Here’s my current situation:
Video width: 1 920 pixels
Video height: 802 pixels
Video codec I am trying to play: AVC
Audio codec I am trying to play: DTS
Subtitles: No
RAM transcoding: 8GB of physical RAM, plus 15 GB of swap RAM on my SSD
RAM transcoding directory: /mnt/tmpfs (same as my swap RAM)
Current processor: 8-core i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz
Passmark: 10,038 passmark, the Plex website says I only need 2,000 for a 1080p movie
When I watch it on my Google Chrome web browser, I can see the image perfectly, no worries. The “Now Playing” option says the following:
Plex Web (Chrome)
Playing
Converting (throttled)
Video Direct Stream
Audio Transcoding DCA to AAC
which is understandable, it just means that the client I am running on accepts AVC, but does not support the DCA/DTS audio codec.
Now, the problem is when I am watching it on my 4K Samsung TV model UN48JU6100. The video quality starts out great, but then after about 30 seconds it gets TERRIBLE, I can literally see the edges of each pixel on my 48-inch TV if I pause the movie. The transcoding option is set to “auto”. The “Now Playing” option says the following:
TV UN48JU6100
Playing
Converting
Video Transcoding H264 to H264
Audio Transcoding DCA to AC3
What I noticed:
1 - The image of my web browser movie is ALWAYS great
2 - The image of my TV is ALWAYS terrible, even if I am playing a single movie
3 - While playing both at the same time (TV + web browser), my average CPU load keeps oscillating between a very light load (1-2%) to a very intense load (95-97%) for ALL 8 cores I have
4 - While playing both at the same time (TV + web browser), the maximum RAM usage I get during transcoding is 2 GB (out of 8 GB) for the physical RAM, and my swap RAM disk usage barely goes above 1 GB (out of 15 GB). So RAM is not a problem
5 - I get the same terrible images on my TV even if I have an SDD transcoding directory rather than RAM transcoding
6 - The current transcoding option for my server is “auto”. I get the same results on my TV even if I play the movie by manually choosing either TRANSCODE or DIRECT STREAM on my TV. Terrible images! The ONLY way I will not get a bad image is if I manually pick DIRECT PLAY on my TV. It works great, the only problem is that now the audio gets very low during conversations (it seems like they’re whispering, so I have to turn the volume up), but then EXTREMELY LOUD whenever there’s an explosion, or a loud noise in the movie, which I can assure is NOT the way Hollywood would make their movies
7 - I get the same results even if I set the transcoding quality to “make my CPU hurt”
This raises a few questions:
1 - Why is my image so bad after about 30 seconds? How do I get a good image while TRANSCODING or DIRECT STREAMING?
2 - Why is my image so bad even when I have a 10,000 passmark CPU at 95% total average load to transcode a simple 1080p movie? It makes no sense!
3 - Why is DIRECT PLAY the only way the image will turn out good? And in that case, why would the audio behave so weird?
4 - What does the “throttled” option mean when I am watching it on my web browser?
5 - Why am I transcoding from H264 to H264 on my 4K TV? Does that mean that, even though the TV supports 4K videos, the Plex App on my TV does not?
6 - Is there a way to make my CPU load smoother and well distributed rather than have it oscillate so much
