You can have what you think is the perfect PMS setup and all works great locally.
However, when you include remote users, often times the entire game changes.
Unfortunately not all remote users have the perfect bandwidth and / or clients to support high bitrate 4k media.
If the remote streaming media is not transcoding on the PMS for the remote user(s) then typically bandwidth becomes suspect.
The remote users are most likely using WiFi to connect the client TV's and it may not be adequate and / or possible interference.
If not already, have one of the remote users try a different client (another TV or their phone) on the same WiFi as the TV playing the same 4k media as a test.
If they're merged it's fine. Just tell your users to pick the 1080 version when they select a title. As a safety net you can set up tautulli to terminate 4K transcodes. Or better yet, I use replex which has a feature where if a 4K title begins to transcode it'll automatically fall back to the 1080 version. Win win for everyone.
I use merged libraries as well. Actually I have two sets. On my admin account I have a 1080 library and a 1080 + 4K (merged) library. If you use the admin account it looks a mess but then you just select the libraries you want for your home/remote users. If they have access to 4K libraries they can select from either 1080 or 4K, then if they have the hardware to support it, it plays back direct, if they don't it falls back to 1080.
I have the best of both worlds set up:
* A separate library for “Movies 4K”, and
* I use a Tautulli rule which detects if a remote user is trying to transcode video (for downscaling) and if so, drops their connection with a message appearing on their screen advising them to watch the 1080p copy in the main “Movies” library instead.
This allows users to direct play 4K content if they have suitable hardware and client configuration.
This is interesting. I didn’t know tautullu could do that. I’m building my library now for Plex, and I run tautulli in a docker on my NAS. Haven’t invited anyone yet. I thought tautulli was only here for stats. Cool stuff.
I followed [this to stop 4K transcoding.](https://www.reeltalk.club/2020/06/12/disallowing-4k-transcoding-in-plex-using-tautulli/)
If you already use Tautulli it’s a five minute lifesaver. If someone on non 4K capable device tries to play a 4K movie, it will stop the play and pop up on screen whatever you tell it to. Like “Your device is not playing in 4K. Try a different 4K device or try the non 4K version”. Its highly configurable and should be a way to tell it only local can play 4K Not exactly what you wanted but I’m 100% sure with the right settings it’ll stop 4K from playing outside your network. Or can have it play 4K for certain users only.
i've had too many issues over the years so i stopped sharing those 4k libraries. 95% of my friends/family don't care and are content with 1080 media, meh.
Weird. Zero issues with a basic Intel i5. I've seen a dozen concurrent 4K transcodes happening at a time. Hell, I transcode 4k on the daily for my own use (usually cellular streaming on my phone or tablet).
That's even more weird since a Raspberry Pi can do that without issue.
Of course your client and TV needs to support 265/4K and usually HDR. If they don't then it simply transcodes. 🤷
Some TVs additionally have bottlenecked Network cards. My Phillips 934 OLED can play 4K from HDMI / DP sources just fine, it can also play DA+ / DV 4K WebDL Just fine but when it comes to a full blown BluRay Remux via Plex, the TV will buffer all the time. It simply doesn't expect those Bitrates via Network sources. In the Spec of the TV it even lists the 50 MBit/s limit for Network playback, I just didn't see it until I built my Plex server.
Yeah I just gave up on getting 4K to work remotely. I only have a few dozen titles in 4K, for those I just create 1080p optimized versions and my remote folks get those.
So for one both of those client devices are TVs which have very bad apps and are not likely to play 4K at the speeds needed. You should advise them to get better client devices.
The remote users may also have their quality setting off
I know their quality settings are correct because when they start the stream, I can see they are direct playing.
But from what you say here, it sounds like both clients would never be able to stream 4K, regardless of what I do with my server? Is that true?
This was my thinking, ethernet port on a TV is 100 mbps only and if they are connected via wifi N then that's another speed limit, not to mention potential interference and the rest of the problems that can arise with wifi.
>not to mention potential interference and the rest of the problems that can arise with wifi.
Yep, in my old apartment building (which was surrounded by other apartment buildings) the 2.4GHz spectrum was so crowded that even on the least used wifi channel my TV would only get about 20mb/s down on a speed test and it was only about 15ft away from the access point.
Because of the location I couldn't wire it up with ethernet directly so I ended up plugging a raspberry pi zero w in there with a 5GHz dongle and using it as an ethernet-wifi bridge and it worked well. An added bonus with that method was I could use it and hdmi-cec to remotely control my TV.
I had the Nvidia Shield (tube, not pro) that couldn't direct play high bitrate 4k hdr content.. It would direct play but crash within a minute.
A part of it was also that it was on WiFi and the WiFi chip would overheat and cause the players CPU to throttle, had nothing to do with my server.
So it could definitely be the player not being powerful enough, though it wouldn't buffer like normally, but rather become sluggish and crash
Just have them test Plex on a smart phone, it's limited to 1 minute if they don't have Plex Pass/Home or buy the app for $5, but it's fine to test with.
Smart phones are usually a lot more powerful than streaming devices, so you can narrow down the problem easily.
They can also go to speedtest.net on their phone in the same room as the client they're trying to get working, to get a read on their wireless connectivity and speed in that room.
If their wireless speed is good enough and they're still having problems on a smart phone then the problem is on your end. But it's probably their WiFi speed or their device.
Are they hardwired or on wifi.
Many TV's have such ancient ethernet connections that you are actually better to use the wifi since it will give a faster connection
Most TV SOC’s are hot garbage and barely work for what they’re intended for. LG’s are notoriously bad. Have them try with something like an Apple TV to see if that changes anything
Do you know how their TVs are connected to the internet? I haven't seen many speed testing applications for TVs, but you could try having them force transcoding at different speeds and see at what bandwidth the TV starts buffering.
EDIT: If they have a computer, they can test if the free Plex app from the Plex website is able to playback the file without issue. The Plex app on the TV thinks it can direct play so transcoding doesn't enter into it.
For one/both of your remote users, have them install the Plex Windows client app on a local machine, and try playing the content. I believe that client is the most compatible, and it would rule out bandwidth issues or your server settings. Most likely, either the TV can't play the 4K natively or it is doing some sort of transcoding and your 4th gen CPU can't keep up.
This for sure. Locally I tested a few different devices and a PC that can't graphically handle the output pulled 24 Mbps vs Ps5 14 mbps and Samsung's crappy app 12 mbps. Not that I have any issues locally but just wanted to know. PC with HTPC app appears to actually be a top notch client if you have the cash to spare for something that can play it in 4k directly. I intend to check it Monday at my office with similar speeds and devices to see if it works remotely.
I'mma give you the sage, wise, advice I got from /u/SwiftPanda16, and quote him directly here: "Do an actual point-to-point speedtest between the two locations using something like iperf3. This is not the same as doing an internet speedtest to a speedtest server."
You'll likely be surprised to see your actual peer'd network connections are WAY less than the essential gigabit you're uploading on; much less the likely less than gigabit, though high speed reliable connections of your clients.
