Transcoding Movies / Series with local ressources an not on the plex server itself

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Server Version#: 1.15.8.1198
Player Version#: 3.2.20

Hi there,

I suppose this issue has been discussed before, couldn’t find it though.
Anyway, I am having 2 Synology Nas. 1 DS918+ and 1 DS1819+.
Both have a Raid 5. The DS918+ has 8GB Ram and a M.2 NVME SSD for cache.
This just for the information. I am just going to talk about the DS918+ since it has the better hardware installed.

I am having a Nvidia Shield.
As mentioned before and in the FAQs as well, I know that the performance of the DS918+ may have transcoding issues, especially with films in 4K having a bitrate over 50Mbps and space needed around 50 GB and above.

So that was the reason, I updated the RAM and the M.2 cache.

So now to my question. Playing the movies as mentioned before (over 50GB of space and a bitrate over 50mbps) on the pc (windows 10, i7 8700k, GTX1080), doesnt work properly at all. As already mentioned the transcoding is done on the NAS, which doesn’t have the performance. On the Nvidia Shield on the other hand it works perfectly fine. I may need to say, that I am always talking about streaming the movies in the local network, over a Gigabit Ethernet, as it is most likely normal now a days. So I suppose since it works fine on the Nvidia shield, that the transcoding is being done on the Nvidia Shield.

So my question now is, is there anyway, that I can use the local ressources of the pc or any other device, where I want to stream the movie /series, so that transcoding is being done locally.

I am having some kind of a tv box, from a local telephone company, where plex is also preinstalled as a app. There the performance is also not good enough it seems. I suppose they are saving on the hardware there though.

For some ideas, how to do it I would be thankful.

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The J3455 CPU (found in the DS918+) is very capable of transcoding 3x 50+ Mbps video at a time.
The limits experienced are often the result of subtitle handling.

Subtitles are handled by the CPU. This is singularly the biggest problem with NAS processors due to their lower Passmark ratings.

Plex is not architected to be distributed across multiple hosts.

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Thanks for the quick answer.
So I will test this as soon as possible.
I am still a bit confused though, that even though its the exact same source (DS918+), once has a issue with the performance (plex player on windows) and once not (nvidia shield). Since both players just stream without having an impact on the hardware itself.

That is what I suspected. But that’s fine for the moment with me. Would have a different solution for that if I really needed it.

I suppose the DS1819+ installed processor should also be able to at least handle 1x 50Mbps per second.

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Another facet to be considered. Each player, even if the shield, has playback settings.

If those settings tell PMS to “Always Burn” subtitles, PMS (server side) will.
With a Shield involved, it’s best to have the setting in Automatic .

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Can you provide more details? I’m not aware of any boxes with Plex pre-installed. At least none officially.

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If you are using Plex Web, suggest you try Plex Media Player instead. PMP is a more capable client than Plex Web (which is limited by the capabilities of web browsers). It direct plays more codecs than Plex Web, resulting in less transcoding by your Plex server.

Example: PMP on a Win10 PC with an i7-4790K, GTX 750 Ti video card, & 1080p SDR TV as monitor. PMS on a DS918+.

Screenshot%20(36)

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Unfortunately I couldn’t find any hardware information about the tv box.
The phone provider is called Swisscom, where there are millions of users in Switzerland.
I suppose Swisscom buys the hardware directly from producers, since the case has their logo on it and is designed by them.
Even about the OS there is no information to get (at the moment I dont have any access to the box so I can’t check). I suppose that there is a android in the background. Where you can download the Swisscom TV App on the mobile devices for streaming and so on as well.

IT would for sure be a good idea from Plex to contact Swisscom, since I am sure there are more Plex users to come in Switzerland.

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Thanks for the answer.
You are right, in the passed I used to play movies and series over the browser. Meanwhile though I use the Media Player (from the microsoft store). Disabled by default (on my account, the only account at the moment) the subtitles.
With the App from the store it didn’t help. Gonna check it with the proper player from the link above

I checked the CPU load while streaming. By streaming 1 movie at over 50 Mbps, the load was at about 25%. It has buffering time though about every 2 minutes. for like 10 seconds.

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Plex for Windows has not been updated in over two years. It is effectively abandoned.

Use Plex Media Player instead.

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Thanks for the reply.
Just tried it. It works perfectly fine with the proper PMP, when streaming at original quality.
No issues with the subtitles disabled on both NAS.
Had change the default ports on one of the nas, change some firewalls policies and the port forwarding, so that the second nas is being recognized as directly connected as well.

So thanks alot for the help.

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Ok, found some info on this. The Swisscom devices act as a Smart TV and they use the Opera TV store (now called VEWD). This just runs our regular Smart TV app. That app, on that device, does not support 4K video, so PMS will have to transcode the video. No way around that.

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Ahh ok. Thought about something like that already. This doesn’t matter though.
Thank you for the information.

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