This is weird. I have a movie called Assassins Creed. The file is an MKV. Overall bitrate is 41Mb/s. When I play it with Plex using my Roku it pauses a lot and tiles. I can only watch about 10 minutes or less of the movie. Now this is the weird part. Right off the same Netgear hub I have a small Dune Media Player, the model is Solo 4K. I bought it 3 or more years ago. When I play the same movie with the Dune Player there’s no pauses, tiling or anything. I can watch the entire movie. I’m thinking Plex has some overhead or maybe a process that could be slowing things down, or for all I know it could be Windows. I have Windows 10 version 21H1. I have barely anything running on it besides a few background programs. The computer is a very high end system so I don’t think it has anything to do with the computer itself. I’m just trying to see which direction to go in. I can see if my Dune Player did the same thing, but not at all. Which direction could I possibly look into on this?
How are the Dune Media Player and Roku connected? Both wifi? Which Roku version? If the Roku is on wifi, what wifi protocol (wifi 6/ax, ac, n, etc) are they using? 2.4ghz or 5ghz? Have you looked into channel interference? Have you changed whether they are using direct play or direct stream?
AMD Ryzen 9 5950x
64GB 3600 memory
Asus Crosshair Dark Hero Motherboard
Asus ROG Strix 3090 GPU
2 TB Western Digital Black NVMe PCIe 4.0 2280 drives X2
El Gato 4k 60 Pro
I will do what you said, but I doubt a system like that would hesitate on such a simple task. I actually forgot my Samsung flat screen 65" was 4k HDR!!! So now I trying to re-watch some of the content I love.
Ohh…I also have a 64GB Apple TV 4k. I went to the app store and downloaded Plex. Logged right into Plex with no issues and couldn’t play any high bitrate video. I will make a small video showing how everything works so everyone gets a real good understanding on what’s going on. Anyway, I’ll still check out the Dashboard to see what’s going on.
UPDATE: There may have not been enough room on my VPS to hold all those video testing files and audio files, so I’m looking for a place to put them. I only have limited space on my VPS. I know I have lots of space on my Google 1 account, so I have to see what’s left there. These files of course would be temporarily for the group here. They are great files to have for testing video and audio. And if someone has enough space on a fast line that could host them, that would be great also. Still no testing by my yet. They take up 52GB worth of space.
The Dune Media Player and Roku are all hard wired. I always use hard wired over wireless when I can in my home. I have the Roku Ultimate. And I also have the new Apple 4K. The Dune Media player doesn’t do any transcoding or anything, that sucker just plays. It will take a 50Mb/s bitrate file and chew through it wit no issues.
“Dune HD 4K Solo is the best video player out there. No bells and whistles regarding other areas (apps, android, GUI) but where it counts (image quality, video playback and relevant features, stability, network, compatibility with popular formats) it is still the best one.” And if you are curious or even just a little interested please check out the latest Dune review affiliate site: Dune SOLO 4K Review and Pictures! And here is the main Dune site itself
If you happen to see this media player less than $200 let us all know!
If you want more information on the Dune Media Player and if you can find where to buy one or two I would grab them! The only price I can find one of these players is around $359. A while back when I bought them they were only $199. I should have bought 10 of them, but ended up grabbing 4. They are just good have. Very portable when going over a friends house and have many uses.They literally play everything I have ever thrown at it, including all the test files I put on my test video site. Check it out if you want. Free of charge! There are also other Dune related files in there, ignore them if you wish. The test files are really good to test your system out. There are video files that are 110Mb/s that will stress your system. I have tried them all with my Dune, but haven’t had the time this weekend to fool around with my Plex server which I hope to get to this week. Ahhh, here is the link for the test video and audio files. I would just download them and then stash them away on your computer. I’m still currently uploading them, so I would download them tomorrow. Test Video and Audio Files
Here is one movie we all know, and the details. I will be using this movie as a reference.
