Watching live TV on the Firetv works fine. When using the Xbox app, live TV buffers periodically. Roku won’t go more than 20 seconds without buffering. Checked the resources on the server and any time live TV is started on Roku and Xbox, CPU usage goes from 25% to 99%.
I’m using HD Homerun Extend and Ubuntu server with an i3 2100 running version 1.10.1.4602.
Transcoder quality is at original format.
Watching live TV on the Firetv works fine. When using the Xbox app, live TV buffers periodically. Roku won’t go more than 20 seconds without buffering. Checked the resources on the server and any time live TV is started on Roku and Xbox, CPU usage goes from 25% to 99%.
I’m using HD Homerun Extend and Ubuntu server with an i3 2100 running version 1.10.1.4602.
Transcoder quality is at original format.
With the trancoder setting at original you are telling Plex to request a stream from the HDHR in whatever format the native stream is received OTA, no transcoding is done on the Extend. Plex must then transcode the video before sending it to either the Roku or Xbox. The FireTV from my testing at my house can handle any video stream being sent to it. I would suggest setting the Extend Transcoder to Highest Quality and see if the Roku and Xbox can stream without buffering, if they still buffer then set it to High Quality.
Most television stations broadcast in MPEG2, an older, more data intensive (and patent-encumbered) encoding format that many client devices cannot handle directly. In these cases, Plex Media Server has to transcode, so this will put an additional load on your server.
As suggested, I would consider switching the HD Homerun Extend so that it transcodes to H.264 directly on the device, which should eliminate most of the transcoding load on your server. (And if you stream anything directly from your tuner to your devices via the HD Homerun apps, you will get better performance there too.)
If for some reason this doesn’t work for you, you might also try enabling hardware-assisted transcoding on Plex. Not sure exactly what GPU is in your Core i3, but if it supports Intel QuickSync this could help in situations where Plex has to transcode.
Setting transcoder to High Quality worked. CPU seems to stay between 27% - 92%. Thanks.
So would installing a low end PCI GPU that supports H.264 encoding help support the transcode load?
Plex has good intentions by offering live tv; however, the software that runs appears to be somewhat inefficient due to the high demand for memory and cpu processing. On my pc screen it buffers continuously. I suggest that plex review its program code and look for ways to memory usage and cpu load.
