Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

bbcisdabomb posted:

Do I need the Plex app to play media on my Chromecast from my phone? I'm not sure if I need the app or if my CC just isn't getting any signal from my router.

Yeah you need the app. From the Plex app you tell it to play on your chromecast.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 01:28

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:58

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

TheScott2K posted:

I was never particularly impressed with PHT anyway. On my PC I've been using the Windows Store app which is fine. As far as Plex's future is concerned, all I really want is for it to keep working, keep up with new formats, and maybe start giving a poo poo about live OTA TV.

Yeah that is really all I need to have a complete solution. I hope the people at Silicon Dust who make the HD home runs come out with an app for Plex or Plex figures out away to integrate live tv, because I want to be able to watch OTA through Plex.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 01:01

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Disharmony posted:

Which device is the "snappiness" of a 1080p video on a local network dependent on?

I have Plex running on a desktop PC with a wireless N adapter, and when I try to play a 1080p video through my Firestick that's connected to the 5ghz band, the frames stagger.

I use a Roku 3 and it works well over WiFi. I can play 40 GB bluray rips and it doesn't lag. But like the person above me said it could be you're to far away. The Firestick is a little under powered if I remember correctly. I have a first gen Firetv and it didn't do Plex so well. Roku has been great for me.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 16:27

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Internet Explorer posted:

Just out of curiosity, what problems did you have with Plex on a first gen FireTV? Just got mine set up but it seems okay, other than the occasional stutter which I attributed to wifi.

The app itself was glitchy and would crash more often than it should. Plex in Roku is way more stable. Also for some reason the Plex app on Firetv wouldn't pass through audio, although that may have been fixed now.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 16:28

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Can you put the modem and the router where your desktop is? It is best if you can get the server on wired and then have your players wireless. That is how I do it and it has worked out fine. Watch 1080p rips over wifi with my server plugged into the router directly.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 02:24

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

sleepness posted:

Unfortunately no. There's no coax line to where I had to move my gaming rig to. Although I'm wondering if I cam just pay someone to do some coax wiring for me to make baby life easier.

Depending on cost to run coax you could build a media server to store your files that plugs into your router. I use an Intel NUC and it works perfect.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 03:28

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

EconOutlines posted:

Later post

Later post you stated that of ATV/Amazon/Roku that Ruku was best for direct/local play. Is this still good for remote? I'll be streaming to my parents so I want them to have the smoothest experience possible.

Also, do all of these have decent Netflix apps? That's the only streaming they have currently.

My mom uses a Roku 2 remotely at her house and it works pretty well. I don't have a crazy fast upload either (5Mbps) and it plays everything nicely. The Netflix app is perfectly fine on Roku as well. Only issue with Roku is that it doesn't support 7.1 audio. At least not on the Roku 2 and 3.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2016 19:34

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Internet Explorer posted:

I use a Shield TV as a Plex server and client and it's been great. Had some SMB issues for a while but after posting on the NVIDIA forums an engineer actually reached out to me and had me testing engineering builds. They've since rolled those fixes into the main update and it has been rock solid.

As far as I know Plex isn't fully supporting hardware transcoding on Intel processors, which is what makes the Shield a good bang for the buck. I mean, yeah, buying some used poo poo off eBay is probably cheaper, but that's apples to oranges.

Yeah I use mine as a server as well. I have roughly 15 people using the server remotely and probably 4 people watching stuff at a time max and it runs perfect. I use it as my main set top box too. I definitely recommend it.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 01:12

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

EconOutlines posted:

What player are people using nowadays that is the most feature rich and also has the highest feature set, along with direct play/direct stream in-home with a variety of formats?

It seems like Plex Media Player has been the golden standard for that and I've been using embedded for the longest time on my NUC. However, they seem to have largely abandoned embedded(or at least put it on the back burner), compared to others.

Case in point, some players getting LiveTV support along with both my macOS and Window machines are on the new 'forum only beta PMP' with a brand new layout.

Nvidia Shield TV.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 11:56

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Internet Explorer posted:

I'm having a problem with matching and I'm frustrated. I have a Shield TV which means I can't use Webtools[url] without unlocking the bootloader and rooting and other fuckery, so I can't see exactly what's going on. My frustration is that I have a series that isn't showing up in Plex at all, not even by just a file or folder name, as some of my unmatched stuff shows up now. It's named show.s01e01.blah, which is how the vast majority of my media is named and the rest comes up fine. I know this show has been correctly identified in the past, but I'm not sure if it got lost in a library refresh or what. I know it's in TheTVDB, but I really hadn't taken too much time to get familiar with that site and I don't see it spelling out exactly how something should be named, so I'm sure it's Plex doing the decoding on the name and just looking it up.

