Synology DS418play lags when streaming to plex

[BagelMonster]

I recently got a Synology DS418play and it's supposed to be able to do 4k streaming. However, even with 1080p and sometimes 720p videos it's often very slow and buffers for a long time on Plex. I'm not sure if it's some sort of setting, but I can't seem to get it to stream lag-free within my home network. I heard that hardware acceleration could be enabled to help it, but I can't seem to find that option anywhere. Any suggestions for settings or solutions would be appreciated! Thanks 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Are you using transcoding?

 

 

[BagelMonster]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Are you using transcoding?

 

 

I'm not sure how to check that, but I do know the CPU spikes to pretty much 100% when I stream videos so I'm guessing yes. Is there a way to turn it off? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, BagelMonster said:

I'm not sure how to check that, but I do know the CPU spikes to pretty much 100% when I stream videos so I'm guessing yes. Is there a way to turn it off? 

What footage are you playing? Codec, bitrate?

 

In the web player there is a option for the playback resolution that affects transocding.

[BagelMonster]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What footage are you playing? Codec, bitrate?

 

In the web player there is a option for the playback resolution that affects transocding.

Most of my files are .mkv and I have the video quality set to 2 Mbps, 720p 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, BagelMonster said:

Most of my files are .mkv and I have the video quality set to 2 Mbps, 720p 

Yep thats gonna need transcoding.

 

That nas is pretty gutless, so id return it if you can and get a faster model. It looks the the hardware encoding is just for their video capture, not plex.

[leadeater]

In the Plex player open the video quality menu when playing something and check if it's set to Original. If it's on Original then it is not transcoding, anything other than Original it will be.

 

 

P.S. You never want to be transcoding unless you have to and those cases are rather rare so you shouldn't hit them.

[dalekphalm]

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

In the Plex player open the video quality menu when playing something and check if it's set to Original. If it's on Original then it is not transcoding, anything other than Original it will be.

 

 

P.S. You never want to be transcoding unless you have to and those cases are rather rare so you shouldn't hit them.

With 99.9% of devices supporting H.264, and most HD video files being in that codec already, indeed, very few devices will need transcoding to playback the file.

 

4K might, if encoded in H.265, since many devices still lack H.265 hardware decoding - one of the reasons I still store all my content as H.264 and in 1080p (that, and the cost of a good 4K TV...)