Server Version#: 1.32.0.6973
Player Version#: 8.19.1 (5988) AppleTV
I have added some 1080/5.1 movies with subtitles in MKV wrapper to my Library, and they often freeze during playback right after they’re added. But then later on some of them no longer freeze up and playback is fine. These movies show Direct Play from the NAS to the AppleTV (connection is hardwired to the router)
So if Direct Play is working is there any need for Hardware Transcoding on the server? I’m just trying to decide if buying Plex Pass during the current sale is worth it or not, and if it will help on those weird occasions when the player stutters and freezes.
No. Hardware transcoding has no impact if the item is direct playing.
Edit to add: If your direct playing content is stuttering it is strongly possible that excessively high bitrates or some kind of network congestion is involved.
Check settings for video preview thumbnail generation, intro detection, and credit detection.
All three hit the CPU pretty hard.
If configured to happen when media is added, it could cause stuttering during playback until those processes finish.
Consider configuring those processes to occur during maintenance hours (as a scheduled task).
Chapter thumbnail generation can still happen when the media is added, as it usually takes just a few minutes. It generates one thumbnail per chapter. Video Preview Thumbnails are generated for every 2 seconds of video.
I just checked and Video Preview Thumbnails was the one setting that was set to when media is added. That seems to have the highest CPU load so hopefully switching that to scheduled maintenance will alleviate the issue.