Is there any other steps for troubleshooting?

Make sure that the show is done this exact way. Should not have any issues.

[url]https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220687-Naming-Series-Season-Based-TV-Shows

If the show is in the correct format, try taking it out of the directory and then moving it back in.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 03:41

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

arbybaconator posted:

I have a 15 tb Synology NAS that I have been using for Plex the past few weeks. I tend to do most of my streaming via the web on my pc. There's a lot of stuttering, and I have heard the Synology is not beefy enough to handle the transcoding involved for this. When I stream to my Apple TV it works really well - but I mostly use the web.

I'm considering either an Nvidia shield or an Intel i7 NUC to act as a server, attached to my NAS. I don't expect more than 1 stream to occur inside the house, and no more than 1-2 to occur outside the house at any given time.

Would the shield suit this use case? Or should I go straight for the NUC? Also, since I have a large library of Media (~ 8TB), would I need to opt for the 500gb shield, or would the Plex files (thumbnails, etc) live on the NAS?

tia

I'm pretty much the same usage of plex. 1 or 2 streams outside the house. Get the 500 gig shield TV and you will be fine. Works great, does 4k if you ever need that. You won't regret it.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 14:42

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

TraderStav posted:

Hey all, I’m in the process of migrating my Plex box to a new UnRaid server that I am setting up. I’m having a bit of an issue having other users within my household (all internal to the network, no remote access, but remote access isn’t disabled) see the new server.

I have 1 administrator user (myself) which requires a PIN (which is annoying, but okay) and four Managed Users. I can login from the web or AppleTV and see the new server just fine. When I login from one of the managed users, it can see one previous version of the server (the docker container got dumped, I had disassociated it with my Plex account, but it’s there for them but not on my account) but not the new one. It can see the old one just fine.

My goal is to transition all the media devices to the new server but don’t want to take the old one offline until it’s confirmed working for the family. They’re all on the same network so it’s not a visibility thing, especially since my user account is working as intended.

Where do I go down to troubleshoot this? It seems as if the Managed Users are not associated with the new server, but that doesn’t make sense to me how Plex is set up since I’m logged in to my Plex account with Plexpass.

Appreciate any direction here. Thanks!

Do the managed users have access to the libraries? When you go to settings and then click on users and sharing and click one of the managed users names does it show up with the correct libraries that they are suppose to have shared?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2020 01:33

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

I think they both have their place. Tautulli can send notifications out to other apps (I use Pushover) so I know if my server has gone down or if someone is buffering. It also gives me the location of the users stream via IP address, all things Dash I don't think can do.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2020 16:07

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

2) This one is super-weird. Plex on my NVidia Shield devices will not play anything from the "Scene" folder. For example, I ripped my Blu-ray of the 1989 movie "The Wizard". In the movie's folder I have a folder called "Scene" and it contains the deleted scenes that were on the Blu-ray. Similarly, I ripped by Blu-ray of "Little Shop of Horrors". I have the original theatrical cut as the "main" movie, and in "Scene" I have the director's cut with the bad ending. In both scenarios, the NVidia Shield refuses to play anything in the "Scene" folder. click it and it just acts like I didn't do anything. No errors or anything. It just never plays. I tested the Plex app on my phone and my laptop and it played them just fine, so I am really stumped here.

Make sure you are doing this for the extras (behind the scenes, deletes scenes, trailers, etc) otherwise I'm not sure why it wouldn't work.

# ¿ May 22, 2020 15:51

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Looks like you can now host Plex Watch Parties. Basically allows you to sync up a video with your friends and family. No need for Plex Pass either at this time since it is in beta.

Plex has been adding a lot of features lately. The skip intro, Plex Amp, Plex Dash, and now this.

# ¿ May 28, 2020 18:11

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

The link is dead unfortunately but I'm not sure how I could fix it anyway. Works fine on my phone and laptop. On the NVidia Shield TVs I have, Extras/Scenes simply don't play. You just click on them and they do nothing.

Thanks for this!

I put an "h" at the end of the Url on accident. This is the correct link. https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-trailers-and-extras/

One thing I found with the experimental player on shield is to set it to convert automatically instead of play original quality. It still direct plays, but playing original causes it to crash a lot of the time.

