Approximately how may people can watch your media server at the same time. I share it out to family and friends. Will there be drops if too many people hit it at once. What factors can help with this.(ie faster internet; currently at 50mbs down or faster processor- currently intel Core Duo 2 E8400 @ 3.0 Ghz.)
Thanks!
The critical internet speed is your upload speed not your download speed, this will limit how may streams and at what quality you can share as well as the ability of your cpu to transcode the files as needed.
upload supposed to be 5 mbs, but tested at 3.3
I'm very new to this as well, but I have a similar setup...3.2Ghz Core 2 Duo and sharing only with my daughter out of state right now. I have a 65mbit/sec down and 12mbit/sec up Internet connection.
I can tell from my limited experience thus far that when she's watching something from it, my upload speeds to her are near the 8mbit/sec range and my CPU will average 50% usage for transcoding. I'm currently looking for a quad core cpu of the same socket (LGA 775) to replace it with to help in that regard.
I'm still in the trial and error state of configuring the server and client to get the optimal output for everyone. I'd like to be able to have her watching from it and myself watching something with no degradation in quality for either of us. I have the server and the client installed on my media machine hooked to my 65" TV
All my media is 1080p and in DTS or better audio, however I'm not sure how to configure the clients so the transcoding happens on their end, not the server, which would allow for more than 1 person to watch externally to the house.
From my limited testing, I have been unable to figure out what I should be doing. On the clients I don't have Force Transcoding on the local network checked, so I thought that it would force it on the client, however, I see the transcoder still running when she's watching things.
I have server configured to stream 720p @ 3mbit/sec to remote users, however I'm not sure what the clients should set to. Should it mimic that @ 720p or should they be set to direct play or?
I absolutely love this software, however the documentation is lacking greatly in this area.
I've got standard RR, 15mb down, 1mb up.
Is that enough for a single stream out to an Internet user? I'd like to use my Roku from my second location.
I've got standard RR, 15mb down, 1mb up.
Is that enough for a single stream out to an Internet user? I'd like to use my Roku from my second location.
My preference is 1 Mbps is enough for a phone sized screen, maybe 7in tablet or less. Don't expect to watch Avatar on your remote Roku and ooh and aah over the visuals.
Three things can affect multiple people watching.
Processor Speed, Upload Speed (If user outside the house) and Hard drive throughput.
If you stream direct then that uses more bandwidth (which you don't have much of). The purpose of transcoding is to drop the stream size down to a more reasonable level. In most cases hard drive throughput won't matter unless you are streaming multiple stream off a single harddrive or if the drive is connected externally via USB 2 etc. Processor speeds only matter if you transcode multiple streams at once. If you directly stream a file (i.e. over local network) you likely won't see any processor usage.
For streaming to others, upload speed is king. If you had a stupid high upload speed, you wouldn't need to transcode at all. But if you have a 10Mbps upload speed and 5 people watching you would need to transcode 5 streams down to 2Mbps for them to stream without buffering. 5 Transcodes at once would likely be very taxing and need a high end processor.
The best scenario, if you have numerous people wanting to watch from your library, is to get plexpass to enable syncing. With that it transcodes it and then stores on the local devices hard drive until you go to watch so you would be able to transcode a better stream than if you had all streams running simultaneously as it doesn't need to be real time. I don't know how plexpass works though in regards to multiple users though on whether it links to server or per user account.
What about watching from a download server? does it get affected by the computers speed too? whenever i stream things on a shared server it freezes every few seconds and it has nothing to do with the internet.
What could be the cause of this and how can i fix it?
What about watching from a download server? does it get affected by the computers speed too? whenever i stream things on a shared server it freezes every few seconds and it has nothing to do with the internet.What could be the cause of this and how can i fix it?
Very difficult to say without having more info. It could be the server machine either is not powerful enough to transcode the file, or does not have enough upload bandwidth to stream it as requested. This often happens with 1080p content which requires a lot of available bandwidth to stream. It also frequently happens when the viewer is using a Wireless device to view on, but there is not enough WiFi Bandwidth in the area to stream the file.
There's many reasons it can happen, and nearly all have to do with hardware limitations and/or software settings somewhere in the signal chain. But it's very hard to diagnose without detailed information of the signal chain in question.