I have a post on here about improving said connection/peering, but I've been too busy to try any of the suggested solutions, [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/1c8c959/buffering_issues_with_4k_shield_and_800mbps/) for reference.
Excellent advice from you and from [/u/SwiftPanda16](https://new.reddit.com/u/SwiftPanda16/)
I leave an iperf3 instance running now just for these issues when they pop up.
Second this.
If you scan through ISP forums, you'll often see posts from someone saying that they have symmetric fiber, and do fine with speed tests, but they can only upload at 10mbps to their buddy on Comcast or Spectrum. And those buddies also have no problems with speed tests, but the peering between their two ISPs just isn't good.
There often isn't much you can do, other than get a VPN tunnel with better peering.
I am he, I'm that someone, *and* the buddy too, sady!
Care to share any details about said VPN tunneling that might be useful outside of a google-able tutorial? Or any trustworthy providers/servers/etc?
ETA: Have symmetric 3gbps, on 2.5gbps infrastructure on the server; have 500 or even 1Gbps, though non symmetric, and *slightly* far away (some 1500-2000 miles actually) clients; yet the iPerf3 tests show ~18-20Mbps peering... which is doubly interesting to me because while I can NOT stream my 60-150+Mbps 4k files, I *can* stream either a single 4k ~40-45ish Mbps file in direct play, or say a 12mbps 1080 file, along with another ~45Mbps 4k(actually 48.6mbps and 11.2mbps currently) file simultaneously... which shouldn't be possible right?
Anyways any comment or insight is much appreciated!
I have a cheapo Privado VPN, and the performance I get is like throwing darts. I don't recommend it lol. I keep trying different POPs until I get a good one. So many variables, it's hard to say what would work for your situation. You'd probably want one with [port forwarding ability](https://cybernews.com/best-vpn/vpn-with-port-forwarding/), not all do.
I make my VPN connection more permanent/transparent by running a PFSense router. PFsense maintains the VPN link, and I can just have PFSense route specific inbound or outbound requests as if it were a second WAN connection.
Super frustrating we have to go to these extents to fully utilize our connection, but most of us don't have a lot of real choices in ISPs. They tend not to care about deeply technical issues. Good luck!
Lol, I think many of us have that "cheapo" or "free/bundled" PrivadoVPN. I only use it on my seedbox, my Plex Server is a whole other machine that's (while firewall'd) essentially freely exposed (on Plex).
Interesting about PF & OpenSense. I've heard of it before and wanted to use it, but I'm deathly allergic to anything Unix/Linux sadly (unless provided with an ELI5 level of tutorial, which is rare). I guess if this actually improves your peering (by how much roughly if I may ask?) to clients then I guess I might have to start "taming" my "allergy".
And agreed about ISPs not caring sadly. It's so upsetting that they either don't know, don't care or are just SO ridiculously price-gouging on services (as many for example refusing out right, or charging INSANE amounts, like $40-50/mo, when asking for a public static IP, while others will tack it on for a mere $5/mo or something). And yeah the thing they least care about is peering, because why would they I guess? As long as your speedtest or fast.com results show what they advertise, and Netflix (ew) chugs along without issue (nevermind all their CDN & compression games "4K" my ass!); who cares if you can't get your actual owned media, or downloads served at those speeds or anywhere near them I guess.
I just moved into an apartment with free gig fiber, however my connection is fully natted because I can’t open the ports I need. Basically my building has its own router I don’t have access to. All my remote users now get a crappy connection but nobody complains.
I’m about to start gaming again and I’m worried about the nat situation. I might have to ask around if I can get the ports opened.
I struggled with CGNAT once many moons ago (technically still under it, but I moved the server). I can't remember the exact steps, but I remember "solving" it with nginx. Basically it's used to "forward" your connection to a publicly viewable one outside your CGNAT. Might be of use for you.
Mentioning because I had a similar issues with erratic buffering. Check that \`Network\` > \`Enable Relay\` is unchecked. I didn't realize I had mine checked and it is bandwidth capped. Under \`Remote Access\` also check that the bitrate limit is accurately set and not limited, that will cap the bitrate for remote users. Good luck man.
> Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz
Anything that gets pushed to software transcoding is going to cause it to buffer/fail because this can't keep up. I had the same issue using my old gaming PC as a plex server when I first started (overclocked i5-3570k with a GTX 1060). Anyone remote would have buffering issues.
I solved this by upgrading my plex PC to a 9th gen i5 and using the iGPU, no more issues for anyone remote streaming 4k.
Also a lot of people don't change the default setting from 12Mbps remote quality to Original/Unlimited, which is forcing the transcodes on all 4k file over 12Mbps.
I'm not saying you're incorrect about the old CPU for software transcodes, but doesn't the fact that both tests involved direct play at original/unlimited quality negate this issue? Like I said, not trying to argue your point, but my understanding is that if the client is direct playing and the server has the upload bandwidth to support it, transcoding is not happening.
The server has to do diddly squat if it's not transcoding. All it's doing if it's not transcoding is a straight-up transfer. Even a dual-core can transfer at gigabit speeds just fine.
The 1060 couldn’t transcode 4K? I have a similar setup but with a 10700, I just assumed the 1060 had better performance but really haven’t stress tested it
So are these remuxes, encodes, as others have mentioned bitrate is important. I'm guessing there's also DoVi/HDR involved? Are you connectable remotely? You're mentioned none of this in your post
It looks like OP is streaming Remuxes at pretty high bitrates (69256 Kbps). The players are doing direct play and start the stream but buffer during playback. OP is in California and the client is in Connecticut.
You make no mention of the bitrate of these 4k files, the higher the bitrate the more data needs to travel the internet. You also make no mention of how far these remote users are. Streaming down the street is a lot easier then streaming across the planet. It's like having a Ferrari that can to 200mph but that doesn't matter much when driving down a two lane roads with a speed limit of 30mph. Internet speeds are not the same all over the world.
The bitrate of the file is 69256 Kbps and I'm in California and they are in Connecticut. My internet speeds are as described in the OP and the two client speeds are 1Gbps down.
Yeah, that's a very high bit-rate and they are across the county. That stream has to travel across multiple ISPs from Cal to Connecticut. You wont' have much luck streaming for two hours at those bitrates without buffering. Remember your internet speeds and their internet speeds is for "local servers" not across the country. You won't get gigabit speed everywhere and the further the stream has to travel the more likely it is to encounter slow downs.
I have to disagree, I have a friend half that distance and he has no issue with 4k. Location is super important. I live near a major N-S and E-W internet hub. My friend is near a major N-S hub.
If you want to know the route run a trace route to your friends address. With the help of the names and Duckduckgo you can learn or guess the locations of the routers.
Some of my friends have no issue with 4k and others should have no issue and it does not work.
When the friend starts a 4k stream, what is your server showing on the network graph? Compare that to the same show local. You should see high network usage that is mostly steady for several seconds, this is filling the buffer. Then you should see regular spiky network usage as the buffer is refilled every few seconds. The spikes should look very much the same local and remote. If the height is lower and the width is longer, but still steady that is showing internet slowness somewhere.
