I’ve just shifted my Plex server onto a new Synology DS918+ and I’m having problems with direct playback of 4K HDR to an Xbox One X and also Sony ZD9. I’m running Kodi and connecting to Plex with DLNA since using the Plex client flat out doesn’t work with 4K for me. Most video files play fine however I’m increasing coming across ones that play fine for a while and then begin to stutter a little and also then the audio drops out. If I stop playback, wait 10 minutes and then resume it plays fine for a while and then stuttering begins again and audio drops out, sometimes it will play the whole rest of the file ok. I also get a message on Kodi “Read rate too slow for continuous playback” on a lot of files however most play fine.
I’ve done a lot of research but still obviously have a fair bit to learn so if anyone can advise I’d appreciate it, I’ve tried to look through other posts on this but I’m still struggling with problem solving it. My network speeds should be fine, my transfer speeds to the Synology box from my desktop hit around 110MBps when transferring files so I think this is ok, everything is connected to a D-Link DGS-1224T switch with Cat 5e. The Synology itself has a 8TB Red Pro (7200rpm). Plex in the playing now section reports direct play both audio and video to the Kodi client running directly on the Sony ZD9 (Android TV). Also the Synology CPU is sat around 11% during the problems and memory around 7%. So I don’t see any of these being a problem but I might be missing something. Even the video files that play and don’t play seem to have the same codecs for video and audio plus channels.
Any advice would be hugely appreciated or anything I can check.
Both wired with cat5e, I keep everything wired so no wireless. Odd thing is I can watch large portions of movies before it starts being a problem. Often its action scenes with a lot going on although but not always as just watched film and had to repeat the ending several times as even though it was slow shots it kept stuttering and then dropping sound so I would stop and restart. If I rewatch the same film it tends to the be roughly the same parts that it happens on but this happens on every 4K file in different places so pretty certain its not the media itself and all 1080 content plays absolutely fine. If I persist and stop it wait, replay the same bit eventually I get lucky it will pass over it and play ok.
I keep seeing everyone post about the shield everywhere as being the ultimate solution to 4K streaming and handling anything thrown at it because it has codecs and hardware for it. I’m currently using Kodi (no plex plugin just DLNA to Plex library) on my Sony TV which plays half of my 4K content fine then the other half stutters etc. I’ve almost ordered a shield a few times but sat on the fence as I don’t want another bit of kit sat under my TV, I’m trying to make my Xbox One X the hub of everything and failing that using Kodi on the TV would mean one less bit of kit to switch source to. Also now you say you’re having problems I’m glad I didn’t. No one seems to have any idea which I find odd, I’ve spent hours researching :\
I think there is a problem with DTS audio streams on the Xbox One. I believe Xbox One does not have support for streaming a DTS track directly – it gets transcoded, and that would definitely kill performance on a NAS box and cause stuttering on a 4K video.
(This is just based on stuff I’ve read on the web, so don’t take this as absolute fact.)