# ¿ May 28, 2020 18:18

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

I just realized I ripped all my Simpsons DVDs (seasons 3 - 11) and while I remembered to include the commentary tracks, I completely forgot the subtitle tracks (or maybe I was paranoid it would hard-code them into the video file so I left them out; I don't really remember as it was a few months ago).

Is there a place to download the subtitle tracks for the episodes, and have them as an option for the episodes? A few months ago I looked into ripping the commentary tracks from the DVDs I own for a lot of my Plex media but there was no way to "insert" the commentary track or tell Plex to look for it so I would have had to re-encode all my movies which is beyond stupid (why not just have an MP3 file with the same file name as the movie and Plex can figure out the rest??) so I am not too sure it can be done for subtitles but it would be nice.

Plex has built in subtitle support where you can download them through Open Subtitles. Info on that here.

Edit: It does not say it in the article but you will need to refresh the meta data on your libraries or on the Simpsons specifically for it to download them. Once new shows and movies are added, it will download them automatically.

Burden fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jun 7, 2020

# ¿ Jun 7, 2020 16:22

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

I ripped my Bill And Ted Collection Blu-Ray; I put all the extras under "scene" but only a single file is showing up.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong? Why would it ignore a bunch of other files but not the first one?

I think it is how the files are named.

Here is how extras should be named.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2020 20:03

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Organic Lube User posted:

My laptop/Plex server just poo poo the bed, are those Nvidia shields still a decent server?

I use a 2017 pro as my server with my media on another device. Works great for me. At most I have 5 remote streams. Plays and does transcoding fine. I would make sure you get a pro version as you will need the storage space.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2020 23:22

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

teagone posted:

Being able to control what bitrate remote clients play content at would be so good.

So much this. I send people here to try and get them to get the best possible experience, but pretty much everyone ignores my advice and is still at the default 720p even though I have symmetrical gigabit. :ughh:

I have pretty much given up at this point.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2020 21:33

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Hopefully this will all be fixed when Plex has their own metadata scanner and agent come out.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2020 15:34

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Penpal posted:

Last night a HP ProDesk 600 G1 SFF with an i5 6500/16gb ram fell into my lap, and completely separately so did a zotac gtx 1050 2gb. I'm thinking of making it a plex server, because right now i'm using my desktop and after getting the plex bug I've been handing out links to my library to some friends and family members and only recently am having about 3-4 people accessing it.

The lovely thing is, in my specific area, the only internet I have is gigabit down, but only 30 Mbps up... incredibly weak sauce. I can sometimes max it out to 34 Mbps but that's it.

My parents live about a half hour away and they have bell fibre, which is gigabit down AND up. From my limited knowledge, even though the i5-6500 can't handle much transcoding, with that upload speed it should be capable of direct streaming to anyone that doesn't need a transcode?

I'm still very new to setting this entire thing up so any tips would be nice.

I also understand that I can't leverage the tiny lil' 1050 until I buy a plex pass, so I think I may get a monthly to test it out before buying the lifetime pass. I can't imagine giving up plex anytime soon and being able to monitor it from the dash app sounds... fun

1 gig is plenty for streaming with no transcoding, however it will all depend on how your files are encoded, what devices will be used for playback, as well as setting up each device to have remote playback set to original quality so that it hopefully doesn't trigger transcoding. It's a bit of a cluster trying to get everyone to set remote streaming to original quality on each device they stream from.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2020 17:43

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Soysaucebeast posted:

See, that's what I thought originally. But I installed Plex and Plex Media Server on my Shield, and it just won't let me select which folders to get my files from. It just keeps defaulting to using my PC even when the PC is turned off, and I'm not seeing an option to change that on the Shield itself. I know the Shield is capable of accessing the files because I can navigate to them with a File Management App, but Plex just refuses to. I'm at work right now, but I'll double check it when I get home later. Maybe I was in a fugue state yesterday due to lack of pizza or something.

Are you going to the Shields IP:32400 to set it up?

# ¿ Aug 8, 2020 18:48

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

fluppet posted:

Ive finally gotten sick of running plex/kodi on a rpi what do i buy to replace it with?

Nvidia Shield Pro

# ¿ Aug 13, 2020 10:39

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

fluppet posted:

Even if the plex server is hosted elsewhere?

