So I have a QNAP TS-451A and all software is up to date. My set up just has the NAS (which holds all of the media files and runs Plex) connected directly to my TV via HDMI so theoretically there shouldn’t be any transcoding and buffering going on. Especially since I have Direct Play enabled and forced transcoding disabled. However, when playing certain 1080p files, there is an immense amount of stuttering, stopping, buffering, and so on, and the whole system seems to go a bit slow. I’ve tried enabling and disabling hardware acceleration, running the video files outside of Plex to make sure they weren’t bad, and even bought an SSD solely to put high-res videos on in case the HDD speed was the cause (since it’s rather low-rpm). None of these have seemed to make any difference. So, what do I do to fix this?
Since you don’t have a Plex Pass subscription, you can’t enable HW transcoding (regardless of whether the box is checked or not).
While the video is playing on your TV with the problem, open a web browser to your QNAP Plex (https://Qnap.Ip.Address:32400) and look to see if it shows your video is using direct play for both audio/video?
You can also open the QTS desktop from a browser and look in resource monitor to see if your CPU is being pegged (another sign of transcoding).
Most like you have some transcoding going on, and without HW transcoding the limited CPU in your NAS can’t keep up.
The only solution in that case would be either to get a Plex Pass subscription (you could start with a 1-month one) to enable HW transcoding to see if this solves most of your issues, or get a media streamer like an apple tv, roku, etc. that can direct-play more files/formats to eliminate the transcoding.
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