My current setting as of today is
The problem is I cant watch movies except if I use a lower bitrate which is fine but I occasionally want to make use of the best resolution I have.
Should I upgrade my synology and if YES to what model ?? , or is there an alternate workaround or add-on that would help fix this issue.
Hatem A Tawfik, MD
Cairo, Egypt
Enable ‘Information Overlay’ on the Fire Sticks:
Play something (anything), hit OK, arrow right to ‘Gear’, arrow down and enable ‘Information Overlay’.
Now when you hit OK while something is playing you will see some onscreen information about the streams. Direct Play or Transcoding and if Transcoding why.
Typically with a NAS you need to have material Direct Play. Video Transcoding is difficult for an underpowered server. You also need to set the local quality in the Fire Stick Plex Apps to ‘Original’ - if at all possible. If you are using MakeMKV to create 1:1 BluRay rips this may not be possible. The high bit rate of the file may not be able to be delivered to the Sticks through WiFi.
Most of the material you’ll encounter is going to be level 4.1. Version 1 Fire Devices have a default level 4.0. This will always require a video transcode unless you manually change the Max 264 Level to 4.1 in the App Settings.
If the bit rate is able to be passed to the Fire Sticks successfully - whatever that happens to be - and the video stream can be Direct Played, you’ll have much better results.
Alternately you can ‘create’ lower bit rate material that will Direct Play through Plex Optimization, or via other means outside of Plex - with Handbrake, for instance. The goal is to provide material, or adjust the app settings, so that a Direct Play condition exists for the Video Streams at least. The NAS can probably handle a few Audio Transcodes, if those are necessary.
Make the Max 264 Level change described above, look at a few items with Information Overlay and see what it’s telling you about the streams. Report back what, if any, differences in performance you are seeing and also report what Information Overlay is revealing.
This is an amazing response apparently from a PRO. I cant even comprehend a single sentence. Will get my techie kids to help deciphering your helpful comments and will get back to you. Big Thanks From Cairo. will keep you posted
Okey Dokey…
We aim to please…
I’m no PRO, but I do have an AFVT-V1 and know about it’s little shortcomings. I don’t have a NAS, but I can read the forum and can guess at those shortcomings. If we need more advanced help I also know who to call and that would be one or more of those aforementioned PROs.
My maximum h.264 level is set to 5. Should I lower it to 4 ?
No… your sticks may not play level 5. I’d set it to 4.1 and if you need to - looking at Information Overlay when it tells you the level is the reason for a transcode - bump it up and see if the material plays.
There’s a reason that default level is 4.0. We can probably get 4.1 out of 'em, but any more than that is a wish.
ok please bear with me. if I understand it correctly, transcoding is not needed if I set my fire stick at ORIGINAL , but why is it that I very frequently get the message " your server is not powerful enough to convert this video " and thee video keeps getting interrupted every few seconds. is this issue related to synology/Plex or to the wireless network ??
We ‘Hope’ transcoding is not needed.
What is ‘Information Overlay’ saying about the file? If it’s Transcoding, why is it Transcoding? Information Overlay will tell you. That’s why we turned it on.
Without knowing what the streams are like inside the file we don’t know if transcoding will be needed or not:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201998867-Investigate-Media-Information-and-Formats
XML info about halfway down the page.
Copy XML info, Paste XML info to message, Highlight XML info, Select ‘Code’ from drop down menu under the ‘Backwards P’ in the message options.
If I can see what the streams are made of inside the file, I will know if the file will Direct Play on a Fire Stick and not require Transcoding.
If the Plex App Quality setting is ‘Original’ we can assume Transcoding isn’t underway because the file is higher quality than the quality setting in the app. If the file’s quality is higher than the app setting the file will always Transcode. We want to avoid that - if possible.
NAS means - among other things - Not A Server.
OK, it really means Network Attached Storage.
Basically a NAS is a PC with an under-powered CPU only powerful enough to perform ‘Storage’ Duties, usually not up to the task of CPU intensive Transcoding operations. If you run a NAS as your Plex Server you must take care to ensure your material Direct Plays because if it doesn’t Direct Play it’s Transcoding and your NAS is unable to Transcode very much, if at all. If Transcoding is underway and you get the message that ‘Your server is not powerful enough’ it’s because it isn’t.
Another consideration when using Fire Sticks is they are ONLY able to connect to the server via WiFi. If your WiFi is unable to transfer data at sufficient speeds to maintain playback - buffering will occur and/or you’ll get the message that ‘Your server is not powerful enough’ - maybe - because your Network is unable to get the required data through WiFi to the Stick so it can play the file. Another reason we need to see what the streams are made of in the file. If the bit rate of the video stream in the file is, for instance, 20Mbps, and we guess your WiFi is only able to deliver 8Mbps… well… you can’t get 20 tons of cabbage on an 8 Ton Truck, can you? You also can’t ‘Transcode’ a 20Mbps bit rate down to 8Mbps because your NAS doesn’t have the horsepower, does it?
An impasse has been reached, hasn’t it?
A lot of people use a NAS. They know the NAS can’t Transcode very much so they make SURE the material does not need Transcoding. Material that can Direct Play is fine. Your Nas can deliver Direct Play material without issue. All it has to do is transfer the file from Storage to the Device that’s playing it. No Problem - we hope. That’s what the NAS does well. That operation takes very little computing power.
If the Network - in your case WiFi - can deliver the file’s bit rate (we don’t know what that is at this point) to the Stick and the Stick is able to Direct Play it - all is well.
Information Overlay will help us troubleshoot a misbehaving stream - so we can perhaps do something about it.
Is any of this making more sense now?
Yes , thank you very much. Will try now to play with some movies that get interrupted every few seconds
so basically if I understand it correctly, the bottom line I should convert all my videos to MP4 which is the format that would work without issues ?
No, not at all.
You have to play some files, look at information overlay, tell us what information overlay tells you about the file and we go from there.
The File Container type has very little to do with it. Your Stick will play a file in MP4/M4V/MKV - AVI files are right out. What the Streams are made of is most important.
Earlier in this thread I explained how to post XML data for a file. That tells us what the streams are made of. Once information overlay tells you why a file is transcoding and we can see the stream info with the XML we can determine the next step. It could be a re-code, or it may be a setting adjustment.
