Plex encoding. Low spec server

1. offizieller Beitrag

    Hi all,


    I set my OMV server up a year or so ago, mainly because I had an old PC and wanted to make use of it.


    The spec are pretty poor i3-3240 @ 3.4GHz, with 4 GB ram


    That said it's done pretty well and has done the job for a while. However, I've started to download more 4k movies at a higher bitrate and now I'm finding that Plex suffers from a lot of buffering.
    On the client I can fix the buffering by setting it to convert at a lower quality, but that kind of defeats the purpose in downloading higher quality files.


    Looking at the OMV diagnostics while playing a movie, the CPU usage sits around 99% and the ram seems top hang around the the 50% mark. So I know the CPU is the issue, but I don't really want to spend any money upgrading the CPU


    The client I mainly watch stuff on is an i5 something with 8GB ram a half decent graphics card (Radeon R7 265 I think??)


    Should I stop the server transcoding and let the client do it?


    If I do this, will this render my second client, an ASUS flip chromebook, useless for plex?


    Any other free/cheap/easy fixes?


    Thanks!

    Quick question: The CPU usage is only that high with 4k movies or lower quality files as well?


    Because I've had this problem with plex (running as a docker) hogging all the CPU power regardless of file quality because of some bug in plex.
    They said it was fixed but for me it still didn't work with the new server version. I had to disable UPnP in the router settings for some reason.


    Just something to check out.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    If the network bandwidth and the clients allows it, just stream the movies as they are, without transcoding, and let the client scale as needed.


    I use Emby with small SBCs. Emby can convert videos off-line. So if I want to I can set a 4K video to be converted to a 1080p video and the next day or so it is done. But I typically stream the original 4K and let my client devices handle it as needed.


    Very high bitrate 4K content can sometimes stutter over wifi.


    But then I can also use Emby to download the content to the app on the device, in advance, and play it locally. I do this with my 2K 10" tablet sometimes.

    Be smart - be lazy. Clone your rootfs.
    OMV 5: 9 x Odroid HC2 + 1 x Odroid HC1 + 1 x Raspberry Pi 4

    Thanks guys.


    Erinox - yes you're right. The CPU usage was maxing out even at the lowest settings. However, I've upgraded to the latest version of Plex and tried switching off uPNP and neither has fixed it.


    My network is OK so I'll try letting the clients do the work and see how I get on

    I'm getting more confused the more I mess with this.


    How can I tell if a file is being transcoded or not? And how can I make it play direct instead of trancoding?



    ***edited***


    I was being stupid. I was using the plex web player which meant that everything was being encoded. I've now downloaded the plex windows app and it played the 4k content directly, without buffering and without any load on the plex server.


    Looks like this is the best set up for me. If I use the web player on my chromebook and I manually drop the quality if it buffers. Everything else should direct play to my main client media PC if it can do and should automatically switch to transcoding only when it needs to.


    Thanks for your help guys. I might be back when I add a chromecast to the bedroom TV - not sure how that will handle plex.....

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