying is true?
You should search forum because this question has been asked hundreds of times and there are few factors you need to consider: what media will you be using, what format, what clients, local or remote, how many people will be using this server, are you buying Nas to store media on it, or you want to migrate from PC.
You could always install additional PMS on your Nas and have it tested with few media on it, to see if itâs meets your expectations.
Donât believe everything you read.
I have an AMD FX-8350 - 8 Cores @ 4+GHz and I wouldnât touch 4K material with a 10 foot pole right now. Itâs just too new. Iâll also be dragged kicking and screaming into 265. HDDs are much easier to get than Cray Super Computers.
OK I will look around on the forum. Suggest any keywords to search?
OK sounds good JuiceWSA
I will set the NAS up to be the storage device 1st. Leave my current PC to act as a Plex server and point plex to my NAS. Then one day build a beast to act as Plex serve so I can stream / transcode more than 2 videos at once.
Thank you for your help.
@mattwilk123 said:
OK sounds good JuiceWSA
I will set the NAS up to be the storage device 1st. Leave my current PC to act as a Plex server and point plex to my NAS. Then one day build a beast to act as Plex serve so I can stream / transcode more than 2 videos at once.Thank you for your help.
That sounds like a solid course of action to me.
Or build a beast of a PC with tons of HD space in RAID. Not worry with the NAS? Media will be local and protected by RAID.
When you have time to research and develop a plan of attack that gives you and the technology time to meet somewhere in the middle.
Well put. I know about that all too well. Been at this for many years.
The NAS option was appealing because it solved my storage issues and offered some security to my data with the RAID. Its small quiet and can be tucked away in a media closet. The software suite Synology offered sounded solid added cool featureâs to my network. I was also hoping it would free up my PC to trans-coding and sending files to play back devices. Just didnât want to spend about 1,400.00 on something that would not fix the problems. I asked about trans-coding 4k because that will be the next standard in video files. Didnât want a expensive paper weight as 4k video grew. I currently have a 3rd gen i5 processor. Playback buffers often when trying two play 1080p MKV files on Rokuâs. So that leads me to believe the NAS would not be the better option. Which you confirmed earlier.
So what to do 1st.
Looking for a long term solution.
Well, you could always use a powerful PC. If you had that you could create material that would direct play across all your devices instead of counting on Plex to do all the transcoding for you. It has been my experience that Plex makes some epic poor decisions when transcoding and if thereâs going to be any bad decisions made I prefer to make them myself. I can fix an encode if need be. Throwing all my stuff in the back of Plexâs truck doesnât seem quite right somehow.
If you can whip out Direct Play material on a Super-Duper Box you can Direct Play it on your wristwatch⊠or âNot A Serverâ for that matter.
You have many options. Iâm an operator, not a builder. I let the family builder do what he does and I just try to find flaws in the build by keeping the CPU warmed up real good - like it is right now. I have a 1080p Death In Paradise encode going thatâs going to finish in about 22 minutes total. Plex canât do that and have it look like it will when Iâm done with it.
I agree anytime you can direct play it is best. Less moving parts the better. The only thing I do not like about recording all my files so they will direct play is things break file types change. If my Roku goes out in a few years from now. Who knows what may be the next great thing. And possibly be faced with having to go through the recording process again. So I have given up on trying to keep up with that aspect and just let the software figure out what needs to be done.
I think I will put some more thought into the direction I will take it.
What software do you use to recode video files? I have use DIVX and Nero suite. Booth seem to work well. It just takes a while to recode the files.
Iâm a Handbrake guy. Hereâs the HB Guide I wrote for DVDs and BluRays and the results Direct Play on everything in my Plexiverse, but I have no need for more speakers than I have earholes so that cuts down on the headaches.
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1335697/#Comment_1335697
What I have found out when recording video. You often lose the surround tracks and everything gets stripped to 2 channel audio. Losing the surround sound format is not an option for me. I will look into Handbrake. Looks pretty straight forward from your screenshots. If I can get recoding down to about a hour without loosing quality im sold. I dont care too much about file size since storage is so cheap now.