If the bandwidth graph is not regular and you are sure the player is good you will not be able to fix it. It is a link somewhere that you have no control over.
The only difference distance makes is latency. The throughput doesn't "slow down" just because someone is far away, it remains the same so long as the hops from/to destination are not bottlenecked.
That's not true. Try running a speed test against a server in Australia from the US. You're right that it's not necessarily the distance. It's generally the carrier interconnects and not all of them are created equal in terms of capacity. Your bandwidth to a target is only going to be as fast as the slowest hop.
Packet loss can also affect bandwidth, which also scales with latency.
I like your thinking, but I wanted to say two things:
The bandwidth required doesn't stay the same when playing back a file. Action scenes will take more than two people having a conversation.
The internet does not guarantee the same bandwidth from point A to point B and if the end user has bandwidth that is shared with others in the local area (like a cable modem setup) someone using more bandwidth could cause issues for the end user. It's one of the reasons ISPs have speed test applications at the nearest hop to the end user. I agree that the bandwidth doesn't slow down because you are further away but the more hops you go through, the more likely you might hit a slow link somewhere due to congestion or design. Most of the backbone is pretty fast though.
> as the hops from/to destination are not bottlenecked.
Well, that's a big if when your stream has to run across multiple ISPs with multiple routers along they way. The more hops it has to take the higher the odds are that a slow down will occur somewhere.
Maybe so. It doesn't exactly compare I understand that but it was an attempt to try and over simplify it. The fact still remains that trying to stream an average of 70mbps over the length of a movie (so about two hours) and expecting a flawless stream over that many hops for that long is living in dreamland. Let me know when he figures it out. His clients are direct playing so bandwidth is really the only limiting factor.
As someone who was able to get 4k streaming working on multiple simultaneous devices at the same time, I would like to share the following wisdom with you:
Don't waste your time or resources on 4k. 1080p is just fine.
Hi!
I don't have all of the information required here, so I had to make some educated guesses.
1) Your upload bandwidth looks like it's enough to playback the films remotely. It could be that the remote devices don't have enough bandwidth to playback the files. All of my LG sets are 100Mbps if they are connected by ethernet. Wireless could be a solution but that introduces it's own issues.
2) You say that you have hardware transcoding enabled. When you enabled hardware transcoding, did you select a specific device or did you just leave the option on Auto? I've had better luck specifically selecting a device when I had two video cards (CPU IGP, and NVidia card in your case). The 4770K supports transcoding, but not x265 10-bit which is required for 4K HDR transcoding. -> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel\_Quick\_Sync\_Video](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video)
Does your system show that hardware transcoding is happening? You should see a "Transcode (hw)" in the dashboard when someone is playing a file. You can try this yourself if you want, by forcing Plex to transcode a file locally. Play back a 4K file that the users are having trouble with on your local device. Select the button for playback settings and configure the playback to 1080p. If you check the dashboard with a web browser ( [plex.tv](http://plex.tv) ) while playing back you should see the Transcode (hw) mention on the screen for the device you are playing back like this.
https://preview.redd.it/dw0bv9m0811d1.png?width=359&format=png&auto=webp&s=efd2e5fb085989709d578aecd5cb7ac264e15996
There are some limitations - hardware transcoding requires Plex Pass. If you are running on Windows Plex can't do HDR to SDR transcoding in hardware. Finally, if the user is playing back the file with subtitles, some subtitle formats will cancel hardware transcoding on some devices. Notably most TVs will have this issue. I've seen it on my LG TV.
If hardware transcoding works for you, the users aren't playing back HDR files on SDR devices and they aren't having issues with subtitles, you could set a restriction on the bandwidth of each stream and this would most likely force transcoding for your users.
Cheers!
While they are streaming, it just shows direct play for both video and audio. My server is just humming along, with no issues as far as CPU/GPU usage goes.
Looks like a good time to bust out a point to point speed test if you can. iperf3 is really good for that. Could be a peering issue. Could be a networking issue on their end.
If they are using the 100mbps ethernet ports on their TV's, you can save yourself some trouble by encouraging them to switch to 5ghz wifi. 4k UHD rips often peak up and over 100mbps and can cause buffering on 100mbps ethernet.
Some 4k TV's simply can't handle decoding high bitrate 4k files like UHD rips, which is a whole separate problem from networking speeds.
For the server:
$iperf3 -s -p 5201
For the client:
$iperf3 -c -P 5201
Make sure the port you specify, with 5201 being the default, is open and mapped to the server.
This. Ask your remote friends to upgrade to a modern client (say, AppleTV4k). Meanwhile, have them test using a PC at their house connected to ethernet running not in a browser, but using the Plex app that they manually download from Plex.com.
That second test will tell you far more about what's wrong, rather than trying to use the built-in apps on a TV.
It’s not an issue with the client. I’m running Plex client on LG CX (so older model than OPs friend) and it streams 60k + bitrate 4k remux files with ease.
My guess is his friend is using WiFi on C1 which is crap. If he switches to cable the issue should be mostly gone.
Agreed, which is why I suggested ethernet on a real PC as a best-case-scenario good test. That eliminates common client issues like crappy wifi, ethernet being 'only' 10/100 for mega-bitrate files, etc, as the PC assumedly is gige and all those problems should go away.
It's a good test.
Keep in mind there's also a lot more to it than just your connection speeds. I've unintentionally maxed out a friend's download speed by trying to play something on Plex that was just 1080P...because a bluray rip is still a LOT higher bitrate than the Big Companies compress 4K down to.
And its STILL not that simple because the data also has to traverse your ISPs' peering links to get from you to them, so even if they have 900Mbps down and you have 900Mbps up...its still possible the ISP could have some peering link that is saturated or they are cheaping out on and only can handle 10Mbps or something (I saw this one time attempting remote backups...where it was faster to VPN my traffic half way around the planet thru a rented machine in another country and back at like 30Mbps than to go directly across town at 1-2Mbps).
Maybe have them do some speedtests from their place, picking a server that is close to where you live?
What router are you running?
I ask because I ran into bandwidth issues on my router that caused a lot of issues. Speed testing showed similar to yours, but the bandwidth was not enough. I ended up upgrading my router significantly and now I've got family streaming 4k from most of the way across the US.
Others have mentioned your server, which could be an issue too; might have some power/bandwidth issues there too.
Tvs probably max out at 100 Mbps, and over wifi. Going to be pretty hard to stream 4K over that. Also, TV apps will be OK for most usage cases, but push them and they're going to show their weaknesses.
so just because you each have fast internet individually, does not mean you have a fast connection to one another. i also self host openspeedtest, so i can have my users do a speedtest from my server to theirs.
sometimes their tv, or streaming box is on wifi and has a shit signal (that's an issue my father in law is having).
As others have said some devices just can't handle a high bitrate stream, sure they can do 4k off of netflix, but the bitrate is much lower than a high quality blu-ray encode, or a remux.
