Hi, for sometimes now most of my 4K movies won’t play because it buffers evert 30 second. It is a Synology Diskstation DS718+ with a quad code CPU with 6gb ram on an ethernet home network. however I don’t have that problem with 2K movies.
It used to work until several weeks ago…
The device was reset and reinstalled twice. I also reset the fibre modem in case it was responsible for that but whatever I do it is not enough to fix the problem.
However when I play the same 4K movies that failed with Plex they can be played without buffering when using the Synology Media Server to the Samsung television.
Any advice please?
Thanks, Trevor
Thanks Trumpy, thank you for taking the time to write something… I just don’t understand the logic because I can play some 4K movies but some other won’t play as the result of the buffering…
So I don’t see why having a Plex Pass could help since it worked before… if you still advise to get a plex pass then I will try that next as I don’t mind the cost if it will benefit me on the long term,
thank you Trevor
Lol… It took me ages to upload my Blu-ray Discs to store them on my nas… I will give a shot on one or two movies that I know fail to play. Many thanks trumpy81
Sorry I have mental health so can forget things…
I had Plex Pass for a week about a month ago and did not renew at the end of the trial…
Could it be that by not renewing the Plex Pass, they removed the hardware acceleration, hence it not working anymore for some 4K movies? Thank you
Hi ChuckPA, thanks.
I have restarted the server and made sure that hardware acceleration is turned on like showing on the screenshot… It is still the same… most 4K movies won’t play as buffering every 30 seconds.
I don’t have any experience with Synology but in your screenshot, the Transcoder Temporary Directory is blank. This is the path that Plex needs to be able to write the transcode files if needed. Now that you have Plex Pass , hope the hardware acceleration helps!
Don’t get the pass they just want your money . Believe me . Plex sucks and they don’t even know how really works . I have a Mac mini 2018 I can play anything but when I go to my Apple TV 4K some movies in 4K is been transcode while im watching it in my Apple TV In the living room but when I go to my Apple TV 4K in my bedroom every thing is playing in direct play and no transcoding I purchased the pass for solve my issue and it’s transcoding . So don’t pay for something that isn’t not going to work . For who ever that is going to say something bout my English … be quite at least I can’t talk in another language that is not mine ..
Buying a Plexpass enables hardware transcoding, but hardware transcoding is not a magic pill for smooth 4K viewing. In fact you want to direct play 4K media as much as possible which costs zero dollars - you don’t need a PP
Hi trumpy81, I did as you suggested by using Handbrake. Movies work after re-encoding them to MKV, H.265, 2160p60, 4K HECV. Surround… However that being said I need to find the right balance between quality and performance… At the moment the original file is down from 22gb to 6gb large… And it takes over 24 hours to encode… A huge discrepancy in size
I don’t mind paying £5 for the Plex Pass as long as I am happy with the Service. I don’t think that £5 is unreasonable when you compare with what you get for free? I have yet to find a competitive service… I cancelled Amazon Prime and Amazon Music and Now TV, and Registered with Tidal HIFI which includes the Plex Pass.
I have my servers on a Nvidia Shield (android based) and windows 10. On my win 10 machine it’s a small SSD so I changed it from the default directory to a USB 3 stick. I think each platform puts its transcoding files into a default lication and you can change it if you want. I would do a test with a small file 480p or 720p and see what happens before testing transcoding of 4K files. In the end, I always avoid transcoding if possible because it takes CPU power to convert the file, etc. https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250377-transcoding-media/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/htmlview
Does it means that compressed files will be un-compressed when played by Plex? If that’s the case they will save storage space on my NAS where I have about a mix of 400 movies in both 2K and 4K… But then they will require the hardware to work harder
For my next encoding I will be staying within HandBrake’s guidelines for 4K movies and will let you know, Many thanks Trumpy81, as your advices fixed my problem lol.
For me it’s doesn’t matter because I have a good NAS with a quad core cpu, 6gb of ram on an ethernet network so I am glad that my hardware is going to work hard on 4K streaming hence my home theater accessed by a Samsung TV… Not a desktop computer…
