Ok I am not sure why I don’t understand this but here it goes…
I have my plex media server running on my mac and all the data on a nas. Cool! Here is my question. I was thinking about getting a mac mini to put my server on since my iMac is mostly for photography and what not and I don’t want it online 24/7. Or to put it on my NAS.
But everyone says it sucks on the NAS because its so weak for transcoding. The confusion I have is probably simple… I download/rip my files and use handbrake to convert them from avi/mkv/etc into mp4 H.256 files. So all my media is that way. Do I still need to worry about transcoding on my server when streaming? Or is that more in the way if I don’t use handbrake before putting the files onto the server?
Sorry if this is a dumb question I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it. And if I can run the plex server off the NAS AMAZING! lol and if I can buy the mac mini with an i5 instead of an i7 and save a few hundred also amazing. I just don’t understand which to do.
NAS that I have is a
Sinology DS2415+
Intel Atom C2538 64-bit Quad Core 2.4GHz
6 gigs of ram
Video Transcoding Group 1 - Type 1
VS a new mac mini probably an i5 2.5GHZ with 8 gigs of ram.
As long as you can DIRECT PLAY all of your content on any of your devices then no, you would never need to transcode and running PMS on a compatible NAS would work fine.
Then another question and maybe there is a thread or walk through for this, but how do I export the plex server from my iMac to the nas? So I can save all the meta data and all that stuff backup in the server?
Or do I just have to start a fresh server all over again?
Transcoding is needed when the Plex client you play back on doesn’t support the codec of the original file. In most cases the Plex client will rely on the hardware capability of the device. So you using H265 means the player needs to support H265 or transcoding will be needed. Only a few devices support H265 currently so depending on the players you have, your NAS will most likely not be able to handle being the server. Even the Mac Mini with the i5 may not be enough (depends on the i5) to handle transcoding H265.
With H264 you will be in better shape, but there are still things that can trigger a transcode.
Profile level too high
too many ref frames
10-bit color
incompatible audio codec
chossing a subtitle
And of course if the user sets the quality lower than the original, that will always trigger a transcode. There really is no guaranteed way to ensure you never need to transcode.
Most of my media is in MP4/H264 profile 3.1, 8-bit, 4 ref frames/2 channel AAC with 5.1 channel AC3 as 2nd audio track/external srt subtitles. Rarely do I need to transcode but it still happens, mainly due to bitrate limits.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
And of course if the user sets the quality lower than the original, that will always trigger a transcode. There really is no guaranteed way to ensure you never need to transcode.
This is something I try reinforce to people but unfortunately get flamed a lot for it. Situations like where your video file’s bitrate is say 8Mbit/s but the client is on a laptop and goes somewhere with a 5MBit/s DSL connection so they drop the bitrate. Bam, you’re transcoding, no matter what you’ve done with pre-massaging the codecs, filetype, etc. You have no control over this.
At the end of the day, transcoding is an intrinsic part of Plex and necessary for the “It just works” experience that Plex advertises and that many people choose Plex for. Eliminating transcoding is near impossible, and even reducing it requires a lot of pre-work and OCD control over things.
I’ve got a similar setup and use scenario so I thought I would relay my experience. I was running Plex Media Server over a spare Mac Mini and using a NAS attached to an Airport Extreme. I also transcode files with Handbrake to .mp4. The Mac Mini with PMS worked, but it was terribly unstable – it would crash every other day or so, frequently more often. So, I recently created a Plex Media Server on a raspberry pi 3.
After about a week with PMS on a raspberry pi, I can report three differences:
The raspberry pi appears to be more stable. No crashes yet, but it’s only been a week or so.
Like you, I transcode using Handbrake. There have been two issues with files: (a) as compared with the MacMini, it takes a few extra seconds for the stream to begin, possibly due to buffering (I’m no expert); and (b) Plex frequently gets the wrong movie file the first time, but invariably gets it right every time thereafter; and
Other file types (e.g., home videos in .avi format) take a very long time to stream, probably due to transcoding. I did not have these delays with PMS on a Mac Mini, and I’m not smart enough to know why they now exist in a linux environment, so I’ll just convert the .avis to mp4s which don’t appear to have the same issues.
If you have stability issues with your Mac Mini, a raspberry pi 3 isn’t a bad option at $35. There are some very tricky issues getting the pi to see your NAS. For whatever reason, this was easy with a Mac Mini. But, it can be done with a raspberry pi and, so far, it’s proving to be very stable.
I’ve never used any of the Pi’s but they run from an sd card, right? Do you know if PMS also use the SD card for it’s temp transcoding folder? If so, that could be the delay you are seeing. Move the transcoding folder to your external drive and see if that helps.