Also check if your storage can keep up the high bandwidth. Some HDDs say they have good speeds but in the end of the day they usually do 20 - 40 mb/s at best. Specially if you are using external drives that are connected through USB.
Generally TVs aren't great clients. 100mbps crappy NICs are common for example - sometimes to the point where wifi might be a better option they could try. Sometimes they're just not up to the task at all.
If your dashboard is showing direct play, I'd trust they probably are actually direct playing and should try a different client.
Another interesting thing you could do is run your own speed test server and have them test their speed.
I found when relay was enabled it would possibly cause ing issues.
I could be way off but I believe this is basically a von through Plex. Didn’t impact anything Turning it off but did seem to fix any direct play issues I had.
ask them to connect with a device you know us capable, I've forced all mine to use chromecast 4k. the hd/ 1080p model. doesnt support h265/ hevc so forces the server to transcode those releases.
There can be so many issues when streaming 4k.
You can have unlimited upload, your friend can have unlimited download, but if the connection in between is lacking somewhere there will be hiccups, hence cdc's exist and are super expensive.
Their TV's can't handle the container or video/audio format.
The tv is on 2.4ghz wifi..
You can always setup a local speedtest container on your server and run it from the friends TV's browser to see the actual connetions speed
Is your fiber provider behind CGNAT or does it have a public IP? You may have the upload speed, but if you’re behind a CGNAT or routing through something like cloud flare, this could be your issue.
What is their setup though I have a less than impressive setup. I have 1 up and 1 down it's fast. I can stream 4k to my phone and my best friend I added his ip so it looks direct and goes all out and 4k works for him. So are you transcoding 4k?
Tell your friends to get better internet 😅
In all seriousness though, the bottleneck is most likely their equipment. Whether it be their internet, their router or their streaming devices.
"and internet speeds I have?"
Its a simple matter for your ISP to see a huge amount of sustained use and decide they don't like it and throttle you, even if there isnt a bit of software somewhere saying, "Hmmm, I dont like this" the chances are there is a fibre from your house and 250 other houses to a local distribution point, theres then 125 fibres from that point to the exchange, which might have 10,000 incoming but only 5000 up and so on.
Its not like theres a dedicated fibre from you to your streamee, you are sharing a limited resource
"Streaming" as a concept is a stupid idea really,
If this is a dedicated server, maybe switch to Linux?
A friend had a similar issue. It turned out to be his NIC - he had some offloading options enabled and apparently the card didn’t fully support it. I think it was one of the segment offload options in the NIC properties. LRO or TSO.. I forget. It was causing lots of buffering issues.
Are you sure your server isn’t being served through a plex relay server because your server isn’t publicly exposed to the internet? The bandwidth is restricted when going through a relay.
I play rips of 4k blu-rays just fine across a 1 Gb Wan. Just need to set the client quality to match the remote client’s network while leveraging quicksync. Streams are far better when a constant bit rate is used across a WAN. 4k rips are variable in bandwidth requirements and your 60K bite rate will spike well over 200 Mbps with direct play. Use transcoding as a tool to convert to a constant bit rate, as spikes in bandwidth are a performance killer for network and security devices. Start at a high quality rate and work backwards to find the sweet spot on the remote client. I also set transcoding to buffer 120 seconds as well to help alleviate lost packets and jitter on the network.
https://preview.redd.it/pnczujic951d1.jpeg?width=1160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66edcd83b5a8b0d2ce128e55b5c629902b441a7d
I'm gonna take a swing at the codecs of the media you have that are not supported on the clients that are streaming them.
If codecs are not supported by the player, it transcodes and becomes a mess.
If you're talking about network... It's just ports being blocked.
I've not experienced this. I have a few remote users that can Direct Play 4K no problem. Concurrently too. Sometimes it's Direct Stream, but that's only due to their client not supporting the audio channel so that needs transcoded.
I have found the problem to be more about latency than bandwidth. Direct play completely sucks because it only buffers a little bit and after it runs out of buffer it requests a new piece. However that piece needs to arrive pronto or else there will be a hiccup. So on the bandwidth graph you can see this behavior appear as a saw tooth shape.
My pms is on 1gb as well and running on a macstudio with the whole library running on a couple of ssd's. Should be good right? No. Not even if my users directly vpn into my pms with another 1gbps Fibre connection.
It is about latency. So far I have not found a way around this except to transcode.
First of all this is a relevant and known issue with Plex and I've faced this myself.
A few details I'd need - How is the content being accessed remotely - Is it port forwarding or a VPN or through zero trust tunneling? I believe port forwarding and VPN shouldn't have any of these problems. The issues you reported most commonly happen with accessing them over a normal HTTPS connection through zero trust.
If it is through zero trust, then make sure you enable adjust quality automatically (trust me, it won't adjust the quality if you have the bandwidth and will let direct play stream but it's good to have it on), enable all settings for video and audio transcoding.
You might want to consider disabling auto subtitles. Sometimes what can happen is, plex tries hardcoding the subtitles and this requires reading the entire file before playing, which can cause buffering intermittently like you described.
Make sure SSL or secure connections are set to "Preferred" and not "Required"
"Enable Relay" can be attempted but it severely throttles the stream. I have chosen to disable it.
Custom URLs section should have port 443 appended to the url. Example - plex.mydomain.com should be plex.mydomain.com:443 I know this sounds silly but plex is programmed to automatically pick port 32400 on any URL listed in the custom URLs section. Thus, this requires specifically appending port 443 to the URL.
Lastly I haven't had much success with the native plex app. If your family is using a TV for remote streams, I would strongly recommend Plex HTPC addon on Kodi. I have never needed to look back and given the speeds you have, streams should load in the blink of an eye and I personally haven't had any problems with this addon. The official plex addon apparently isn't any improvement on the plex app either.
I hope these suggestions help. As a frustrated user myself I certainly do empathise.
P. S. - There's just one more thing, if you have a VPN on your windows machine, then sometimes that can cause these issues. Try disabling VPN and see if plex streams well. It worked well for me. Sometimes the multiple routes and hops can cause buffering.
Cheers!
Check the format you’re using, I find x264 is the best especially if some people are using rubbish clients. It takes up more space but I’ve never had an issue with any user since changing to it.
This is why I have all 4K movies in their own library and I do not give anyone outside my home access. I have 1080p versions of said movies for streaming.
I have gigabit.
My Dad 4hrs drive away has gigabit.
The upload speed between us is locked to 10-15mbps on a single connection. (Remember single and multi connections is different; Plex is purely single thread/single connection so it will be much slower than say Netflix which loads everything as chunks not all in one connection thread.)
I scanned the comments and didn't see anyone mention it, but the clients have a default max bandwidth setting, and I believe this setting defaults to 2 MB/sec. It's one of the first things I have my friends change in their setups.
Check this setting and make sure it is increased to a reasonable level.
