media server video stutter

[neocronix2]

I'm experimenting with setting up a media server, hardware:

• media server pc (hp z400, 4-core xeon @ 2.93Ghz, 6Gb RAM, AMD FirePro V3700, 800 Gb storage)
• chromecast 2

I've got plex and teamviewer host installed on the media server so i can remotely transfer movies to the server, which is put away in a seperate room.

I have the plex app on my smartphone to view my library en then cast a movie to the chromecast, however the movie stutters when its playing on the tv, what could be causing this?

I have tried a 1080p .mp4 video file (about 5 Gb) and a 1080p .mkv file of higher quality (about 15 Gb), the stuttering seemed a lot worse with the larger mkv file.

[emosun]

can you not plug the computer right into the tv?

[neocronix2]

20 minutes ago, emosun said:

can you not plug the computer right into the tv?

the gpu doesnt have a HMDI port and the pc is quite old/noisy, i dont really want it in my living room

[paddy-stone]

I could be wrong, but you're basically streaming the movie to your phone and then casting it onto the TV. It would be better to have even an android TV box with Ethernet, preferably gigabit, to just have plex installed on it and stream the files to from the plex server on the server. What OS are you using on your server? or is this a PC?

If it's a PC that you have plex server installed on, and you don't have HDMI or whatever to direct connect to TV, you could either:-

1. Get a video card for the PC with HDMI and play them straight from there without needing to stream at all.
2. Get an android box to hook up to the TV to stream the media to.

I think the problem you have is that it's wifi streaming to your phone, and then wifi casting to the TV... it might be workable, but it's not an ideal situation as wifi in it's very nature can be very bad even transmitting 1 way, and you have it going 2 ways. A 4k android box is around $30 or so, and if you get as I mentioned above, one with gigabit ethernet and your home network has a spare port on the router/swtich, then that will work great.. even 100Mbit ethernet will be better and less prone to trouble. I'm assuming your PC is wired into the network?

[neocronix2]

1 hour ago, paddy-stone said:

I could be wrong, but you're basically streaming the movie to your phone and then casting it onto the TV. It would be better to have even an android TV box with Ethernet, preferably gigabit, to just have plex installed on it and stream the files to from the plex server on the server. What OS are you using on your server? or is this a PC?

If it's a PC that you have plex server installed on, and you don't have HDMI or whatever to direct connect to TV, you could either:-

1. Get a video card for the PC with HDMI and play them straight from there without needing to stream at all.
2. Get an android box to hook up to the TV to stream the media to.

I think the problem you have is that it's wifi streaming to your phone, and then wifi casting to the TV... it might be workable, but it's not an ideal situation as wifi in it's very nature can be very bad even transmitting 1 way, and you have it going 2 ways. A 4k android box is around $30 or so, and if you get as I mentioned above, one with gigabit ethernet and your home network has a spare port on the router/swtich, then that will work great.. even 100Mbit ethernet will be better and less prone to trouble. I'm assuming your PC is wired into the network?

I'm using an old pc with windows server 2008 R2. Plex does stream directly from the media server to the chromecast i believe, because i can turn off my smartphone and the stream keeps going. Yes the media server is connected to the router directly via ethernet.

 

I think you are right about the wifi being the problem, i tried streaming a movie again at night when everyone was asleep and the stutter/buffering improved a lot.

An android box with ethernet might be a good idea, thanks for you advice!

[paddy-stone]

14 hours ago, neocronix2 said:

I'm using an old pc with windows server 2008 R2. Plex does stream directly from the media server to the chromecast i believe, because i can turn off my smartphone and the stream keeps going. Yes the media server is connected to the router directly via ethernet.

 

I think you are right about the wifi being the problem, i tried streaming a movie again at night when everyone was asleep and the stutter/buffering improved a lot.

An android box with ethernet might be a good idea, thanks for you advice!

No worries. While the chromecast is OK for showing stuff that you have on your phone/tablet to family, I have found that streaming isn't all that great. I played with my chromecast for a few days after I got it (present), and found it really inadequate and that my set up I already had was much easier and better at streaming etc (raspberry Pi 2)... this was a few years ago now and I now use an nvidia shieldTV for most of my needs. Anything the shield can't do, which isn't much, I do instead in my main PC. Now that I'm using plex again, I haven't actually found any problems, whereas with Kodi I had problems with it playing 25/50fps video streams, even adjusting the settings didn't do much. Those same streams play absoloutely fine via plex and my NAS running plex server.