General
Unique ID : 177436215175132658736981330957490663590 (0x857CF8D527190EAE970179634B1330A6) Complete name : T:\Movies\The Martian (2015)\The Martian (2015) 2160p.mkv Format : Matroska Format version : Version 4 File size : 48.2 GiB Duration : 2 h 21 min Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 48.7 Mb/s Encoded date : UTC 2016-03-07 08:47:12 Writing application : mkvmerge v8.3.0 (‘Over the Horizon’) 64bit Writing library : libebml v1.3.1 + libmatroska v1.4.2
ID : 2 Format : DTS XLL Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems Commercial name : DTS-HD Master Audio Codec ID : A_DTS Duration : 2 h 21 min Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 4 997 kb/s Channel(s) : 8 channels Channel layout : C L R LFE Lb Rb Lss Rss Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF) Bit depth : 24 bits Compression mode : Lossless Stream size : 4.94 GiB (10%) Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No
Text #1
ID : 3 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 15 min Bit rate : 14.1 kb/s Count of elements : 4290 Stream size : 13.7 MiB (0%) Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No
Text #2
ID : 4 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 10.5 kb/s Count of elements : 3322 Stream size : 10.5 MiB (0%) Language : Spanish Default : No Forced : No
Text #3
ID : 5 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 11.1 kb/s Count of elements : 3462 Stream size : 11.1 MiB (0%) Language : French Default : No Forced : No
Text #4
ID : 6 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 10.2 kb/s Count of elements : 3378 Stream size : 10.2 MiB (0%) Language : Spanish Default : No Forced : No
Text #5
ID : 7 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 19 min Bit rate : 9 211 b/s Count of elements : 2734 Stream size : 9.18 MiB (0%) Language : Danish Default : No Forced : No
Text #6
ID : 8 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 9 029 b/s Count of elements : 3448 Stream size : 9.06 MiB (0%) Language : Finnish Default : No Forced : No
Text #7
ID : 9 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 10.6 kb/s Count of elements : 3418 Stream size : 10.6 MiB (0%) Language : Norwegian Default : No Forced : No
Text #8
ID : 10 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 9 501 b/s Count of elements : 3230 Stream size : 9.53 MiB (0%) Language : Portuguese Default : No Forced : No
Text #9
ID : 11 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 19 min Bit rate : 10.4 kb/s Count of elements : 3386 Stream size : 10.3 MiB (0%) Language : Swedish Default : No Forced : No
Text #10
ID : 12 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 2 h 20 min Bit rate : 13.8 kb/s Count of elements : 3502 Stream size : 13.9 MiB (0%) Language : Chinese Default : No Forced : No
Text #11
ID : 13 Format : PGS Muxing mode : zlib Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 47 s 715 ms Bit rate : 6 662 b/s Count of elements : 24 Stream size : 38.8 KiB (0%) Language : English Default : No Forced : No
Ok, here are my logs. No matter what I could do, the movie just would not play at it’s normal original bitrate. When I try to play it through my new Apple 4k it is even worse, because when I check out the CPU processing it’s up to like %40!! When just using the ROKU it stays at around %10-%15. I have included the logs file and I really have no idea where to look. Right at the end, Plex stopped playing the file and said something like your server does not have enough power to play this file. Well, we all know that’s not true. I also uploaded this file from process explorer and just doesn’t look right to me. Are these all the processes that have started playing then stopped because of the server stopped for whatever reason and then me resuming the video again? Also, when I’m at the Play Back setting I set the quality to the original, put DIRECT PLAY on AUTO and check ALLOW DIRECT STREAM. Are these the appropriate options? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Also, the reference movie I am back to using is Assassins’ Creed.
Unique ID : 22472394079776712309971351951923011844 (0x10E806922E1ABBCA7FCD381286F4E104) Complete name : T:\other\Assassins Creed 2016 UHD BluRay 2160p TrueHD Atmos 7 1 HEVC REMUX-FraMeSToR-4P\assassin creed.mkv Format : Matroska Format version : Version 4 File size : 33.6 GiB Duration : 1 h 55 min Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 41.7 Mb/s Movie name : Assassin’s Creed 4K Encoded date : UTC 2017-10-25 11:11:58 Writing application : mkvmerge v17.0.0 (‘Be Ur Friend’) 64-bit Writing library : libebml v1.3.5 + libmatroska v1.4.8
Video
ID : 1 Format : HEVC Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High HDR format : SMPTE ST 2086, HDR10 compatible Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC Duration : 1 h 55 min Bit rate : 34.9 Mb/s Width : 3 840 pixels Height : 2 160 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 2) Bit depth : 10 bits Bits/(PixelFrame) :* 0.176 Stream size : 28.2 GiB (84%) Writing library : ATEME Titan File 3.7.8 (4.7.8.0) Default : Yes Forced : No Color range : Limited Color primaries : BT.2020 Transfer characteristics : PQ Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant Mastering display color primaries : Display P3 Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0000 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2
Audio #1
ID : 2 Format : MLP FBA 16-ch Format/Info : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation Commercial name : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos Codec ID : A_TRUEHD Duration : 1 h 55 min Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 5 896 kb/s Maximum bit rate : 9 129 kb/s Channel(s) : 8 channels Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF) Compression mode : Lossless Stream size : 4.76 GiB (14%) Title : TrueHD Atmos 7.1 Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No Number of dynamic objects : 13 Bed channel count : 1 channel Bed channel configuration : LFE