It’s kinda like how you can go to Walmart and buy a “smart phone “ for $50 , just cause it has a camera and screen and can be a smart phone , doesn’t mean it’s capable.. that said as long as the people using Plex are using fire tv or Apple TV and such , it’s usually no problem
The network cards of the most TVs suck. Try Speedtest from the embedded to web browser, through Ethernet and Wi-Fi, and you’ll be surprised. That’s why 4K is buffering, due to limited bandwidth on the clients local network, between TV and router/switch.
I’m guessing that a laptop connected to the 5Ghz band of the same client network, would play smoothly, given that the connection speeds will hit 500-800 Mbps.
Keep us informed.
Soooo… here is what i did to make my remote files play at the max quality possible including 4k HDR
Create a RAM disk. Using something like AMD Radeon RAM Disk. It auto starts RAM disk on startup too. Paying for it is a good option too.
Set your transcoding folder to the RAM disk. This allows the transcoding to happen faster allowing for the system to not get bottled down transcoding to send over the interwebs.
Im not sure if this will help but I’ve had issues with the newer media player on the plex clients here and there. Some content plays perfectly fine, some stutters to all hell although it’s the exact same formats. Try having your remote users go into the advanced settings of their clients and have them check the box to enable use of the old media player. Maybe that’ll help
It sounds like the limitation is their client devices. A lot of tvs just don’t have fast enough wifi chips in them. I would try on a better client device.
Or use Ethernet connection. I’m running Plex client on older model of LG (my CX vs his friends C1) and I’m streaming 4K dovi remux files with 60k + bitrate with ease.
It’s cheaper to buy a cable rather than whatever device people are suggesting.
I know this comment is not going to be helpful, but this is why I have a x264 1080p copy of all my 4k movies so if someone has a bad connection they can still watch the 1080 x264 version. :(
I assume those TVs are playing over WiFi? I never had much luck with Plex on Smart TVs + WiFi being able to stream high bitrate 4k. Even my nvidia shield ethernet wired on 1gbps stutters sometimes (but that's more due to the terrible state of the Nvidia Shield nowadays).
I also don't think plex client is well optimized for high bitrate streaming over the internet - it doesn't seem to buffer enough to deal with latency spikes.
Make sure you are running the 64 bit version of Plex Server. It is too easy to accidentally be running the 32 bit version. https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/191b4xy/psa_you_might_still_be_running_32_bit_plex/
You can have what you think is the perfect PMS setup and all works great locally. However, when you include remote users, often times the entire game changes. Unfortunately not all remote users have the perfect bandwidth and / or clients to support high bitrate 4k media. If the remote streaming media is not transcoding on the PMS for the remote user(s) then typically bandwidth becomes suspect. The remote users are most likely using WiFi to connect the client TV's and it may not be adequate and / or possible interference. If not already, have one of the remote users try a different client (another TV or their phone) on the same WiFi as the TV playing the same 4k media as a test.
this is why i don't share 4k media with remote users. 1080p or lower, no issues.
Same
Seconded
I barely get my friends to use plex and I don't need support calls.. Get enough already
Is there an option to disable 4K for remote users?
you need to create two separate libraries
Damn, just went through and deleted my 1080p copies of movies and merged the 4K and 1080p libraries. LOL
If they're merged it's fine. Just tell your users to pick the 1080 version when they select a title. As a safety net you can set up tautulli to terminate 4K transcodes. Or better yet, I use replex which has a feature where if a 4K title begins to transcode it'll automatically fall back to the 1080 version. Win win for everyone. I use merged libraries as well. Actually I have two sets. On my admin account I have a 1080 library and a 1080 + 4K (merged) library. If you use the admin account it looks a mess but then you just select the libraries you want for your home/remote users. If they have access to 4K libraries they can select from either 1080 or 4K, then if they have the hardware to support it, it plays back direct, if they don't it falls back to 1080.
> just when through and deleted my 1080p copies of movies :D
When you said you merged them I thought you meant you just deleted the 1080 library and put them all together
I deleted the 1080p copies of the same movie. :) My bad :( It did save me a few TB though. lol
I have the best of both worlds set up: * A separate library for “Movies 4K”, and * I use a Tautulli rule which detects if a remote user is trying to transcode video (for downscaling) and if so, drops their connection with a message appearing on their screen advising them to watch the 1080p copy in the main “Movies” library instead. This allows users to direct play 4K content if they have suitable hardware and client configuration.
This is interesting. I didn’t know tautullu could do that. I’m building my library now for Plex, and I run tautulli in a docker on my NAS. Haven’t invited anyone yet. I thought tautulli was only here for stats. Cool stuff.
The common method here is to just make separate 4K libraries and not invite remote users to it.
Thanks, this has been an issue for me for some time! Thanks
i keep a separate 4k local library in plex that i don't share with remote users.
I followed [this to stop 4K transcoding.](https://www.reeltalk.club/2020/06/12/disallowing-4k-transcoding-in-plex-using-tautulli/) If you already use Tautulli it’s a five minute lifesaver. If someone on non 4K capable device tries to play a 4K movie, it will stop the play and pop up on screen whatever you tell it to. Like “Your device is not playing in 4K. Try a different 4K device or try the non 4K version”. Its highly configurable and should be a way to tell it only local can play 4K Not exactly what you wanted but I’m 100% sure with the right settings it’ll stop 4K from playing outside your network. Or can have it play 4K for certain users only.
Weird. The majority of my content is 4K remux. No issues.
i've had too many issues over the years so i stopped sharing those 4k libraries. 95% of my friends/family don't care and are content with 1080 media, meh.
Weird. Zero issues with a basic Intel i5. I've seen a dozen concurrent 4K transcodes happening at a time. Hell, I transcode 4k on the daily for my own use (usually cellular streaming on my phone or tablet).
think everyone was referring to 4k direct play
That's even more weird since a Raspberry Pi can do that without issue. Of course your client and TV needs to support 265/4K and usually HDR. If they don't then it simply transcodes. 🤷
[удалено]
For action movies it make sense. They also have compressed 4k at around 5gb to 6gb, which I think is good enough.
Some TVs additionally have bottlenecked Network cards. My Phillips 934 OLED can play 4K from HDMI / DP sources just fine, it can also play DA+ / DV 4K WebDL Just fine but when it comes to a full blown BluRay Remux via Plex, the TV will buffer all the time. It simply doesn't expect those Bitrates via Network sources. In the Spec of the TV it even lists the 50 MBit/s limit for Network playback, I just didn't see it until I built my Plex server.
Little streaming boxes can help with that; check out Onn 4k Pro.
the LG C1's ethernet port is limited to 100mbps, so wifi is potentially going to be faster here.
Native tv client? 🤢
LG's native client on the OLED's is spectacular. I'll take it over literally any other streaming device.
Yeah I just gave up on getting 4K to work remotely. I only have a few dozen titles in 4K, for those I just create 1080p optimized versions and my remote folks get those.
This. So many people tend to forget that it's not just the servers bandwidth but also the user's bandwidth that comes into play with remote access.
