This server is not powerful enough to convert video.

I get this message when I try to play a video that I recorded from live on all devices except the FireTV, where the video plays.

Seems like a pretty clear message, it means exactly what it says: the server has to transcode the video for the clients you’re trying to play on. And the server is not powerful enough to do so

What are the hardware specs of your PMS,…?

The message is actually somewhat misleading. I believe that the error message may be a catchall message used by the developers when something goes wrong. As I stated previously, the setup is the same for each device. Yet, it works only on my FireTV. You would have me believe that the FIreTV is able to do something that my PC can’t? It’s not a low end PC. It’s not more powerful than any of my other devices. I therefore must assume that the message is a catchall message. Recently, I updated the Plex App on my Fire TV. The same message is displayed once, the first time the app is run. When I exit and restart the Plex app, my “server” must have gained power, because it able to play the video. This seems to me to validate my calling it a catchall message by the developer. I’m not a newbie. Please don’t comment with simplistic answers, thank you very much. My setup is an HD Homerun with an antenna. The Plex live recordings are stored on a Personal Cloud NAS from Seagate. It is able to successfully record to my NAS. I have the Plex Server installed ON my Main PC and on the NAS. The word server is over used in the IT world. What server is it? Is it the Plex server on my NAS? It’s the same software that works on the FireTV. Is the server the HD Homerun device?

The difference could be Direct Play vs Transcode. It is highly probable that your FireTV can play the file in it’s native format, which requires very little CPU.

On the other hand, if your playback device, let’s say a Roku, cannot play the file in the native .ts format (not sure if that’s actually the case), then the PMS PC will attempt to Transcode the file to make it compatible.

Not trying to insult your server. It’s just that a single file is not always equal across all devices.

Are you running Plex Media Server from both your PC and/or your NAS? Typically PMS run on a NAS is drastically underpowered. Transcoding definitely throws most of them under the bus. I would be surprised if it could handle the DVR function in the first place, but stranger things have happened.

I have the Plex Server installed ON my Main PC and on the NAS. The word server is over used in the IT world. What server is it? Is it the Plex server on my NAS? It’s the same software that works on the fireTV. Is it HD Homerun device?

“The server” in this context is the hardware that has the Plex Media Server software installed it. In your case, that would appear to be your PC. It’s unlikely that you have the Plex Media Server installed on two separate devices but not impossible.

NAS devices are sometimes referred to as “file servers” as it used be their only/primary function was to “serve” up files over a network.

Further, the server is not (necessarily) where the recordings are stored. “The server” is most definitely not the same software that is installed on the FireTV which is Plex Client/App software and it most definitely not the HDHomeRun device which is a tuner (and possibly encoder depending on which model you have).

Thanks for your comments, AmazingRando24. The FIreTV is now getting that transcoding message also.

It’s a bogus “catch all message” without a doubt. Lots of people get this message on powerful servers with nothing running. You can turn around and try again and it can play perfect.