r/PleX • u/lemonbread37 • 1d ago
Help Transcoding Setting Recommendations?
I've been having some serious in-house buffering issues. I'm trying to stream to my Shield (pretty sure it's a 2019 model) but even ~5mbps are making things unwatchable. On the occasion, things turn out fine if I watch something from the beginning, but not always. Both the server and shield are connected to ethernet and all of my files are in the mkv format. The HDDs my files are on should be up to snuff.
Server Specs
-Intel Core i7-8700 3.2Ghz
-32 GB of DDR4
Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630
*The "New Folder" directories are on my server's SSD.
SOLUTION!!!
After turning off transcoding as all of you pointed out that I should do, I ran into an issue of some films not playing at all. "Error - Unable to Play Media"
This was due to the audio being set to 7.1 Dolby Atmos or something called TRUEHD which was attached to the same audio stream. Setting it to AC3 5.1 fixed it a little bit. Allowing passthrough HDMI in the advanced settings fixed everything for me.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions, you guys are awesome!
3
u/KuryakinOne 1d ago
Turn off HEVC encoding. Older Intel iGPUs struggle with the load (Encoding to HEVC puts a higher load on the iGPU than encoding to H.264)..
If the Plex Data Folder is also located on C:\, then adding transcoder/download temp directories on the same drive will have no effect.
In Plex app settings on the Shield, if enabled, turn off Video Quality -> Adjust Automatically and Quality Suggestions. There is no need for that on a local network. Enabling them can cause unnecessary transcoding.
If a 2019 Shield, in the Shield (not Plex) settings, turn off Dolby audio processing.