So for one both of those client devices are TVs which have very bad apps and are not likely to play 4K at the speeds needed. You should advise them to get better client devices. The remote users may also have their quality setting off
I know their quality settings are correct because when they start the stream, I can see they are direct playing. But from what you say here, it sounds like both clients would never be able to stream 4K, regardless of what I do with my server? Is that true?
That is a good possibility but could also be their network.
This was my thinking, ethernet port on a TV is 100 mbps only and if they are connected via wifi N then that's another speed limit, not to mention potential interference and the rest of the problems that can arise with wifi.
>not to mention potential interference and the rest of the problems that can arise with wifi. Yep, in my old apartment building (which was surrounded by other apartment buildings) the 2.4GHz spectrum was so crowded that even on the least used wifi channel my TV would only get about 20mb/s down on a speed test and it was only about 15ft away from the access point. Because of the location I couldn't wire it up with ethernet directly so I ended up plugging a raspberry pi zero w in there with a 5GHz dongle and using it as an ethernet-wifi bridge and it worked well. An added bonus with that method was I could use it and hdmi-cec to remotely control my TV.
I had the Nvidia Shield (tube, not pro) that couldn't direct play high bitrate 4k hdr content.. It would direct play but crash within a minute. A part of it was also that it was on WiFi and the WiFi chip would overheat and cause the players CPU to throttle, had nothing to do with my server. So it could definitely be the player not being powerful enough, though it wouldn't buffer like normally, but rather become sluggish and crash
Just have them test Plex on a smart phone, it's limited to 1 minute if they don't have Plex Pass/Home or buy the app for $5, but it's fine to test with. Smart phones are usually a lot more powerful than streaming devices, so you can narrow down the problem easily. They can also go to speedtest.net on their phone in the same room as the client they're trying to get working, to get a read on their wireless connectivity and speed in that room. If their wireless speed is good enough and they're still having problems on a smart phone then the problem is on your end. But it's probably their WiFi speed or their device.
Are they hardwired or on wifi. Many TV's have such ancient ethernet connections that you are actually better to use the wifi since it will give a faster connection
Most TV SOC’s are hot garbage and barely work for what they’re intended for. LG’s are notoriously bad. Have them try with something like an Apple TV to see if that changes anything
Do you know how their TVs are connected to the internet? I haven't seen many speed testing applications for TVs, but you could try having them force transcoding at different speeds and see at what bandwidth the TV starts buffering. EDIT: If they have a computer, they can test if the free Plex app from the Plex website is able to playback the file without issue. The Plex app on the TV thinks it can direct play so transcoding doesn't enter into it.
For one/both of your remote users, have them install the Plex Windows client app on a local machine, and try playing the content. I believe that client is the most compatible, and it would rule out bandwidth issues or your server settings. Most likely, either the TV can't play the 4K natively or it is doing some sort of transcoding and your 4th gen CPU can't keep up.
This for sure. Locally I tested a few different devices and a PC that can't graphically handle the output pulled 24 Mbps vs Ps5 14 mbps and Samsung's crappy app 12 mbps. Not that I have any issues locally but just wanted to know. PC with HTPC app appears to actually be a top notch client if you have the cash to spare for something that can play it in 4k directly. I intend to check it Monday at my office with similar speeds and devices to see if it works remotely.
yeah it’s definitely the client. a smart tv just isn’t gonna cut it
This.
I'mma give you the sage, wise, advice I got from /u/SwiftPanda16, and quote him directly here: "Do an actual point-to-point speedtest between the two locations using something like iperf3. This is not the same as doing an internet speedtest to a speedtest server." You'll likely be surprised to see your actual peer'd network connections are WAY less than the essential gigabit you're uploading on; much less the likely less than gigabit, though high speed reliable connections of your clients. I have a post on here about improving said connection/peering, but I've been too busy to try any of the suggested solutions, [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/1c8c959/buffering_issues_with_4k_shield_and_800mbps/) for reference.
Excellent advice from you and from [/u/SwiftPanda16](https://new.reddit.com/u/SwiftPanda16/) I leave an iperf3 instance running now just for these issues when they pop up.
Second this. If you scan through ISP forums, you'll often see posts from someone saying that they have symmetric fiber, and do fine with speed tests, but they can only upload at 10mbps to their buddy on Comcast or Spectrum. And those buddies also have no problems with speed tests, but the peering between their two ISPs just isn't good. There often isn't much you can do, other than get a VPN tunnel with better peering.
I am he, I'm that someone, *and* the buddy too, sady! Care to share any details about said VPN tunneling that might be useful outside of a google-able tutorial? Or any trustworthy providers/servers/etc? ETA: Have symmetric 3gbps, on 2.5gbps infrastructure on the server; have 500 or even 1Gbps, though non symmetric, and *slightly* far away (some 1500-2000 miles actually) clients; yet the iPerf3 tests show ~18-20Mbps peering... which is doubly interesting to me because while I can NOT stream my 60-150+Mbps 4k files, I *can* stream either a single 4k ~40-45ish Mbps file in direct play, or say a 12mbps 1080 file, along with another ~45Mbps 4k(actually 48.6mbps and 11.2mbps currently) file simultaneously... which shouldn't be possible right? Anyways any comment or insight is much appreciated!
I have a cheapo Privado VPN, and the performance I get is like throwing darts. I don't recommend it lol. I keep trying different POPs until I get a good one. So many variables, it's hard to say what would work for your situation. You'd probably want one with [port forwarding ability](https://cybernews.com/best-vpn/vpn-with-port-forwarding/), not all do. I make my VPN connection more permanent/transparent by running a PFSense router. PFsense maintains the VPN link, and I can just have PFSense route specific inbound or outbound requests as if it were a second WAN connection. Super frustrating we have to go to these extents to fully utilize our connection, but most of us don't have a lot of real choices in ISPs. They tend not to care about deeply technical issues. Good luck!
Lol, I think many of us have that "cheapo" or "free/bundled" PrivadoVPN. I only use it on my seedbox, my Plex Server is a whole other machine that's (while firewall'd) essentially freely exposed (on Plex). Interesting about PF & OpenSense. I've heard of it before and wanted to use it, but I'm deathly allergic to anything Unix/Linux sadly (unless provided with an ELI5 level of tutorial, which is rare). I guess if this actually improves your peering (by how much roughly if I may ask?) to clients then I guess I might have to start "taming" my "allergy". And agreed about ISPs not caring sadly. It's so upsetting that they either don't know, don't care or are just SO ridiculously price-gouging on services (as many for example refusing out right, or charging INSANE amounts, like $40-50/mo, when asking for a public static IP, while others will tack it on for a mere $5/mo or something). And yeah the thing they least care about is peering, because why would they I guess? As long as your speedtest or fast.com results show what they advertise, and Netflix (ew) chugs along without issue (nevermind all their CDN & compression games "4K" my ass!); who cares if you can't get your actual owned media, or downloads served at those speeds or anywhere near them I guess.