Audio #2
ID : 3 Format : AC-3 Format/Info : Audio Coding 3 Commercial name : Dolby Digital Codec ID : A_AC3 Duration : 1 h 55 min Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 640 kb/s Channel(s) : 6 channels Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 529 MiB (2%) Title : AC3 5.1 Language : English Service kind : Complete Main Default : No Forced : No
Text #1
ID : 4 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 18 min Bit rate : 1 426 b/s Count of elements : 192 Stream size : 821 KiB (0%) Title : English (Forced only) Language : English Default : Yes Forced : Yes
Text #2
ID : 5 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 42 min Bit rate : 18.2 kb/s Count of elements : 1762 Stream size : 13.3 MiB (0%) Title : English (SDH) Language : English Default : No Forced : No
Text #3
ID : 6 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 53 min Bit rate : 11.8 kb/s Count of elements : 1136 Stream size : 9.58 MiB (0%) Title : Spanish (Latin American) Language : Spanish Default : No Forced : No
Text #4
ID : 7 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 12.7 kb/s Count of elements : 1378 Stream size : 10.4 MiB (0%) Title : French Language : French Default : No Forced : No
Text #5
ID : 8 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 11.3 kb/s Count of elements : 1150 Stream size : 9.24 MiB (0%) Title : Spanish (Castilian) Language : Spanish Default : No Forced : No
Text #6
ID : 9 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 13.4 kb/s Count of elements : 1188 Stream size : 10.9 MiB (0%) Title : Danish Language : Danish Default : No Forced : No
Text #7
ID : 10 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 13.4 kb/s Count of elements : 1222 Stream size : 10.9 MiB (0%) Title : Dutch Language : Dutch Default : No Forced : No
Text #8
ID : 11 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 53 min Bit rate : 12.9 kb/s Count of elements : 1324 Stream size : 10.5 MiB (0%) Title : Finnish Language : Finnish Default : No Forced : No
Text #9
ID : 12 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 15.6 kb/s Count of elements : 1314 Stream size : 12.7 MiB (0%) Title : German Language : German Default : No Forced : No
Text #10
ID : 13 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 14.4 kb/s Count of elements : 1328 Stream size : 11.7 MiB (0%) Title : Italian Language : Italian Default : No Forced : No
Text #11
ID : 14 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 13.6 kb/s Count of elements : 1328 Stream size : 11.1 MiB (0%) Title : Norwegian Language : Norwegian Default : No Forced : No
Text #12
ID : 15 Format : PGS Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs Duration : 1 h 54 min Bit rate : 13.8 kb/s Count of elements : 1326 Stream size : 11.2 MiB (0%) Title : Swedish Language : Swedish Default : No Forced : No
In the transcoder settings, where it has “transcoder quality” I have it set to “make my CPU hurt”. I don’t know if that’s the correct setting, but I use to keep it on auto. Tell be honest, I don’t exactly know the differences between Direct Stream or Direct Play. If you ask someone that’s not into this stuff, I bet %100 of them would most likely say they are the same but just wording it a different way. What is the definition of each and how do you force or not force each?
Here are some of my settings:
Transcoder area:
Transcoder Quality : I changed this back to AUTO
Background transcoding x264 preset : Slower
Enable HDR Tone mapping : Checked
Disable Video Stream Transcoding : UNCHECKED ( would that be the preferred option?)
Use HW acceleration when available : CHECKED
User hardware-accelerated video encoding : CHECKED
Also under ACCOUNT is a good idea to keep “experimental features enabled or disabled” ?
Well, I’ll be doing some troubleshooting tonight and hope to boil down the process of elimination. I hate to keep having to fall back on a 5 year old media player to play most of my media content. Of course Plex can play TV shows with no problems. It is just the high bitrate stuff it has trouble with. Along with using the dashboard I’ll jump on the server computer and I’ll open resource monitor out just to see if anything looks out of the ordinary. I have closed BACKBLAZE, which is a backup utility since that may scan for new files and don’t want that interfering with anything. I’ve closed all the type of programs that check for updates, stuff like that. I’ll get back. Thanks guys.
I always want my transcoder to be Auto. I would look at enabling Direct Play, or even forcing Direct Play. Given the specs of your Dune Media Player, it should handle it. This is usually a setting on the App for the Box itself, not a server-side setting.
Neither the Roku of your Samsung Smart TV support PGS subtitles so your server has to trasncode the video to burn them in. Burning subtitles can be slow, especially for 4K content.
Don’t play the subtitles and thing should be better.
There are also other Dune related files in there, ignore them if you wish. The test files are really good to test your system out. There are video files that are 110Mb/s that will stress your system. I have tried them all with my Dune, but haven’t had the time this weekend to fool around with my Plex server which I hope to get to this week. Ahhh, here is the link for the test video and audio files. I would just download them and then stash them away on your computer. I’m still currently uploading them, so I would download them tomorrow.
