Plex
A community for discussing Plex Media Server. Plex Media Server is a smart software that makes playing movies, tv shows, and other media on your computer simple.
Ask questions, get support, and be part of the community here on Lemmy!
Join the c/Plex community on Matrix!
Rules
Rule 1 - Don't be a dick
Don't be a dick. This includes any kind of trolling, baiting, etc. Bigotry may result in an instant permaban.
Rule 2 - No misleading or non-descriptive titles
No misleading or non-descriptive titles. Try to be brief but detailed.
Rule 3 - Keep post and comments relevant
Posts must be related to Plex and Plex-related products, apps. etc. Try to keep comments relevant to the parent comment and to the post.
Rule 4 - Keep discussions of "media aqcuistion" limited to means and methods only.
Discussions regarding media acquisition should be limited to the "how" not the "what", as this is not the place to discuss piracy of specific media. There are other communities for that, and we don't want to get this community defederated from instances where it's a forbidden topic. Posts/comments discussing specific acts of piracy ("How do I find X show?" or "Where can I download Y film?")will be removed. For further clarification see this post
Rule 5 - No asking / offering Plex shares.
No asking / offering Plex shares. There are other communities for that.
Rule 6 - No low-effort / spam / meme posts
No low-effort / meme posts. These are considered spam, and will be removed. Repeat offenses may result in a ban.
Rule 7 - No referral / self-promotion / affiliate links, personal voting / campaigning / funding, or selling posts
No referral / self-promotion / affiliate links, personal voting / campaigning / funding, or selling posts. These are considered spam, and will be removed. Repeat offenses may result in a ban.
Useful Resources
- Plex FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions about using Plex Media Server and client apps with many useful links
- Plex App Setup Guide - Visual guide for first-run setup of Plex apps on smart devices
- c/Plex Add-ons Guide - Detailed info on many of the most popular Plex add-ons with links to setup guides and other resources. Mantained for this community.
- Servarr Wiki - The consolidated wiki for Lidarr, Prowlarr, Radarr, Readarr, and Sonarr.
- TRaSH-Guides - Guides mainly for Sonarr/Radarr/Bazarr and everything related to it.
- Awesome-arr - a complete list of Plex-related companion apps, user scripts, etc.
- Plex Hardware Transcoding Cheat Sheet - NVidia GPUs
- Organizing and Naming Your Media Files
- Troubleshooting Server Connections
- Plex User Forums
^This^ ^is^ ^a^ ^community^ ^page^ ^and^ ^is^ ^not^ ^affiliated^ ^with^ ^Plex,^ ^Inc.^ ^in^ ^any^ ^way.^
view the rest of the comments
perhaps whatever hardware you have (more info?) isn't supported for hardware decoding in the Plex HTPC app on your particular flavour of linux and choice of kernel. The webclient is likely forcing a transcode to a supported format in the browser, while the HTPC app might not be and cant decode the video properly, even through it is telling the server app that it can.
Update: I adjusted the settings in the HTPC client to force a lower quality (the TV that's hooked up to is only 720p anyway). Smooth as butter. I think it was definitely what you were saying and forcing a conversion was a good workaround.
To anyone else who's reading this and me see a related issue in the future: I also have an issue on this box where I can't get my display to output at the actual resolution of the TV. The system insists on outputting 1080p, and when I manually adjust the display settings it goes black.
It works fine for some reason though. I mention for future folks because I suspect (based on the above input) the HTPC client may be taking cues from the system setting, which is wrong.
In any event, the HTPC might still think it's outputting to a 1080p display but with the forced conversion it's operating just fine. THANK YOU.
edit: I wanted to add I had done this from the menu available while watching a video, and it didn't work. I had to do it at the main settings with no playback going.
re. the resolution thing, there are settings in the app for setting the TV to match the resolution and or refresh rate of the video content, which is intended to give the best possible image, however an older TV or one with an unusual resolution (1366x768 for example was common on budget flatscreens for a while and scaled poorly) can have trouble with the auto switching settings.
The other thing that is possible here is trying to direct play a 1080p video, even if hardware decoding is working is forcing the system to then downscale to 720p to drive the display, so the scaling can be a bottleneck unless it can be done in hardware, which might not be working, or is too much for the system to handle. that could be why forcing a transcode to 720p is more stable as it gets that step out of the way before it is even decoded. of course the best solution would be to not have to do it at all.
you might be better with the scaling settings turned off so the app doesn't try to change them from your system settings, but if you do that you can run into problems with 24p content not being paced properly on a 60hz TV for example, so play with them.
Fantastically helpful and really helping my learn the system. Thanks a ton!
This would definitely make a ton of sense! I don't know how to validate but that's exactly what it seems like.
Im running a dell precision 5810 with an nvs 310 for graphics and 64gb of ram. Using plasma as a DE if that trips anything up.
that GPU is likely causing issues, no NVDEC or NVENC in a plex box makes it useless, so it's having to brute force decode and encode everything, which it probably isn't powerful enough to do while also being the server. That GPU has only basic h264 decoding at up to 1080p, no H265 or 10bit or 4k or anything like that, and might not even be supported by Plex HTPC or you need to try different driver versions as it might just be an Nvidia+linux thing cause the drivers are a bit of a mess.
Look into something slightly more modern like a p600 or newer. Or redo the server with an intel desktop cpu (even just an i3) which will have an igpu capable of pretty much everything up to and including 4k HDR.
That makes sense. I've been looking at upgrading the card on my usual desktop (current card is a GeForce GTX1060 3GB). If I can find a deal on something non-nvidia I'll get something directly for the plex box though.
I had banked on all of that RAM and processor headroom being able to have it function well as a server despite the graphics card (and it did a good job encoding and sending OUT streams), but I'm still learning what does what in this whole chain. Thanks for all your help!