Software Transcoding Faster Than Hardware Transcoding?

General Discussions Plex Features
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Hi all,

Running into an interesting situation with my Plex Media Server. I’m all in when it comes to Plex, utilizing the full functions of the DVR and letting several family members mooch my library.

I’ve run into an interesting issue with the new Hardware Acceleration option. I follow the Plex blog, and when the feature came out, I took the advice and enabled it. This has caused some interesting issues, mostly centered around Live TV and DVR recordings. Let’s remove all the variables and go straight to what happens on my Home Network. (it get’s worse outside)

When watching one of my DVR recordings (which have super huge file sizes, but I digest) on a Roku TV through the Plex app, I’ve found that they buffer frequently. The buffers are short lived, but annoying. My settings on the HDHomerun Extend are “Heavy” on its end and “Highest Quality” on the Plex side, which I believe are the recommended settings. The issue increases when I attempt to access the web app to do… anything.

For Live TV, it’s virtually useless on most channels unless I crank the app settings well below 720p. Even then, frequent buffers.

Interestingly enough, all of these headaches go away when I revert back to software transcoding. Before hardware acceleration, I’d run 5 streams routinely internal and external. Honestly, I haven’t taxed the system externally since switching over to hardware accel.

For now, it looks like I’m back to software transcoding… which I don’t understand. Hardware should be better, right? My assumption is that file size/stream size is wonking my whole works.

Here’s the build:
Windows 10 Home 64
Intel i7-6700 with 16gb RAM
HDHomeRun Extend Tuner
All hard wired Ethernet
The PC does nothing else. It waits its whole life to serve up Plex stuff.

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As a follow up, I believe I’ve eaten some humble pie.

While doing some general maintenance on my network and swapping out parts, I noticed that I had a network cable that was forcing a bottleneck down to 100mbps on the Gigabit network. Since I’ve replaced this cable I’ve noticed massive system improvements, including the results I get on the client side using Hardware Transcoding.

My assumption is that something with Hardware Transcoding is perhaps more susceptible to network hiccups? Who knows what havoc the bad cable wreaked on my system? One simple little light on a switch made all the difference. I wonder how many hundreds of times I overlooked that…

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The moral of this story? Maybe… just maybe it’s not always Plex.