Plex Transcoding and CPU Usage

General Discussions
1

Hi all,

Finally got Plex up and running and now have a few questions.

My Setup:
Plex Media Server: running on Windows 10 Pro on a NUC6i7KYK
Plex Clients: Roku 3 connected to 720p TV (home network), Roku Streaming Stick connected to 1080p TV (remote); PS3 connected to 1080p TV (remote)
Media: on networked drives; mostly from DVDs (480p), with some BD (1080p); files are all in MKV (which should be compatible with Roku 3)

  1. I have DirectPlay enabled on the Roku Plex app. But when I play a 480p file on my 720p TV, transcoding occurs on my PMS. Is this simply because the files are 480p and are being played back on a 720p TV (even if the file formats are otherwise compatible)?

  2. I also notice that the transcoding hits my CPU pretty hard (i.e. ~100% CPU usage) for about 60-90 seconds at first before slowing down. I take it that this is to establish the transcoding buffer. Is it possible to limit the CPU % usage? My CPU temps hit 80-95 degrees during the initial transcoding (mainly because the NUC6i7KYK has a constrained cooling solution). I wouldn’t mind a longer initial loading screen if it meant my CPU temps wouldn’t hit 90 degrees.

  3. When testing with the two remote clients, I noticed that the initial transcoding hammering on my CPU only really happened once, even when playing different files on each client (I started streaming one remote client about 5 minutes after the other). So the transcoding throttling is not affected by multiple concurrent streams?