Why can't Plex play videos like VLC does?

General Discussions
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I have an Nvidia Shield Pro and a Plex Pass and tried to use Plex as a media server on the Shield, but it fails to serve most of my video library.

Most of my videos are ripped from my DVD collection as MKV in 1080p/H.265 and none of them get past 33% on any of the external devices.

Only the NVidia Shield itself is able to playback most videos, the Roku, Firesticks and other Android TV devices get stuck at 33%

Lower resolution 720p/480p videos work OK, but 90% of my over 6TB video collection are 1080p/H.265

I understand I can use Plex if I spend a few weeks and retranscode everything down to older/lower resolution, but why can’t Plex serve up newer videos?

What I do for now is just use VLC as it can play back everything, but it doesn’t have a “fancy” interface my wife and kids can easily figure out.

Plex is slick looking, but what good is it if it can’t play anything?
Reminds me of having a nice Ferrari to look at, but it’s missing the engine…

2

sounds like your devices can’t natively play h265 content and your plex server is having to transcode and not doing a very good job of it.

plex clients can only natively play what your devices support, otherwise transcoding is required.

3

I’m willing to throw money at this problem and buy a dedicated Plex Server, if that would solve the problem.

I thought the NVidia Shield Pro had enough power to serve as a Plex Media Server, but it’s failing miserably. Even if only one set is trying to watch a video, it just sits at 33% until the Plex Client fails and crashes.

All of my playback systems are hardwired on the same dedicated 100Mb Switch, so all I can think of is to add a new server with whatever the absolute best CPU/GPU that Plex can use and hope for the best.

4

The Shield isn’t the best server out there but it should be able to serve up a 1080p h.265 file to another device without any problem. Especially if these other devices are on the same network

The devices you listed should all natively play h.265 unless they’re very old

What you’re describing sounds like some other kind of failure that needs to be diagnosed
I suggest you recreate a failure on one of the other devices and then post your server logs for someone to take a look at

5

The TV’s are newer (2021+) OLED’s, two LG 65" and a Samsung 85".
All are 4K with wired ethernet ports.

They can play DVD/Blueray discs and using their USB ports play MVK/TS and other format files at H.265 up to 4K with no issues, so I don’t think they are the problem.

I will look into saving the crash log files when the Plex Clients fail @ 33% and see if they help solve this problem.

Today I tried adding in a Roku LT Ultra external to see if Plex could handle sending video to that and it also failed at 33%.

Does anyone know of a better video server I can try, or know of the “Ultimate Plex Server” hardware that will absolutely, positively be able to serve up a simple 1080p H.265 show to a new Android Smart TV set without fail?

6

Have you tried setting Direct Play to FORCE on your Plex clients? I do that on all my Rokus. Most modern TVs should be able to natively display 264 & 265 video and AC3 and AAC audio. Be sure to turn subtitles OFF. If you’re trying to play PGS subtitles then the PMS has to do video transcoding & the shield might not be to to that task. Many TVs can play SRT subtitles natively.

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Yes, I did try the Force Direct Play, but it then hangs at 33% for about a minute then the clients crash and shutdown.

I’m going to give Emby and JellyFin a try this weekend before I shell out the big bucks for a PC with a Ryzen ThreadRipper or a i9 13900KF and a NVidia Quadro P2200 5GB in hopes that will make Plex behave.

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Can you share 1 of the videos that wont play? I’d like to try it on my PMS setup. Maybe put it on Google Drive.

I also run Jellyfin on my PMS server, and it works great also on all of my Roku clients.

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I installed Emby Server on my Shield and their Client on the Roku, PS4, Samsung and LG.
It works perfectly!.

Every video that I’ve tried so far that stalled at 33% on Plex plays flawlessly.

I’m going to cancel my Plex Pass and switch over to Emby.

As a test, I streamed 4 different videos to 4 TVs simultaneously using Emby Server on the Shield.
All 4 were displaying 1080P HEVC H.265 with AAC5.1 Audio and displaying PGSSUB Subtitles.

Using Emby, all 4 play perfectly.
Plex can’t even handle playing one.

Someone at Plex should have a look at whatever Emby is doing so they can learn how to serve up video files properly.

Sure, Plex has a slicker looking interface than Emby… but what good is it if it can’t play anything?

10

unless you provide log files how is anyone supposed to know why YOUR particular setup is having issues.

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