Sorry for some reason I though you were hosting on a Rpi. Shield non pro will be fine or a Roku box. My mom uses the Roku Ultra and it works perfect with Plex.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2020 15:55

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Violator posted:

Oh man, I redid my setup to start using Radarr 3 and I configured it to use the Kodi/Embry metadata. That was a loving mistake because now all of my thousands of Plex movies have the absolute dirt worst fan art posters instead of the normal theatrical posters I've been using as I've added movies over the years. Not only are these posters ugly as poo poo, but I've found a couple that are the wrong movie.

Edit: And Plex is also using the NFO files that Radarr generated from this terrible metadata so now some of the movie info is wrong too.

What are you using as your agent?

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 03:46

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Violator posted:

I just tried dragging Plex Movie (Legacy) and The Movie Database above the Local Media Assets so that hopefully it pulls from those instead of the local files that are lovely. I'll give it a little time to see if it updates to better values. Here's what I had as of a few minute ago:

That should fix the issue.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 04:17

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

odiv posted:

I'm running a headless Raspberry pi 4 to do a couple of things already, is there a cli client out there I can throw on there to play music from my plex server on?

I found this:
https://www.scottbouch.com/remote-raspberry-pi-music-player-rasplex.html

which seems to someone doing what I want, but it's using rasplex which is an entire OS (from what I can tell?) and not just a piece of software. So I don't think that would work. I could just get a Chromecast audio or something I guess and cast from my phone, I just figured since the pi is there and hooked up to speakers anyway, it'd be nice if it could do this as well.

Plex has Plexamp for Raspberry Pi that I think will work for what you want.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2021 06:46

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

VinylonUnderground posted:

I am not good with tech, like, at all. How do I make Plex work? I downloaded it for my TV and my TV is connected to the internet but I can't make it access stuff. My friend has the plex thing so I plugged in the info he sent me but it didn't work. I haven't done it in a while since my friend has zero patience for non-tech folks, but if I post my troubleshooting while it is happening would that be OK?

Did you log into his account or did he share his library with your account?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2021 07:56

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

VinylonUnderground posted:

I made an account and he said he shared his library with my account. That did not seem to work. So I tried to log into his account.

Using an firestick or a chromecast on an older LG smart TV if that helps.

OK, so they sent an invite to your account you have to accept the invite via an email that was sent to you from plex. This will be sent to the email that you signed up with plex with. It will look something like this.

Click the I accept the invitation link. After you do that follow these steps.

1. Log into your account on Plex on your firestick.

2. After you login, on your firestick you should see something similar to this. You may have to click to the left to bring up the menu.

Scroll down and click More +

3. Once you click More + you should see 2 or 3 things. 1 of them will say Plex (ignore that one) the other should be your friends Plex user name or email address and an arrow next to it. It should look similar to this.

4. Click on your friends name and you should see a list under there with something like movies, TV shows, and music. Depends on what your friend shared with you. It will look something like this.

5. Click whatever library you want (movies, TV shows, music, etc) and find something you want to play and select it and then select play and see if it works.

6. Enjoy.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2021 09:11

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

I think you need to make sure all the Plex stuff (Movies and Shows, Wen Shows, and Podcasts) is not pinned and it shouldn't show up in your feed.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2021 00:10

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

I use my Shield Pro as a server but it connects to a file server that has all the video files. It works great. I have been doing it for 4ish years that way. I can have a decent amount of streams going ( transcoding and direct play ) but I have a gig symmetrical fiber connection that helps minimize the need for transcoding and I do not allow anyone to watch on a browser for the most part.

# ¿ May 23, 2021 20:23

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Cabbages and Kings posted:

I may end up heading this direction but I am going to start with the Shield's notoriously buggy network sharing mechanism, and then go from there.

that's cool, but I am trying to get away from running a PC 24/7. If I end up needing to drop a NAS into the mix, so be it, starting with a $80 4tb USB3 drive. I also don't tend to add stuff more than every couple weeks so if I am doing a sneakernet for now with an external HDD, also not that big a deal.

Mostly happy no one has replied "oh for the love of god don't do THAT"

I guess I was just trying to say that it works well as a server and if you have the hard drive plugged into the Shield directly it shouldn't be an issue. Should have been more clear!

