Video playback choppy (not smooth) on same Mac Mini as Plex server

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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1

Server Version#: Version 1.22.1.4228
Player Version#: Version 4.53.0 (web player inside Firefox)

The XML of a video file is below. It’s an MKV file of a tv show episode. Only Plex server and Firefox are playing on this Mac Mini machine, so it shouldn’t be a memory or capacity issue. Other videos play fine. But some videos like this one are ‘choppy’ in the sense that every few seconds there’s a bit of a jump in a screen. Then it continues. It’s very distracting. VLC player on the same machine has no such issues with the same video. My friends also don’t have this issue when they play it on their TV (Samsung Plex app in their case).

So I presume this is related to transcoding by Plex on my own machine. So I changed the Settings → Quality to not be “Maximum” but something smaller like 8mbps 1080p. This still does not solve the issue.

Any other ideas? XML is below, the info of this video.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="6" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionUUID="a305d122-b0fa-48cf-9811-e6c4cffa94f9" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1616630658">
<Video ratingKey="12109" key="/library/metadata/12109" parentRatingKey="12108" grandparentRatingKey="12087" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://333383/1/1?lang=en" parentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://333383/1?lang=en" grandparentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://333383?lang=en" type="episode" title="Episode 1" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/12087" parentKey="/library/metadata/12108" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionID="6" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/6" grandparentTitle="Keeping Faith" parentTitle="Season 1" contentRating="TV-PG" summary="Lawyer, wife and mother Faith Howells is drawn into a mystery when her husband and business partner Evan disappears. He leaves for work but never arrives. His sudden absence strikes deep into the heart of his tiny Welsh community and forces Faith to come back from extended maternity leave to defend a hopeless vagrant on a shoplifting charges. As an increasingly desperate Faith searches for clues, she uncovers new revelations about Evan's private life and questions how well she really knows the man she loves." index="1" parentIndex="1" viewOffset="141000" lastViewedAt="1616946254" year="2017" thumb="/library/metadata/12109/thumb/1616939134" art="/library/metadata/12087/art/1616939139" parentThumb="/library/metadata/12108/thumb/1616939139" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/12087/thumb/1616939139" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/12087/art/1616939139" duration="3537184" originallyAvailableAt="2017-11-05" addedAt="1616939109" updatedAt="1616939134">
<Media id="14175" duration="3537184" bitrate="4079" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="ac3" videoCodec="h264" videoResolution="1080" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="PAL" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="16588" key="/library/parts/16588/1616894535/file.mkv" duration="3537184" file="/Volumes/MySeagate/TV/Keeping Faith/Keeping Faith - 01x01.mkv" size="1803610007" container="mkv" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="43527" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="3695" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1088" codedWidth="1920" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="25.000" hasScalingMatrix="1" height="1080" level="40" profile="high" refFrames="4" scanType="interlaced" width="1920" displayTitle="1080i (H.264)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080i (H.264)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="43528" streamType="2" default="1" forced="1" codec="ac3" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="192" language="русский язык" languageCode="rus" audioChannelLayout="stereo" samplingRate="48000" title="TVShows" displayTitle="русский язык (AC3 Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="TVShows (русский язык AC3 Stereo)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="43529" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="ac3" index="2" channels="2" bitrate="192" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" samplingRate="48000" title="Original" displayTitle="English (AC3 Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Original (English AC3 Stereo)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="43564" key="/library/streams/43564" streamType="3" selected="1" codec="srt" language="English" languageCode="eng" format="srt" providerTitle="OpenSubtitles" score="10" sourceKey="/library/streams/1955917249?provider=OpenSubtitles&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fdl.opensubtitles.org%2Fen%2Fdownload%2Fsrc-api%2Fvrf-19d70c5d%2Ffilead%2F1955917249.gz&amp;enc=UTF-8" title="keeping.faith.s01e01.480p.web.x264.rmteam" transient="1" userID="1" displayTitle="English (SRT OpenSubtitles)" extendedDisplayTitle="keeping.faith.s01e01.480p.web.x264.rmteam (English SRT OpenSubtitles)">
</Stream>
<Stream id="43565" key="/library/streams/43565" streamType="3" file="/Volumes/MySeagate/TV/Keeping Faith/Keeping Faith - 01x01.srt" codec="srt" format="srt" displayTitle="Unknown (SRT External)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (SRT External)">
</Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
<Writer id="32275" filter="writer=32275" tag="Matthew Hall"/>
<Marker id="22066" type="intro" startTimeOffset="990" endTimeOffset="36239"/>
<Extras size="0">
</Extras>
<Related>
</Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
2

I would recommend watching video with Plex for Mac app and not use a Browser

3

Thank you. In the Plex Player the whole video is choppy. I’d prefer to keep it in Chrome/Firefox as that’s one less app clogging up memory in my computer. Any other ideas? Thanks.

4

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