Streaming requirements

[LPB]

Server Version#:
Player Version#:

Hi All,

I’m new to Plex. I’ve made a server running on Ubuntu which also runs my HA.

The processor and ram are quite limited. Intel celeron. 1.6ghz and 2 GB of ram.

This is attached to the router directly and most of my client devices are connected via WiFi.

Sometime I have issues streaming both TV and movies from the server.

I have Plex plus pass.

So my question is, what’s the bottle neck
Is it

A) WiFi if so what’s the minimum speed needed. I have a mesh network at present.
B) The CPU and Ram?
C) The SSD. Although I doubt that’s the case.

Thanks for your help.

[kahilzinger]

Coming from a network architect perspective, I recommend wired if you can for streaming. Wireless is a shared medium which means it is like a room full of people all trying to talk at once and it does not happen unless it is one at a time.

Not knowing your technology, I do not know the throughput of your wireless. I also do not know if you are doing mesh, which I prefer Ethernet backbones between access points on a switch, which I do for my four 802.11AC WAVE2 access points. (Love to get 802.11AX (WIFI6) but $$$).

How many wireless devices are on your access point(s)? What is the slowest capability? That makes a difference.

If you can make sure the same SSID is used for your 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios (and 6GHz if WiFi6) and using a function called “Band Steering” your devices will primarily connect to 5GHz if there is a choice and once out of range of 5GHz they connect to 2.4GHz until that is out of range. 5GHz gives you more throughput and less interference but 1/2 the range. Some people keep them separated because ISPs or others do it, but I think it is more marketing (and ridiculous).

What is the signal level of your devices? I like -70dbm or better (-60, -50, -40, etc. like golf, low score wins).

What is your channel bandwidth? 20MHz channels are like single lane roads. 80MHz channels are 4-lane roads but you have fewer choices. 160 MHz is the biggest I have. The higher you have, the more throughput you get but the less choice you have for channel used since this practice combines adjacent channels (2 for 40MHz, 4 for 80MHz, 8 for 160MHz as each channel is 20MHz wide).

Are there potential interference issues? 2.4GHz are affected by microwave ovens, glass block windows, baby monitors, cordless phones, etc. Plus, there are only 14 channels in use for 2.4GHz (in the US, your country may be different) but really only 3 usable channels (1, 6 and 11). 5GHz gives you more channels, less interference but you get 1/2 the range.

There are so many things that can and will affect wireless signal. That is why I will always prefer wired over wireless where possible (stationary, not mobile devices). Heck, I even had an issue where my TV only has a 10/100MB wired network card and Gemini Man wants to stream at 144MB/s for 4K and it would not work without buffering so I had to get a Shield Pro with a 10/100/1000MB network card for it to play right.

I know that is a lot but hopefully some of that will make sense.

[LPB]

Thanks for that that’s a hefty response. I’ll post an update with my device signal levels. But that gives me a good idea going forward.

[LPB]

Hi,

Apologies it’s been some time.

I’ve since hard wired my connections.

My TV is hard wired to a small 5 port switch and that’s connected to my router.

My HTPC running plex is connected to my router. All hard wired.

My issue here is that plex has said my TV has a bandwidth of circle 11mbs and to run the video I needed 18mbs.

What’s limiting my speed?

Any ideas?

[tom80H]

It’s hard to tell what exactly is the bottleneck in your setup.
Given Plex considers there’s 11 Mbps of available bandwidth, that rules out an indirect/relayed connection. It could still be that you’ve setup the network in a way that Plex considers your clients to be remote and therefore applying restrictions for that.

Do you have any streaming / bandwidth restrictions set in Settings > [Server Name] > Remote Access (e.g. Internet upload speed or Limit remote stream bitrate)?

If so… can you verify the small 5-port switch is configured in bridge mode and doesn’t actually establish a subnet of its own inside your home network? If it does and you configured it that way on purpose you could also tell Plex to treat that subnet to be a part of your home network (instead of considering it a remote network).

I take it there’s no excessive network activities by other apps in your network?

[LPB]

Hi Tom,

Ok I figured out 1 problem. I’d limited the devices to listed devices and therefore the rest got bottled.

I removed that and can stream 4k.

However, on the same network, another device cannot connect directly to the server?

I can’t understand why one TV can and the other can’t they’re both hard wired to the same 5 port switch?

Thanks

[tom80H]

I guess you’re not using different subnets (e.g. a guest network) for specific devices?
Some TVs have limited bandwidths on their LAN ports – less than what’s required to stream a high-bitrate 4K video – this could cause the Plex app on that TV to request a reduced-bitrate version of that movie (requiring it to be transcoded).

[LPB]

Thanks. I figured it out. 8 had to add the server manually. Don’t seem to have any issues regards speed now…unless I’m trying to stream live TV from the server in which case it doesn’t do well at all.

Will that be a PC speed issue?