I use Plex on my phone to play media, then cast it to my TV via Chromecast. Whenever I do this it continually buffers every 5 seconds, making it impossible to watch a movie. I’m not far away from my server and wifi, and if I were to stream directly from my phone I don’t have this issue. What could be the problem?
Plex Stream (via phone app) freezes and buffers every 5-10 seconds while connecting to TV via Chrome
My guess is your phone might be able to play that video as-is while it’ll end up being transcoded via the Chromecast. If the server isn’t powerful enough to handle that transcoding in real-time, you’ll experience some buffering.
You should be able to see if that’s what’s happening by comparing the Now Playing tile for the respective streams from your server’s dashboard while streaming from the phone or casting to the Chromecast.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200871837-status-and-dashboard/
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Thanks. I’ll test it but let’s say that’s the case. What options are available to fix? A newer Chromecast? Casting closer to the server? An option via Plex to dedicate more memory for buffering?
I should note there was a time two weeks ago when I cast to a TV right next to my wifi and did not have any buffer issues.
That’ll depend on what kind of media you’re trying to stream and if you’re e.g. using the native Plex app for Chromecast or just cast to to the “generic device”.
Distance to between server and Chromecast (or WLAN access point <-> Chromecast) shouldn’t play that much of a role, unless the buffering is due to poor network performance (which is unlikely given you can stream the video alright from your phone).
I see. I am using the Plex app to case to device.
The video I was playing was mkv.
Casting has its limitations when it comes to certain media formats. That’s not so much about the file format / container but how the media inside your file is encoded (e.g. h.264/h.265/mpeg2/… video, aac/ac3/dts/… audio, various subtitle formats).
If you cast/fling to a Plex app on that device, Plex will actually stream the file from the server to the target app – not through the phone app. This will at least give you the full functionality / support of what the Plex app on your Chromecast device supports.
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The most important issue here is how to do correct this issue.
Since I’d rather watch Plex on my TV than small phone screen, I need to cast. But if casting results in constant interruptions, it renders Plex useless. I’d welcome any advice to correct the issue.
Hi - so related to this, what encoding is considered optimal for casting?
I’m not using Chromecast myself and try to avoid plain casting – so I probably cannot give you a good answer to that question; sorry.
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