I’m having a bit of an issue streaming videos from a Synology DS 423+ to a Samsung 4K TV. The TV is appx 2-3 year old.
I’ve done some research within the Plex documentation and other online resources, i.e. Reddit. I’m either missing something or I have a hardware compatability issue.
The Issue:
Lagging and clocking playback.
The Common Thread:
They are all 4K “VP9” videos. There is a combination of “HDR” and non-“HDR.” I know Plex pass is needed for “HDR,” however the issue of lagging and clocking happens with both. If my understanding is correct, the “VP9” format is supported. All other non-“VP9” 4K movies and videos “HDR” or not, playback without any issues.
I’ve played around with the server side transcoding. I’ve also tried all variables with “Allow Direct Play”, “Allow Direct Stream”, “Force Direct Play”, and Playback Resolutions. All efforts yield no resolution.
Does anyone have thoughts?
If Plex has their eyes on this, I would also like to make a suggestion. I do at times like to scan the cast of a movie. Is it possible to move “View All” somewhere to the front of the credits? It would be much easier than scrolling all the way to the right to select it. Just a thought. Maybe the analytics show others don’t view all, so its not a change of value.
Neither your TV nor your Synology has hardware decoding of VP9, so the Synology is attempting software decoding of vp9 to transcode it to something your TV can display. The Synology is a low-power CPU IIRC, and isn’t up to the task.
Did you download VP9 from youtube, or encode yourself? If the latter, don’t do that for plex; h.265 has more hardware support.
The file is downloaded. So, my environment wont carry the file, and perhaps converting it to another format will work within what I have. It’s an assumption on my part that it can be done, and I’ll reaearch it.
Jut a quick additional follow-up for anyone reading this and needing greater understanding.
I found the link below privides a greater understanding of the file format. It certinally has helped me to understand the scope of “VP9” and implications on processing.
You can work around the issue in the short term by using the Optimize function in Plex, such as Optimize → TV. This will create a version optimized to play on your TV, although it will take between 2x to 5x the length of the video to complete. You can tag many videos to create Optimized versions for and leave them converting overnight to be ready the next day.
Sorry for the lag, I took some time to get away. Thank you for the follow-up advice.
Initially I tried using “VLC” to convert the files using several video extensions. All gave a file extension conversation with sound only. The video was a black screen. So, I’m assuming that the codec is the issue with that.
I used your recommendation and optimized one video. It did work and the video now plays without issue. Considering the time it takes to complete and more so that the processor is a couple of ticks short of clipping out during optimization, the number of videos relative to the total is not worth it. They’re just music files with rolling scenic backgrounds.
I’m not asking you to do research for me. However, if you have something that is know to you with a Synology enclosure, or a realistic processor that would handle the load of “VP9”, what would that be? Or, is this the technology issue of: An environment is only as good as its weakest link and through that, the TV will always present the issue. Again, not asking for research, just forefront thoughts if you have any.
My advice would be to use FFMPEG with a command-line to do conversions for you, then you can copy them to your NAS. Here is a simple command-line to convert most downloaded youtube videos over to h.264 with transparent quality, which should convert fairly fast on any modern system:
You would open up a command-line to type this in. It’s important to add the .mp4 extension to ensure the correct container file is used. The output of the above command is in a video and audio codec that every device made in the last 10 years can decode easily in hardware, so I hope this solves your problem.
Here’s a BASH ( echo $SHELL reports /bin/bash) loop to do it
for i in *.vp9
do
ffmpeg -i “$i" -codec:v libx264 -crf 16 -codec:a aac -b:a 160k “${i//.vp9/.mp4}”
done
This takes all file names found in the current directory, (*.vp9)
Using the conversion parameters given by @mobygamer ,
makes the conversion and changes the output file extension to be mp4
I prefer MKV over MP4 but that’s personal choice.
Hope this gives you some more options to ease the conversion task.
Chuck’s suggestion is a great way to automate a batch conversion of many files on a Linux or Mac system.
The mkv container file will also work just fine with Plex. I suggested mp4 just in case the converted files were copied over to a device that may not understand mkv, such as an older phone.