Transcoding is only needed when the target device will not play a particular format be-it video, audio, subtitles or any combination of them. Direct stream does not increase the bandwidth. Transcoding=Processor intensive (server side)........
Direct stream (or direct play) is what you would ultimately like for every file. I use MP4, Web optimized, AAC, Hardcoded subs (where needed).
That format is native to Every device I have (listed below) and all the remote devices i stream to.
I am able to stream to over 5 remote users at any given time and w/e I am running in the house on my sometimes 7m upload.
I have been wondering what you guys are seeing in your upstream bandwidth cost? I am considering sharing out my collection over myplex to my family but I am concerned about seeing a huge increase in upload bandwidth causing Comcast to get nosey.
I use a purchased server. Gonna actually pick up another one on cyber monday. Amazing deal 1000mbs connection, 10 TB bw/mo 16gb ram. $105/mo
if anyone is curious where hmu.
[edt]: deal is here goo.gl/w9GnxV ...good through tommorrow.
I have FIOS Quantum 75down/35 up (tested speeds are 80Mbps down/34Mbps up) and I have no issues with 3-4 users streaming video for me remotely.
My PMS is running on a virtual server (Xeon E3-1245v2 3.4Ghz, 16GB ECC RAM, SSD, 6x 1GB NICs). I have 6 vCPUs, 8GB of RAM, and dual NICs (teamed for 2Gbps link) and it hanles transcoding 3-4 videos at once with ease.
I use a Readygear Ultra 6 NAS to host the Plex server.
So far the maximum streams it handled well was 4 (3 external). No transcoding though and my upload speed helps too (600Mbps).
As long as it does not have to transcode it works perfect
I use a Readygear Ultra 6 NAS to host the Plex server.
So far the maximum streams it handled well was 4 (3 external). No transcoding though and my upload speed helps too (600Mbps).
As long as it does not have to transcode it works perfect
Jesus how much are you paying for that connection?
The number of most concurrent user streaming from me peaked last night at 16. That was a mix of HD and SD material, both direct play and transcoding, usually more transcoding then direct playing.
To my surprise my 100Mbit fiber did not max out, and my VM with about 67% usage rights of one i7 950 handled it just fine, although the vCPU was pretty close to it's limits.
Jesus how much are you paying for that connection?
Actually not so much, prices and services are getting alot better nowadays in Holland
I have a couple of questions for everyone and some advice for the OP.
First off I have been trying to find a dedicated server, VPS, or anything that can handle multiple streams and is fairly cheap. I haven't been able to find anything with enough hard drive capacity to suit my 5TB+ needs. If anyone knows where I could find one of these magical devices please let me know. OR.... if a couple of people would be willing to buy/share a nice server where we could all put our media I would be down for that as well, just PM me. I'm honestly surprised this hasn't already happened.
OR... if someone knows of a datacenter where I could put my current server that wouldn't care what it was used for they should let me know about that as well.
As for the OP's question I have 100Mbit up and I concurrently stream to multiple remote users including myself off of an i5-2500k and a 7TB raid 5 array. I try to keep most of my stuff SD or lower quality 720p because of the number of concurrent users I am afraid that transcoding would eat my cpu. I also try to keep my stuff in .mp4 format because I have found that it is the most direct playable format for the bulk of my clients. I used to have an i7-2600 and it ran everything fine but I sold it to build my gaming pc. I haven't actually tried transcoding on my FX-8350 @ 5GHz but I assume it would have enough horsepower to do it. So if your media is already in a compatible format upload speed is what you need. I know that when I have 16 users streaming at once I was using anywhere from 20-60Mbit depending on the quality of the content.
Just my .02
I use a purchased server. Gonna actually pick up another one on cyber monday. Amazing deal 1000mbs connection, 10 TB bw/mo 16gb ram. $105/mo
if anyone is curious where hmu.
[edt]: deal is here goo.gl/w9GnxV ...good through tommorrow.
Where do you store the Media itself ? The deal is not here, but they have other deal, but only 500GB storage... I would need 10TB
So I just pulled the trigger on a 12tb 8 core 8gb ram server from volume drive. I haven’t gotten it set up but when I do I will let you guys know how it is. I would also be willing to give people space on it and set up sharing so that you could see your own media or all of he media on the server. If you are interested pm me and we can work something out. I’m just trying to offset the cost per month to run the server. I already paid the 480 or so for the drives and everything.
