Hi!
I’m fairly new to Rasplex, and is working on the family collection of home videos, shot with DV camcorders, that I edit and render into useful formats with Kdenlive in Ubuntu Linux. I render them to MPEG4, either H.264/AAC or MPEG-4/MP3 format, in 1920x1080 resolution. But I have troubles playing them on Plex, most so on the Rasplex device. The hang and the playback is not smooth, as if it was too high resolution. It is far better on Plex on my Win 10 laptop (but there I can also change playback quality - a feature that seems not to be on Rasplex). I can transcode the videos on the server, optimized for TV, but I really haven’t understood how that works yet.
So: can anyone give me advice on best format and handling of such home videos for playback in Plex, and specfically Rasplex (Raspberry Pi 3)?
Magnus Larsson
If Raspberry Pi is connected to your server by ethernet wire then you can use up to 25mbps video bitrate with ease (and usually above that as well).
If you only have wireless, you might have to use less high bitrates. (how much less, will depend on your WiFi reception situation, which can also change drastically, suddenly - so don’t use wireless 
)
max. 1920x1080 px resolution, H.264, Level 4.1, 8 bit color depth, max. 4 reference frames should keep your files comfortably in the direct playable field.
If you need to decide on a sound format, use AAC stereo, which is pretty much universally supported. But the RasPi has also no problem with AC3 or basic DTS.
I recommend either the MP4 container or MKV.
I think this may be an issue with your Pi 3 rather than Plex.
I have encoded my Blu-ray Discs at 1920x1080p in H.264 with DTS-HD MA and AC3 (Dolby) audio tracks, within an .mkv container. My videos play perfectly, with no hangs at all.
A few questions:
1: What version of Rasplex are you using?
2: What container (e.g. .mkv; .mp4; .avi) are you using for your videos?
3: What SD card are you using in your Pi?
4: Do you notice any other issues with Rasplex, except for video playback?
This Pi 3 is a very powerful piece of hardware, so the issues you are experiencing are very unusual.
Hi!
Thanks for your helpful replies!
My rasplex is version 1.7.0, architecture RPi2.arm. I use a 16 GD class 10 SD-card. It is connected to the home LAN with an ethernet cable, no wifi involved.
Your comments triggered me to examine the network some more, and run some tests - trying the same video both directly from a harddrive on a desktop, and over Plex on the same computer. And that led me to suspect network problems. I realized that the Plex server was connected to the LAN through a switch, and bypassing the switch solved the problem!!!
However, I really don’t understand why the switch caused problems. It’s a gigabyte switch…
Anyway: problem seems solved for the time being!! Thanks a lot!!!
Magnus
@magnuslar said:
However, I really don’t understand why the switch caused problems. It’s a gigabyte switch…
ARP tables full, odd glitch in the switch, bad port, bad ethernet cable, lots of possible causes. You might want to power cycle the switch and do a bit of troubleshooting.
It does sound like there is a problem with your switch, or perhaps it couldn’t handle the traffic going through it.
I have my network in a 10/100 switch, which does the job fine.
