I bought a Synology DS112 for the sole purpose of creating a media NAS based around plex. I paired this with a pi running Rasplex.
The nas performed OK for the most part (on boot Plex would use up 100% of the cpu for a few minutes though), so did rasplex except for one issue. The pi would take a while to start paying the movies, and it would also stutter when playing files with DTS and also files above 3gb in size.
I struggled for a while trying to make it work, even considered buying a Roku to see if that would make the streaming work properly till I decided to give raspbmc another try. I had used it a few months back and it worked great for media playback, but the interface was sluggish at the time.
I installed the latest raspbmc, and tried media playback. Note, on first boot after install, the device is actually installing updates which affects the cpu. I used that time to install a few skins, as well as adding the fusion repo (didn't want to install addons yet, wanted to test the media playback first). Rebooted and added my NAS as a NFS share on the raspbmc and tried to play back the same files which rasplex struggled with. They played FLAWLESSLY and playback started within 3 - 5 seconds, even a 14GB file. The same movies with dts which rasplex stuttered with, played without issue, I was in awe. Couple that with me finding a skin named amber which is butter smooth. The GUI is as smooth as running xbmc on my macbook pro. I have over 300 movies, and raspbmc pulled down the metadata in a few minutes and I haven't had any issues whatsoever running this setup.
I did overclock using raspbmc settings and also installed to a USB stick so artwork would display a little quicker, but with the amber skin, I don't think that would be a necessity.
Anyhow, hope I don't get flamed for posting this here, but I'm just sharing my own experience.
i have been using raspBmc for a long time now and just tried rasplex tonight. i have the exact same results. rasplex either refuses to play the videos (my HD quality ones h.264 specific so far) but will play the lower standard quality vids ok.
performance wise and speed of response in the GUI, RaspBmc is 10x better then what Ive seen from RasPlex so far. If the forums can fix my playback issues, I might consider staying with RasPlex just because the interface is nicer, but if it is going to remain so pathetically slow, there is no way im sticking with plex and ill be moving back to XMBC within a few days.
I had high hopes for rasplex but I'm forced to run back to raspbmc reluctantly. Love the plex ease of use and layout though, and it made things easier for the GF lol. She hated raspbmc when I had it a few month ago because of the slow gui response and occasional reboots, but the current version solved all that.
As you said though, if I could fix the playback issue in plex on pi, I'd probably give it another look
yeah, still waiting on a reply to my post to see if their is something that can be done about the horrid performance and the simple fact it just refuses to play HD quality video. if there is no answer by this evening, i will be removing rasplex and putting raspbmc back on my RPi as it just simply works.
the DS112 is not suited as a plex server at all. I have more than one client and plex is much more nice with multiple clients than xbmc.
my pi running rasplex 0.2.2 plays remuxed bluray with dts with no problem (sound passed through) and it is over wifi. it plays anything raspbmc plays, but yes the UI is a little more sluggish than raspbmc, but that is a small price to pay for plex.
the DS112 is not suited as a plex server at all. I have more than one client and plex is much more nice with multiple clients than xbmc.
my pi running rasplex 0.2.2 plays remuxed bluray with dts with no problem (sound passed through) and it is over wifi. it plays anything raspbmc plays, but yes the UI is a little more sluggish than raspbmc, but that is a small price to pay for plex.
must be nice, i cant get rasplex to play any of my high quality (HD) media content in mkv or m4v formats using the h.264 codec. just refuses to play via my RPi, now on my computers using plex they play just fine so there is something wrong with rasplex IMHO. not to mention the interface is god awful slow (15sec - 1min to navigate into a TV or Movie folder) sorry, but there is something wrong with that.
You guys with slow interfaces try the refocus skin for plex on the pi. It was faster for me and looks great, I wish xbmc had it running as beautifully as plex does (weird huh, considering its a xbmc port).
But yh, my pi is wired and the 3gb + files all stuttered and cpu usage was high. Compare that with raspbmc, I’m playing a 5gb file on the tv and using the dlna from raspbmc to playback a 5gb plus file on my computer, both with dts and 0 stuttering or glitches. It must be a software issue as the pi itself is clearly capable
the DS112 is not suited as a plex server at all. I have more than one client and plex is much more nice with multiple clients than xbmc.
my pi running rasplex 0.2.2 plays remuxed bluray with dts with no problem (sound passed through) and it is over wifi. it plays anything raspbmc plays, but yes the UI is a little more sluggish than raspbmc, but that is a small price to pay for plex.
For running plex without transcoding, the DS112 should be more than enough though...it's definitely more powerful than a pi and a pi can run xbmc while acting as a dlna source, ie, pulling down metadata and providing streaming to other devices which is what the plex server does. So why would a pi be able to, but the DS112 couldn't? Plus synology has packages which do the same thing and does it well
I've been running raspmbc for three months now and i've never been happier with my httpc setup. I have Aeon Nox skin on there and it looks awesome. But its a little slow which is understandable since its a heavy skin. But the default skin runs pretty smooth. I ran rasplex for a week for test and it crashes and rebooted my pie a lot. The GUI looks great though.
I am new to rasplex. I am encountering the same issue of multiple crashes and slow GUI. However, once I reach my file and start playing, it plays properly. Also, I have not been able to play the channels like revision3 etc. I am using the latest build of rasplex.
I have the plex media server on my drobo 5n which feeds different plex clients. What I wanted to know was is there a possibility that raspbmc can get data from the plex media server.
You can actually install the plexbmc addon to let plex handle your metadata etc. I understand your like for plex, but try the latest raspbmc and you’ll be more satisfied in my opinion. Navigation is smooth, playback from a nfs share is smooth for me as well, even have xbmc working as a dlna and streaming to my android device and ipad while playing on the tv itself.
Hey thanks…what I wanted to know was is plexbmc an addon within raspbmc or will I need to install it separately? I have just made an image of raspbmc on my sd card. Can you tell me how to proceed from here.
Hey thanks...what I wanted to know was is plexbmc an addon within raspbmc or will I need to install it separately? I have just made an image of raspbmc on my sd card. Can you tell me how to proceed from here.
Everything is explained in the first post of the Plexbmc Thread (here). Just install the Repo and then the Plexbmc Helper and the Plexbmc Addon. You need a modified Skin for this but you'll find everything you need in the Repo!
I didn't knew about this PleXBMC. Is there any advantage of using Rasplex compared to PleXBMC ?
I would say YES. It's much more stable und performs (at least in my case) much better. The only disadvantage(if you want to call it so) is that you need modified skins for the Plexbmc Plugin to work properly and there are only two of these available at the moment. A Version of the Quartz Skin and of the ReFocus skin.
The Quartz skin is my alltime Favourite Skin so it's no biggie for me:)
I didn't knew about this PleXBMC. Is there any advantage of using Rasplex compared to PleXBMC ?
Hello I was using plex addon with raspbmc for sometime....the media playback was good but the interface was sluggish but I was making it work. I have just installed the latest version of rasplex 0.4.0 it is butter smooth. I'm still trying it out but the first impression is great....check it out
[quote name=“jatintandon” post=“630288” timestamp=“1397747733”]
Hello I was using plex addon with raspbmc for sometime…the media playback was good but the interface was sluggish but I was making it work. I have just installed the latest version of rasplex 0.4.0 it is butter smooth. I’m still trying it out but the first impression is great…check it out
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk[/quote:-)
Any update on this? I’m ready try rasplex but I want to see how it’s doing.