I think you'll find the Android box much better, very easy to use (you can have it using CEC where it uses your TV remote) and makes it simple to play your media. If you're familiar with plex then it shouldn't have any problems. Don't forget that you can have it transcode the stream to a lower bitrate/resolution if you're having trouble streaming at that size. I have no problems streaming 60+GB videos at native res with wired connection... and multiple streams too. Good luck with it, let us know how you get on and if you have any more questions.

[Mikensan]

Chromecast plays the movies/videos directly, does not route through the phone.

 

I have the.. second gen I think Chromecast which has AC wifi support. It's connected to a Ubiquiti AC Pro about 10 feet away.

 

I've found that the files that are larger (>12gb) stutter on my chromecast, but on my phone/laptop/xbox it plays fine. So what you may want to do when you cast it is force it to transcode by selecting a slightly lower 1080p. I only watch plex on the xbox/laptop now (you can still cast, so just as easy) so I stopped trying to get it to play better on chromecast.

[woooowwww]

Dude here is the way, My set up streams from my synology NAS uhd hdr 70gb file size movies to my 65 inch new OLED HDR TV (anyone that tells you its a scam has never seen planet earth 2 in its full wonder) I do have a 10gb copper switch and two10gb ports on my main workstation but that not why my setup works (after all im always limited by the 1gb connection to the tv). First remember that your upload and download rates you get from your isp mean nothing on your internal network but if you use there crappy 3 in 1 modem/router/WirelessAP then your shooting yourself in the foot. I do related work for a living and let me tell you, as much as you can, 1 machine for 1 job. Get a good surfboard modem.  Get a sonicwall for routing and firewall. Get a High end wireless router to use as a wireless accesspoint and get one good managed switch. MANAGED make sure its a smart switch, stay away from 10gb that can be your next adventure. (watching 90GB not bits go from my WStation to my Nas in under a minute was  beautiful but you don't need that, I use a lot of VMachines so it makes sense in my case) Make sure your NAS has at least 5 bays or risk a smaller one and raid 0 all solid state drives. Hope your able to use this as a starting point the beauty networking knowledge can bring you. I gave you the lay out you need to connect the dots. If you have questions the last place you want to ask is the official help ticket team of whoever (microsoft, etc,) Learn from the community forums and if people see you did your homework and are stuck they will go out of there way to help you.  STAY AWAY FROM WIRELESS AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. NO MESH NETWORKS. EVER. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS IF YOU LIVE IN A BIG HOUSE AND NEED TO EXTEND YOUR SIGNAL. 5GHZ is fast but not stable enough for pushing the streaming limits and 2.4 is just a slow far reaching security concern. MAKE SURE WPS is DISABLED ON YOUR ROUTER. it is the opposite of 'protected' and make your password a long string of random numbers letters and symbols. you only have to enter it into your devices once. Always look for https:// on every website you go to (that goes for your router,switch and NAS GUI's as well) GOOD LUCK!

 

Here's a pic for anyone who called BS on my home gb network

Edited September 13, 2017 by woooowwww
to show that i know what i'm doing, credentials.. so to speak

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

Chromecast plays the movies/videos directly, does not route through the phone.

 

I have the.. second gen I think Chromecast which has AC wifi support. It's connected to a Ubiquiti AC Pro about 10 feet away.

 

I've found that the files that are larger (>12gb) stutter on my chromecast, but on my phone/laptop/xbox it plays fine. So what you may want to do when you cast it is force it to transcode by selecting a slightly lower 1080p. I only watch plex on the xbox/laptop now (you can still cast, so just as easy) so I stopped trying to get it to play better on chromecast.

Hmm, wasn't sure as OP said he casted from his phone.

 

When I tried chromecast the resulting picture and sound quality was complete shit... looked like a movie shot from a really dodgy phone from like 2005, LOL... OK maybe I had settings to change? IDK, can't remember that far back, all I can say is that it put me right off and never even went near it again - at the time I needed something solid for my media, so just went back to using the Pi2.

I'll have to have another play with it and see what the problem is/was then, I still have it in a drawer somewhere I'm sure... might be a stocking filler for someone, I don't need it, have loads of android boxes and stuff around, even some of them don't get used anymore, but that's more to do with me just having loads of devices than it is a reflection on their abilities. They are still great, gave one to my mum and set it up on the TV for her for movies. Kept the Pi2 as I'm still planning something to do with that.

[Mikensan]

16 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Hmm, wasn't sure as OP said he casted from his phone.

