Plex Streaming Stutter

[tikker]

I recently repurposed my old pc (i5 4690k, 16GB RAM) into a plex server to have my media be independent from my gaming pc and for consumption on my TV. Since 4k content was stuttering over wifi (buffering every minute or every few minutes) I decided to get a switch (Netgear GS305) and wire everything up.

However the situation actually got worse With the 4k media (~45 Mb/s) stuttering ever ~10 seconds or so and even 1080p streams buffering once or twice during a show.

 

I'm consuming the content on my Samsung MU6400 using their Plex app. If I play a file (not stream) on my pc form the server there is no buffering. Even while streaming the server is basically doing nothing, so no transcoding is going on.

 

I'm guessing my network is the problem, could it be my ISPs router just being crap? The wiring is as follows: the router is in a small closet from where two ethernet cables run to ethernet wall sockets in two separate rooms. The server is in the bedroom and the TV (and my gaming pc for that matter) are connected to the other wall socket through the switch.

 

Would the situation improve if I buy a decent router and put the one provided by my ISP in bridged mode?

[nishe1]

22 minutes ago, tikker said:

I recently repurposed my old pc (i5 4690k, 16GB RAM) into a plex server to have my media be independent from my gaming pc and for consumption on my TV. Since 4k content was stuttering over wifi (buffering every minute or every few minutes) I decided to get a switch (Netgear GS305) and wire everything up.

However the situation actually got worse With the 4k media (~45 Mb/s) stuttering ever ~10 seconds or so and even 1080p streams buffering once or twice during a show.

 

I'm consuming the content on my Samsung MU6400 using their Plex app. If I play a file (not stream) on my pc form the server there is no buffering. Even while streaming the server is basically doing nothing, so no transcoding is going on.

 

I'm guessing my network is the problem, could it be my ISPs router just being crap? The wiring is as follows: the router is in a small closet from where two ethernet cables run to ethernet wall sockets in two separate rooms. The server is in the bedroom and the TV (and my gaming pc for that matter) are connected to the other wall socket through the switch.

 

Would the situation improve if I buy a decent router and put the one provided by my ISP in bridged mode?

Maybe try different app. I don't know... I couldn't get Plex to work in 720p, but when I tried to stream from... ekhm... Torrent app to my Xbox One it worked very well. I think Plex sucks, but I may be wrong.

[intertan]

everything hardwired or wireless?

what format is your media in? h265 or h264 or its open version?

[tikker]

3 hours ago, nishe1 said:

Maybe try different app. I don't know... I couldn't get Plex to work in 720p, but when I tried to stream from... ekhm... Torrent app to my Xbox One it worked very well. I think Plex sucks, but I may be wrong.

 

1 minute ago, intertan said:

everything hardwired or wireless?

what format is your media in? h265 or h264 or its open version?

It's all hardwired now, previously wireless. The TV and main PC in the living room go into a switch and then into one router port. The server is connected to another router port. THe 4k stuff is h265 and the 1080p stuff h264. I'm suspecting the network because 1080p played just fine over wireless and the reason I hardwired it was because 4k didn't.

[intertan]

It could be the 265 encoding as I know it is a issue. Think it is still to early especially on a older machine like yours.

 

 

[tikker]

3 minutes ago, intertan said:

It could be the 265 encoding as I know it is a issue. Think it is still to early especially on a older machine like yours.

 

 

But why would switching to hardwire make it worse and even cause trouble with h264 1080p?

[kladzen]

5 hours ago, tikker said:

I recently repurposed my old pc (i5 4690k, 16GB RAM) into a plex server to have my media be independent from my gaming pc and for consumption on my TV. Since 4k content was stuttering over wifi (buffering every minute or every few minutes) I decided to get a switch (Netgear GS305) and wire everything up.

However the situation actually got worse With the 4k media (~45 Mb/s) stuttering ever ~10 seconds or so and even 1080p streams buffering once or twice during a show.

 

I'm consuming the content on my Samsung MU6400 using their Plex app. If I play a file (not stream) on my pc form the server there is no buffering. Even while streaming the server is basically doing nothing, so no transcoding is going on.

 

I'm guessing my network is the problem, could it be my ISPs router just being crap? The wiring is as follows: the router is in a small closet from where two ethernet cables run to ethernet wall sockets in two separate rooms. The server is in the bedroom and the TV (and my gaming pc for that matter) are connected to the other wall socket through the switch.

 

Would the situation improve if I buy a decent router and put the one provided by my ISP in bridged mode?

this 4K content that your are trying, is this being transcoded? if yes, your cpu usages is properly 100% and the CPU is can't handle transcoding 4K content which would be the reason...

[tikker]

16 minutes ago, kladzen said:

this 4K content that your are trying, is this being transcoded? if yes, your cpu usages is properly 100% and the CPU is can't handle transcoding 4K content which would be the reason...

The same problem is there when not transcoding (i.e. DirectPlay/DirectStream or w/e they call it).

[tikker]

3 hours ago, kladzen said:

this 4K content that your are trying, is this being transcoded? if yes, your cpu usages is properly 100% and the CPU is can't handle transcoding 4K content which would be the reason...

Welp I think I owe you an apology. The subtitles triggerd transcoding and in another case it was transcoding the audio. I was fooled by the CPU not begin pinned at 100% in the latter case.

[kladzen]

16 hours ago, tikker said:

Welp I think I owe you an apology. The subtitles triggerd transcoding and in another case it was transcoding the audio. I was fooled by the CPU not begin pinned at 100% in the latter case.

If you are using plex inside your house and your server is also located in the house on the same network.. then enable DLNA inside plex and use DNLA file browsing on your TV... should support it if this is a 4K smart tv... this also enable for plex to play HDR content.. as transcoding/directplay does not work with HDR content... as far as i know... only DLNA  is working as far as i know

 

this is only be done one 4K content  since it will just read the file on the network not and use plex to do any transcoding.. please know your TV have to support the files you wanna play

[tikker]

9 minutes ago, kladzen said:

If you are using plex inside your house and your server is also located in the house on the same network.. then enable DLNA inside plex and use DNLA file browsing on your TV... should support it if this is a 4K smart tv... this also enable for plex to play HDR content.. as transcoding/directplay does not work with HDR content... as far as i know... only DLNA  is working as far as i know

 

this is only be done one 4K content  since it will just read the file on the network not and use plex to do any transcoding.. please know your TV have to support the files you wanna play

I have DLNA enabled in Plex. The TV for some reason doesn't properly recognize the file and hence won't play it on its own, but after re-encoding the audio to AAC it DirecPlays it just fine. As for subtitles, well Plex is problematic with those anyway  

[tikker]

Alright, I think I figured it out. I don't know why the other shows were stuttering before, but the audio transcoding doesn't seem cause the buffering as they work fine now. The subtitles were in an unsupported format, causing the video to be transcoded hence bringing the server to its knees (naturally). No subtitles or SRT format seems to work fine.