Recently I been encountering severe video stuttering on multiple Roku devices and multiple video files, however it only happens when the file is direct playing. If the video stream is transcoded, there will be no stuttering on the same file.
The stuttering can be several times a second or it might occur only once every few seconds. I have seen it on two separate Rokus in my own home and two of my users have reported it on Roku and Plex for Windows.
So far it appears that a specific file might stutter on one device but not another. I’ve had user report stuttering and I going looking for it and don’t see it on the same movie. I also have had one Roku stuttering but another Roku does not, and vice versa.
However, forcing the file to transcode does seem to stop the stuttering.
I’m getting the same. Issues on certain files with direct play, video skips, no buffering. Plex server on Mycloud PR2100, Samsung TV client apps.
Workaround is to disable direct play, same files play perfectly well with transcode
Correct, and I wish someone from Plex would respond.
My question to those working for Plex, can someone please explain why this is becoming the needed workaround for this stuttering issue that multiple users are experiencing? Why is this stuttering happening on Direct Play?
There could be many reasons, network congestion is often the cause, decoding on device, bad rips. or many other things. We would need the app logs and server logs to investigate
I think we can rule out network congestion in my case, since the rokus on a home network and are hard wired to ethernet.
Not sure the server logs would show anything since it is just sending the file as-is (Direct Play), correct?
As for bad rips, I would think the behavior would be consistent across all devices, no? And, wouldn’t Plex have difficulty transcoding the file, which we have established is the current workaround to the problem?
Decoding on the device would seem to be the most likely. I don’t have two identical devices to test with in my home, so I can’t be certain, but since the devices are different and behave differently (some stutter and some don’t), I could see it being a decoding issue. But, don’t all Rokus share the same Plex app code (if running same app version)? I mean I guess it could be hardware differences and how they run the same code.
I’ll keep investigating. I’ll also run the problem file(s) through handbrake.
Remuxing didn’t help, but sending it through Handbrake again did (HEVC 10-bit, CPU processing - no HW).
Now, if I just could find a way to know what files I currently have that need to be fixed. I had no idea this was a problem since my previous (in-home) clients didn’t experience an issue. I recently purchased a Roku Ultra and that is when I personally started to see the issues.
Take a look at the Plex media info XML of some working files and compare them to those of some non-working files.
You may be able to observe some tendencies, perhaps in the type of audio codecs or the peak and medium bitrate requirements.
