Why can't my Synology 218 play transcode fast enough?

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

TLDR - Is the Synology 218 play underpowered to transcode ?

New to all this and still figuring things out. I’ve just bought a Synology 218 play and have set up my Plex server on it. I’m testing with a movie I’ve chucked on to see it’s working ok and it’s not , it won’t playback on my phone (It takes around 45 secs to a 1 minute to load up and buffers frequently.) Whilst most of my use will be on the same network, I do travel so I want to be able to use this in 4g.
Not sure what info might be needed to help me but…

As far as I can tell the client and the server are the latest version, as is the Synology.
I’m using the apps natively, not using Docker.

Home bandwidth is around 30mbits, I’m using 4g on the phone and it’s around 13mbits.
The file is an .mkv 1080p movie, info from Plex as folllows

  • Codec H264
  • Bitrate 8028 kbps
  • Bit Depth 8
  • Chroma Location left
  • Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
  • Coded Height 1040
  • Coded Width 1920
  • Frame Rate 23.976 fps
  • Height 1040
  • Level 4.1
  • Profile high

I’ve checked the logs as per this article https://support.plex.tv/articles/201575036-why-is-my-video-stream-buffering/ and I can see that the Synology is struggling…(quick cust and paste of a small section)

Jan 27, 2020 18:01:31.755 [0x7f49fc51d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.8
Jan 27, 2020 18:01:32.340 [0x7f16b7d1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5
Jan 27, 2020 18:01:32.857 [0x7f485671d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 1.4
Jan 27, 2020 18:01:34.075 [0x7f16b7d1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.1
Jan 27, 2020 18:02:54.332 [0x7f4bfff1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.0
Jan 27, 2020 18:02:55.232 [0x7f9117c1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.0
Jan 27, 2020 18:02:56.005 [0x7f4bfff1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.0
Jan 27, 2020 18:02:56.691 [0x7f16b7d1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.4
Jan 27, 2020 18:02:57.192 [0x7f159e91d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.9
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:00.331 [0x7f156fb1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.1
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:00.851 [0x7f49fc51d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.7
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:01.550 [0x7f932dd1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.7
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:02.232 [0x7f4bfff1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.1
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:02.734 [0x7f156fb1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.4
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:03.259 [0x7f49fc51d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:09.330 [0x7f16b7d1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.0
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:10.651 [0x7f932dd1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.0
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:11.510 [0x7f4a88f1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.1
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:11.988 [0x7f49fc51d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.4
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:12.517 [0x7f156fb1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:13.031 [0x7f159e91d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.2
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:13.701 [0x7f16b7d1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.8
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:14.093 [0x7f4bfff1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.2
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:14.679 [0x7f4a88f1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:17.617 [0x7f49fc51d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.8
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:18.126 [0x7f159e91d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.0
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:18.310 [0x7f16b7d1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:18.833 [0x7f4bfff1d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5
Jan 27, 2020 18:03:19.408 [0x7f177351d0] VERBOSE - * speed => 0.5

So… Is my Synology underpowered for this task and therefore I need more grunt power for my server? Or am I doing something else wrong?

Thanks in advance

Server Version#: Version 4.12.3 / 1.18.4.2171-ac2afe5f8
Player Version#:7.27.0.15018

2

The DS218play is an ARMv8 CPU. It doesn’t have the benefit of HW transcoding.

Depending on what you’re trying to play, it may or may not do the job well.
Early testing, which was shared when ARMv8 support was released, shows it able to process about 20 Mbps of normal H.264 video. This was independent of subtitles.

The NAS compatiblity guide reflects the findings.

3

Thanks @ChuckPa. So… looks like I might have fallen for the Synology marketing / not educated myself well enough. Could you expand on ‘depending on what you’re trying to play…’ ? Is there some format I could veer toward or some format I should steer away from?

4

Depending on where you purchased it, how long you’ve owned it, and (most importantly) you might want to consider exchanging it for an Intel 64-bit system like the DS-x18+ or DS-x19+ models with hardware transcoding capability.

Any data you have on the existing NAS will be fully portable to a new model so there is nothing to be concerned with in that regard. You will only need (re)install DSM for the new model. (DSM installs itself in the system partitions on the drives which keeps your data fully sacred. It’s called ‘Migrating’ in Synology terms.)

The existing unit is good for H.264 video. It will not handle HEVC/H.265 .
Only Synology has access to their proprietary hardware acceleration. Also, attempts to access the on-CPU capabilities of the ARMv8 have gone unanswered by the chip maker.

5

@ChuckPa Thanks for the tips. I did try using ethernet but it didn’t make a noticeable difference. To close this out for anyone reading in the future… I wanted to test if having more grunt processing power made things better so I created a new Plex server on an i7 iMac I have in the house (which would make a great server but I just don’t want to leave it running all the time) and it worked flawlessly. Everything was snappier - loading of images, time to start a video, no buffering. Of course, it’s not fair to compare a £1500 computer with a £200 NAS but from a test point of view, it made it clear that the 218 Play is a little under horse-powered (and lacking the ability to hardware transcode with Plex. I’d also abandoned the idea of using DS video as it seemed to have more compatibility issues than Plex) to cope with what I want which is essentially to chuck any content at it and not really have to worry about pre-transcoding. I was nervous to upgrade to another Synology unit in case the performance dropped again in which case I’d have wasted the budget. So… I bought a second hand i7 Intel NUC for a couple of hundred quid and it’s working like a dream so far.

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