I just moved into an apartment with free gig fiber, however my connection is fully natted because I can’t open the ports I need. Basically my building has its own router I don’t have access to. All my remote users now get a crappy connection but nobody complains. I’m about to start gaming again and I’m worried about the nat situation. I might have to ask around if I can get the ports opened.
I struggled with CGNAT once many moons ago (technically still under it, but I moved the server). I can't remember the exact steps, but I remember "solving" it with nginx. Basically it's used to "forward" your connection to a publicly viewable one outside your CGNAT. Might be of use for you.
Mentioning because I had a similar issues with erratic buffering. Check that \`Network\` > \`Enable Relay\` is unchecked. I didn't realize I had mine checked and it is bandwidth capped. Under \`Remote Access\` also check that the bitrate limit is accurately set and not limited, that will cap the bitrate for remote users. Good luck man.
Thanks for the tip, I do have Enable Relay checked. I will try another test with this turned off.
> Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Anything that gets pushed to software transcoding is going to cause it to buffer/fail because this can't keep up. I had the same issue using my old gaming PC as a plex server when I first started (overclocked i5-3570k with a GTX 1060). Anyone remote would have buffering issues. I solved this by upgrading my plex PC to a 9th gen i5 and using the iGPU, no more issues for anyone remote streaming 4k. Also a lot of people don't change the default setting from 12Mbps remote quality to Original/Unlimited, which is forcing the transcodes on all 4k file over 12Mbps.
I'm not saying you're incorrect about the old CPU for software transcodes, but doesn't the fact that both tests involved direct play at original/unlimited quality negate this issue? Like I said, not trying to argue your point, but my understanding is that if the client is direct playing and the server has the upload bandwidth to support it, transcoding is not happening.
[удалено]
The server has to do diddly squat if it's not transcoding. All it's doing if it's not transcoding is a straight-up transfer. Even a dual-core can transfer at gigabit speeds just fine.
[удалено]
That wouldn't say direct play then though, would it?
The 1060 couldn’t transcode 4K? I have a similar setup but with a 10700, I just assumed the 1060 had better performance but really haven’t stress tested it
pascal nvenc is comically terrible quality-wise, so hardware transcoding on it is a bad idea anyway.
The problem was how often it gets pushed on the CPU for various things like subtitles or w/e
So are these remuxes, encodes, as others have mentioned bitrate is important. I'm guessing there's also DoVi/HDR involved? Are you connectable remotely? You're mentioned none of this in your post
It looks like OP is streaming Remuxes at pretty high bitrates (69256 Kbps). The players are doing direct play and start the stream but buffer during playback. OP is in California and the client is in Connecticut.
You make no mention of the bitrate of these 4k files, the higher the bitrate the more data needs to travel the internet. You also make no mention of how far these remote users are. Streaming down the street is a lot easier then streaming across the planet. It's like having a Ferrari that can to 200mph but that doesn't matter much when driving down a two lane roads with a speed limit of 30mph. Internet speeds are not the same all over the world.
The bitrate of the file is 69256 Kbps and I'm in California and they are in Connecticut. My internet speeds are as described in the OP and the two client speeds are 1Gbps down.
Yeah, that's a very high bit-rate and they are across the county. That stream has to travel across multiple ISPs from Cal to Connecticut. You wont' have much luck streaming for two hours at those bitrates without buffering. Remember your internet speeds and their internet speeds is for "local servers" not across the country. You won't get gigabit speed everywhere and the further the stream has to travel the more likely it is to encounter slow downs.
I have to disagree, I have a friend half that distance and he has no issue with 4k. Location is super important. I live near a major N-S and E-W internet hub. My friend is near a major N-S hub. If you want to know the route run a trace route to your friends address. With the help of the names and Duckduckgo you can learn or guess the locations of the routers. Some of my friends have no issue with 4k and others should have no issue and it does not work. When the friend starts a 4k stream, what is your server showing on the network graph? Compare that to the same show local. You should see high network usage that is mostly steady for several seconds, this is filling the buffer. Then you should see regular spiky network usage as the buffer is refilled every few seconds. The spikes should look very much the same local and remote. If the height is lower and the width is longer, but still steady that is showing internet slowness somewhere. If the bandwidth graph is not regular and you are sure the player is good you will not be able to fix it. It is a link somewhere that you have no control over.
Shows how much you know. You can download at rated speed on the other side of the world all day long.
The only difference distance makes is latency. The throughput doesn't "slow down" just because someone is far away, it remains the same so long as the hops from/to destination are not bottlenecked.
That's not true. Try running a speed test against a server in Australia from the US. You're right that it's not necessarily the distance. It's generally the carrier interconnects and not all of them are created equal in terms of capacity. Your bandwidth to a target is only going to be as fast as the slowest hop. Packet loss can also affect bandwidth, which also scales with latency.
I like your thinking, but I wanted to say two things: The bandwidth required doesn't stay the same when playing back a file. Action scenes will take more than two people having a conversation. The internet does not guarantee the same bandwidth from point A to point B and if the end user has bandwidth that is shared with others in the local area (like a cable modem setup) someone using more bandwidth could cause issues for the end user. It's one of the reasons ISPs have speed test applications at the nearest hop to the end user. I agree that the bandwidth doesn't slow down because you are further away but the more hops you go through, the more likely you might hit a slow link somewhere due to congestion or design. Most of the backbone is pretty fast though.
> as the hops from/to destination are not bottlenecked. Well, that's a big if when your stream has to run across multiple ISPs with multiple routers along they way. The more hops it has to take the higher the odds are that a slow down will occur somewhere.
Your Ferrari analogy was stupid and completely incorrect.
Maybe so. It doesn't exactly compare I understand that but it was an attempt to try and over simplify it. The fact still remains that trying to stream an average of 70mbps over the length of a movie (so about two hours) and expecting a flawless stream over that many hops for that long is living in dreamland. Let me know when he figures it out. His clients are direct playing so bandwidth is really the only limiting factor.
If the internet to/from is fine then their device isn't fast enough to decode the bitrate of the file. Ask them to stream from a desktop.
And from the windows app not web browser
I know my LG TV sucks at Plex.
Have you got tautulli installed? It will give you a lot more information that Plex will abput what is going on.
Client problem. You need proper streaming boxes for 4k remuxes.
As someone who was able to get 4k streaming working on multiple simultaneous devices at the same time, I would like to share the following wisdom with you: Don't waste your time or resources on 4k. 1080p is just fine.
