Can anyone advise on the following situation?
I have two devices, a Windows Surface Book, and an Amazon Fire 10. The Windows machine runs OpenPHT & the Plex Windows store app. The Fire tablet runs the Android Plex app, and the Plex add-on for Kodi.
My Plex server is based in New Zealand, and I am in UK. There is considerable latency of about 350ms. However, I can’t understand why I have such different streaming experiences depending on devices + app.
On the Windows Plex app, I cannot stream most videos at all, unless they are low quality SD videos. When I try to stream other videos at the lowest setting of 0.3 mbps, it simply stutters and cannot play (and the video is practically unwatchable at that quality anyway).
When I run OpenPHT I can play MOST videos by forcing transcoding to 0.720 mbps. Some of the higher quality videos do not play, but generally do when I downgrade the bandwidth to 0.320 mbps.
On the Fire tablet, I have the same experience with the Plex app. It simply cannot stream videos. However, the Kodi Plex add-on plays videos at 1 mbps NO PROBLEM.
Both devices are in the same place using WiFI, and both have wireless A/C interfaces.
My server is incredibly powerful, with a 10 core Intel processor, and 32gb ram. The video files are stored on Raid 0+1 SAS drives.
Back in New Zealand, streaming isn’t a problem, and I understand the effects of latency on my connection. But I can’t understand why different apps and devices have such different streaming experiences. Can anyone explain why OpenPHT and Kodi add-on allow me to stream at much higher quality than the official Plex apps?
