I’m trying to set up a Plex Live TV server, but I have noticed that buffering, usually after 15 minutes, seems to be a major issue, no matter the quality I select on the viewing end. My CPU is a Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz (yes, it’s ancient, but WinTV-dualHD spec say that dual-core 2.0 GHz is fine and can even run on Vista). RAM is maxed out at 2 GB, and graphics card is a Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series with 1 GB VRAM. I am running Linux Mint 18.2 ‘Sonya’ with kernel 4.11.0-14 and MATE (not graphics-intensive Cinnamon) desktop. Viewing broadcasts via the Me-TV Linux app is smooth. However, when running Plex Live TV, I have noticed my CPU usage jumps to extreme levels. Some other posters are mentioning buffering problems, so could the problem be with the Plex software rather than the hardware?
Live TV transcodes on the fly and will be heavy on the CPU. If the CPU is having a hard time keeping up you’ll see a fair amount of buffering or it’ll just stop playing.
Is there another Linux transcoding app I could try to see if that is the case? I can’t tell if the Me-TV Linux app is transcoding or not, because if it is and the transcoding is to H264, then that isn’t the problem.
Actually, nevermind, I just found that the Passmark score for my CPU (Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13 GHz), and it’s an abysmal 1296 (apparently 1500 is required for good 720p streaming). Short of replacing my motherboard and getting a new CPU or getting native H.264 signal (rather than transcode from MPEG2), there is probably nothing I can do. At least my computer can still send Internet streams via Plex.