Would it be fair to say. The most widely used format would be H.264 with AC3 or DTS audio tracks?
I only use Rokuâs in my home. For mobile viewing I dont care let Plex transcoder. Too many devices to keep up.
Encode time is dependent on your horsepower. More horseys, less time - everybody knows that, but what they donât know is when you throw a VC-1 video track into the mix âHulk Hoganâ breaks down in tears with snot dribbling on his Girl Scout Uniform. VC-1 is one of those annoyances that requires a fantastic âsingle thread ratingâ because it can only use one of your 98 cores. Whatâs even more annoying is that almost nothing can deal with a VC-1 track so Plex has to transcode it for almost everything. Bummer, right? Right.
When I meet up with a VC-1 video track I clear my schedule, bite the bullet and turn it into something my devices can use. I donât need somebody transcoding a VC-1 stream while Iâm being killed by hoards of Doom 2016 Baddies. I need to see my head fly off in full technicolor, all frames intact. Otherwise, why play, right? Right. It takes as long as it takes. I have a pretty decent single thread rating so it doesnât take that long. I add 35% or so to the standard encode time.
Anyway, once you get your chops down and find the magic formula for video streams that you can live with you can play around with audio tracks and containers with ease using this puppy:
http://www.xmedia-recode.de/en/download.html - XMedia Recode
Basically you encode, or pass through, the best audio track in Handbrake and donât forget those commentary tracks. Then you can run that file through Xmedia Recode to back that audio track up in any slot while creating a compatible audio track that will direct play on your Roku, for instance. Roku likes to have itâs Direct Playable track in Slot One. If you put your big guns up front and want to stick a Direct Playable track further down Roku transcodes that track because itâs not in Slot One. I have heard other people say this doesnât happen to them, but it happens to me and I canât seem to make it not happen. Maybe Iâm not holding my foot off the floor while swinging my arms wildly enough during playback. Itâs hard to say. Maybe youâll have better luck than I have. I hope so.
The bottom line is that once you get a good video track you can play around with the audio tracks, creating, moving, backing up and most importantly for me - normalizing.
Donât you just hate it when you crank the volume up to 90 to hear Mumblinâ Matthew speak his lines in Interstellar (2014) only to be blown through the picture window in your living room when the effects kick in? I know I do. I also hate scheduling those expensive ear drum replacement surgeries. Man, thatâs a real buzz-kill right there.
Xmedia Recode will bring those audio levels up to 89db (usually from 73db) so you can actually hear them. It doesnât âcompressâ, just brings up the gain. Itâll fix just about anything except Interstellar (2014). The ONLY thing Iâve found to fix that mess is the active DRC in my Windows Audio section and for that reason I still maintain the HDMI hookup to the TV from the Computer so I can bypass Plex and everything else when nothing else will do the job. There are a few audio nightmares out there, not many, but when one is identified itâs dealt with accordingly.
AC3 5.1 tracks have been around a long time and are fairly commonplace. AAC 2.0 tracks have been around even longer and are more likely to Direct Play than anything else, but theyâre just stereo. One speaker per earhole. I havenât yet evolved to multiple aural canals (and donât need special glasses that hang from multiple ears), but if you have youâll probably want to stick with at least one of your tracks in an AC3 5.1 format. You can throw that DTS track in the back somewhere for safe keeping in the hopes that someday Plex will be able to pass it through to something, which seems to be a hot topic of conversation on just about every Plex Subforum we have.
Well, enough of my ramblings for now. I have a couple of encodes to pass through Xmedia Recode for the final audio work before they hit the library.
Wow ok tons of helpful info here. Thank you for the help. I feel like I just opened pandoraâs box. This is why I like to Plex to transcode for me.
What I talked about there took a lot longer to talk about than to actually do.
Since I wrote that I post-processed 14 assorted movies and tv shows with Xmedia Recode and put them in the libraries. The thing about an audio fiddling session - it only takes a few minutes. The video stream is done by Handbrake and only gets âcopiedâ in Xmedia Recode.