 

When I tried chromecast the resulting picture and sound quality was complete shit... looked like a movie shot from a really dodgy phone from like 2005, LOL... OK maybe I had settings to change? IDK, can't remember that far back, all I can say is that it put me right off and never even went near it again - at the time I needed something solid for my media, so just went back to using the Pi2.

I'll have to have another play with it and see what the problem is/was then, I still have it in a drawer somewhere I'm sure... might be a stocking filler for someone, I don't need it, have loads of android boxes and stuff around, even some of them don't get used anymore, but that's more to do with me just having loads of devices than it is a reflection on their abilities. They are still great, gave one to my mum and set it up on the TV for her for movies. Kept the Pi2 as I'm still planning something to do with that.

Honestly if it's Gen 1 I'd leave it in the drawer. The first gen didn't even properly output 1080p and was even more choppy for things it shouldn't be (youtube). It was great for its time but quickly dated. Second gen works really well for everything other than plex.

 

I cast form my phone as well, but the word is a misnomer. You're actually feeding the video URL to chromecast so it can play whatever you've chosen. Once you've told chromecast what you want to play it is on its own.

[paddy-stone]

9 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Honestly if it's Gen 1 I'd leave it in the drawer. The first gen didn't even properly output 1080p and was even more choppy for things it shouldn't be (youtube). It was great for its time but quickly dated. Second gen works really well for everything other than plex.

 

I cast form my phone as well, but the word is a misnomer. You're actually feeding the video URL to chromecast so it can play whatever you've chosen. Once you've told chromecast what you want to play it is on its own.

Ahh I see, thanks for th info there about the casting, I assumed that as you were casting from a phone that the phone was doing the serving if you like, like a go-between. I think mine is gen2 as it was bought a long time after chromecast first came out.it's the one  where it has a lead on it, that you plug in the HDMI port, whereas I think gen 1 just plugged directly IYKWIM. I will give it a play anyway, I like to work out WHY something doesn't work etc... just at the time I didn't have much free time and so didn't want to have hassle when I got home. I have a newer TV now too, was never sure if the TV was part of the problem when I was trying it out... and at the time didn't have access to another TV. I now have loads of resources and oads of free time, so it's worth a shot

I may even make a video on it

[Mikensan]

5 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Ahh I see, thanks for th info there about the casting, I assumed that as you were casting from a phone that the phone was doing the serving if you like, like a go-between. I think mine is gen2 as it was bought a long time after chromecast first came out.it's the one  where it has a lead on it, that you plug in the HDMI port, whereas I think gen 1 just plugged directly IYKWIM. I will give it a play anyway, I like to work out WHY something doesn't work etc... just at the time I didn't have much free time and so didn't want to have hassle when I got home. I have a newer TV now too, was never sure if the TV was part of the problem when I was trying it out... and at the time didn't have access to another TV. I now have loads of resources and oads of free time, so it's worth a shot

I may even make a video on it

The Gen 1 looks like a keyhole and Gen 2 are perfectly round like a hockey puck lol.

 

It's super convenient and works well. I think 1080p looks good through it personally, and I'm not a movie snob but I do look for quality. I also like casting music to it since my receiver makes it a chore to stream music to it. If you can install plex home theater on your Pi, you can use your phone to cast to it as well btw.

[paddy-stone]

1 minute ago, Mikensan said:

The Gen 1 looks like a keyhole and Gen 2 are perfectly round like a hockey puck lol.

 

It's super convenient and works well. I think 1080p looks good through it personally, and I'm not a movie snob but I do look for quality. I also like casting music to it since my receiver makes it a chore to stream music to it. If you can install plex home theater on your Pi, you can use your phone to cast to it as well btw.

Ahh cool, thx for the info... I don't actually use the Pi2 now for stuff like that as I have an nvidia shieldTV and loads of other android boxes etc that I use and have spares also. The Pi2 is brilliant for HTPC use, but the one thing it lacks is hardware h.265/x265 decoding, that's why I made the switch a few years back as I use that codec a fair bit in daily use.

I actually bought an Amazon echo dot for music playing, mostly while I sleep. Other times I just use my PC hooked into a bluetooth soundbar and serving via plex server or direct play from the NAS.

I will look into some interesting things I can do with the Pi2 though and the chromecast... even if it's just for testing purposes. I have so many projects waiting to get started and/or finished, I pick one as my mood dictates at the moment... not always in the right mood for inputting loads of commands