Today I upgraded Surface Pro 4 to Windows 10 Redstone 1 version, and found that plex in SP4 cannot play high quality videos smoothly (above 1.5GB for 24mins), in local. So I have to adjust video quality to 4Mbps 720p. 1080p files with smaller size (above 500MB) are played well in original quality. I don’t know it behaved like this before upgrade.
At first I thought it was a problem about server or network, but client in iPhone 6s plays any video smoothly. Also, I can play high-quality videos smoothly through Windows File Sharing on Surface Pro 4.
When I pause the video in Plex in SP4 in a while so the video is streamed already, it plays well.
I didn’t check the phenomenon with remote network.
But it seems that plex client on Windows 10, especially on SP4, doesn’t use the capacity of machine or network enough. Or Can it be some different matter?
Do you/Did you have the same issue?
I attach captures cotaining network monitor during streaming 1080p(1.62GB, 23:42) through Windows File Sharing /Plex Direct Streaming.
I noticed that transcoder works at the server even when I enabled Direct Streaming/ Direct Play both on server and client (both for iPhone 6s and Surface Pro 4), as I monitor through Windows Task Manager. Is it normal?
I figured it out that transcoding was taking place because I choose to burn subtitles onto the video.
Transcoder doesn’t work when I choose not to burn subtitles, so videos can be delivered by Direct Play.
However, the client for Windows 10 works even weirder when I make use of Direct Play.
No matter the quality of video is(not only 1080p, also 720p), it stutters from start, not buffering.
It seems the contents were loaded fast enough, judging from the length of white bar indicating quantity of pre-loaded part.
But it stutters so much that it is unable to watch.
It was not only on SP4. The client was stuttering also on my desktop PC(i5 4690/8GB), which is used also as the server.
There’s difference between SP4 and the desktop:
Even for 720p, client on SP4 is unable to watch using Direct Play because of stuttering.
But about client on the desktop, only 1080p is unable to watch through Direct Play… for 720p it stutters for a second at start and then goes smooth.
I think there’s some problem about plex client on windows 10 after anniversary update…
Note that this abnormal phenomenon took place only on plex client on Windows 10. Every setting gave smooth playback on iPhone.
Please let me know if you had a same problem, and also if you had no problem about direct play on plex client on Windows 10 (redstone 1).