# ¿ May 24, 2021 02:17

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

TraderStav posted:

Hey all, have had a rock solid set up in my home off an UnRaid server to a few older 1080p TVs for years. Finally broke the bank and picked up an 85" QLED 4K HDR goodness and looking to up my library game on a few select titles to match. So I grabbed a few 2160p titles and am having some very mixed results and need some help in guiding my troubleshooting. Everything is hard wired from my AppleTV 4K (newest one) to the UnRaid server over gigabit and Plex dashboard confirms they're all being Direct played so the server CPU and such SHOULDN'T be a factor.

Some titles are playing just fine (Plex says 32Mbps, file size 17-24gb) and others buffer every 20-30 seconds (70Mbps, but the graph shows 300-400mbps, file size 35gb) or completely go frame by frame (92Mpbs, graph show 500-600, file size 40gb).

I'm a bit behind the times on current encoding standards and bitrates. Where should I begin looking at? Are the titles TOO high of a quality? Should I investigate my network connections to make sure they can truly operate at Gbps speeds? Is the NAS hardware actually at play here?

I'd have hoped that a high-functioning NAS (dual older XEONs with 64gb RAM) and gigabit to a brand new ATV4k should be able to handle direct playing these, but perhaps my expectations are too high.

Thanks in advance for some direction. Would LOVE to carry forward my existing structure and have a smaller curated library of super high quality content, but if this isn't in the cards I'll just plunk down for an UHD bluray player.

Your setup looks pretty good if it is direct playing. Are you by chance using subtitles? If so what kind? Subtitles can really throw a wrench when playing files because it has to sometimes burn them and causes transcoding.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2021 03:06

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

According to this Reddit Post
the code LIFETIMEOFCOMFORT gets you 25% off lifetime membership for Plex.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2021 18:59

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

That Works posted:

I've got an odd issue that googling hasn't given me much hope about yet.

I have several episodes of some shows that all play too fast, about 1.5-2x speed and it is intermittent, going in and out of normal to fast speed. The sound quality is a bit snappy / poppy during this as well. This is when viewing the stream on the Fire TV Cube that is attached to my TV. Other shows / movies work fine, but seemingly random ones have this issue.

I have opened the MKV files that do this on my PC and played them with VLC and there are zero issues there. I have also streamed them to my android phone Plex app and my PC's web browser and they work just fine there as well.

I just built a new plex media server box just for transcoding and I really really don't want to get another piece of hardware to get plex working on my TV if it can be helped. I have verified that the PMS box is doing the transcoding etc. Any ideas?

Why do you want it to transcode? See if playing direct Play makes the problem go away.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2022 03:31

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

The latest update broke Plex on the shield. If you haven't already, get the hot fix. It fixed a lot of my issues with Plex.

Here is the reddit link if you want to read more about it.

Here is the link to sign up.

It takes about 24 hours to get the update and it breaks a few apps like Disney+ until an update from Google gets approved.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2022 22:45

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

When I share my server with someone and I am not there to help set it up. I usually give them these links to help them get their settings up to original quality and to get the best experience.

https://www.majestechs.com/plex

https://mvgrafx.net/plex/

https://m.imgur.com/a/QAUFN13

# ¿ Jul 16, 2022 20:40

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Jeherrin posted:

I have a Plex server on a RasPi, reading from a typically spinny 4TB external HD. It's basically perfect. It does x264, x265, talks to my AppleTV, reliably doesn't transcode for no drat reason, and basically it works so well I forget it exists.

Until today. I downloaded the Plex desktop app onto my (work) 16-inch 2019MBP — which reliably runs Plexamp without issue — because I wanted to have some of my TV content on my second monitor. It won't play anything. Just immediately says 'This server is not powerful enough to convert video' without even looking like there was an attempt to play it.

I've downloaded the plex app onto my home 13-inch M1 MBP and it plays things. My phone plays things. It's definitely not the Pi. The settings on the work machine Plex.app are exactly the same as in the WebPlayer.

Any ideas?

Is the streaming quality is set to maximum or original quality? It defaults to 720p, and you have to change that manually.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2022 13:16

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:58

Burden: Jul 25, 2006

Astro7x posted:

Plex usually has a decent Black Friday sale, right?

Been commuting to work on the train again after 2 1/2 years and would love the ability to easily download shows on my Plex server. Streaming over cellular isn’t cutting it.

I would buy 1 month of Plex pass now and make sure that downloads work for you. The download feature is really hit or miss and doesn't work very well particularly if you are on Android from my experience. So if your only reason to get Plex pass is to download, please try it first.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2022 14:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

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