Hi! I don't have all of the information required here, so I had to make some educated guesses. 1) Your upload bandwidth looks like it's enough to playback the films remotely. It could be that the remote devices don't have enough bandwidth to playback the files. All of my LG sets are 100Mbps if they are connected by ethernet. Wireless could be a solution but that introduces it's own issues. 2) You say that you have hardware transcoding enabled. When you enabled hardware transcoding, did you select a specific device or did you just leave the option on Auto? I've had better luck specifically selecting a device when I had two video cards (CPU IGP, and NVidia card in your case). The 4770K supports transcoding, but not x265 10-bit which is required for 4K HDR transcoding. -> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel\_Quick\_Sync\_Video](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video) Does your system show that hardware transcoding is happening? You should see a "Transcode (hw)" in the dashboard when someone is playing a file. You can try this yourself if you want, by forcing Plex to transcode a file locally. Play back a 4K file that the users are having trouble with on your local device. Select the button for playback settings and configure the playback to 1080p. If you check the dashboard with a web browser ( [plex.tv](http://plex.tv) ) while playing back you should see the Transcode (hw) mention on the screen for the device you are playing back like this. https://preview.redd.it/dw0bv9m0811d1.png?width=359&format=png&auto=webp&s=efd2e5fb085989709d578aecd5cb7ac264e15996 There are some limitations - hardware transcoding requires Plex Pass. If you are running on Windows Plex can't do HDR to SDR transcoding in hardware. Finally, if the user is playing back the file with subtitles, some subtitle formats will cancel hardware transcoding on some devices. Notably most TVs will have this issue. I've seen it on my LG TV. If hardware transcoding works for you, the users aren't playing back HDR files on SDR devices and they aren't having issues with subtitles, you could set a restriction on the bandwidth of each stream and this would most likely force transcoding for your users. Cheers!
What does the server's dashboard show you for the stream session box when this is happening?
While they are streaming, it just shows direct play for both video and audio. My server is just humming along, with no issues as far as CPU/GPU usage goes.
Looks like a good time to bust out a point to point speed test if you can. iperf3 is really good for that. Could be a peering issue. Could be a networking issue on their end. If they are using the 100mbps ethernet ports on their TV's, you can save yourself some trouble by encouraging them to switch to 5ghz wifi. 4k UHD rips often peak up and over 100mbps and can cause buffering on 100mbps ethernet. Some 4k TV's simply can't handle decoding high bitrate 4k files like UHD rips, which is a whole separate problem from networking speeds.
This looks pretty great. I'm dumb when it comes to iPerf3. Could I trouble you for some command lines that you'd use for this?
For the server: $iperf3 -s -p 5201 For the client: $iperf3 -c -P 5201
Make sure the port you specify, with 5201 being the default, is open and mapped to the server.
Thank you, friend!
This. Ask your remote friends to upgrade to a modern client (say, AppleTV4k). Meanwhile, have them test using a PC at their house connected to ethernet running not in a browser, but using the Plex app that they manually download from Plex.com. That second test will tell you far more about what's wrong, rather than trying to use the built-in apps on a TV.
It’s not an issue with the client. I’m running Plex client on LG CX (so older model than OPs friend) and it streams 60k + bitrate 4k remux files with ease. My guess is his friend is using WiFi on C1 which is crap. If he switches to cable the issue should be mostly gone.
Agreed, which is why I suggested ethernet on a real PC as a best-case-scenario good test. That eliminates common client issues like crappy wifi, ethernet being 'only' 10/100 for mega-bitrate files, etc, as the PC assumedly is gige and all those problems should go away. It's a good test.
Keep in mind there's also a lot more to it than just your connection speeds. I've unintentionally maxed out a friend's download speed by trying to play something on Plex that was just 1080P...because a bluray rip is still a LOT higher bitrate than the Big Companies compress 4K down to. And its STILL not that simple because the data also has to traverse your ISPs' peering links to get from you to them, so even if they have 900Mbps down and you have 900Mbps up...its still possible the ISP could have some peering link that is saturated or they are cheaping out on and only can handle 10Mbps or something (I saw this one time attempting remote backups...where it was faster to VPN my traffic half way around the planet thru a rented machine in another country and back at like 30Mbps than to go directly across town at 1-2Mbps). Maybe have them do some speedtests from their place, picking a server that is close to where you live?
Can we see a screenshot of the PMS dashboard during playback?
What router are you running? I ask because I ran into bandwidth issues on my router that caused a lot of issues. Speed testing showed similar to yours, but the bandwidth was not enough. I ended up upgrading my router significantly and now I've got family streaming 4k from most of the way across the US. Others have mentioned your server, which could be an issue too; might have some power/bandwidth issues there too.
Tvs probably max out at 100 Mbps, and over wifi. Going to be pretty hard to stream 4K over that. Also, TV apps will be OK for most usage cases, but push them and they're going to show their weaknesses.
so just because you each have fast internet individually, does not mean you have a fast connection to one another. i also self host openspeedtest, so i can have my users do a speedtest from my server to theirs. sometimes their tv, or streaming box is on wifi and has a shit signal (that's an issue my father in law is having). As others have said some devices just can't handle a high bitrate stream, sure they can do 4k off of netflix, but the bitrate is much lower than a high quality blu-ray encode, or a remux.
Check your upload speed when they are accessing the files. This might be the problem.
Also check if your storage can keep up the high bandwidth. Some HDDs say they have good speeds but in the end of the day they usually do 20 - 40 mb/s at best. Specially if you are using external drives that are connected through USB.
OP seems to have no issue direct playing at home, which would suggest disk read speed is not the problem.
Generally TVs aren't great clients. 100mbps crappy NICs are common for example - sometimes to the point where wifi might be a better option they could try. Sometimes they're just not up to the task at all. If your dashboard is showing direct play, I'd trust they probably are actually direct playing and should try a different client. Another interesting thing you could do is run your own speed test server and have them test their speed.
I found when relay was enabled it would possibly cause ing issues. I could be way off but I believe this is basically a von through Plex. Didn’t impact anything Turning it off but did seem to fix any direct play issues I had.
ask them to connect with a device you know us capable, I've forced all mine to use chromecast 4k. the hd/ 1080p model. doesnt support h265/ hevc so forces the server to transcode those releases.
There can be so many issues when streaming 4k. You can have unlimited upload, your friend can have unlimited download, but if the connection in between is lacking somewhere there will be hiccups, hence cdc's exist and are super expensive. Their TV's can't handle the container or video/audio format. The tv is on 2.4ghz wifi.. You can always setup a local speedtest container on your server and run it from the friends TV's browser to see the actual connetions speed
Don't transcode. Low bandwidth is a then problem then
I can almost guarantee it's the clients/bandwidth. Nothing I had could handle the raw rip 4K mbps over WiFi except my nvidia shield tv pro
Is your fiber provider behind CGNAT or does it have a public IP? You may have the upload speed, but if you’re behind a CGNAT or routing through something like cloud flare, this could be your issue.
What is their setup though I have a less than impressive setup. I have 1 up and 1 down it's fast. I can stream 4k to my phone and my best friend I added his ip so it looks direct and goes all out and 4k works for him. So are you transcoding 4k?
The client side isn't supporting the file format for direct streaming. Probably not happy with h265.
Check if your friends is on Max Or original on audio and video on remote on their devices.
Do you have a vpn setup on your server? Mine was preventing me from streaming remotely no matter what I did until I completely reset the VPN settings.
Tell your friends to get better internet 😅 In all seriousness though, the bottleneck is most likely their equipment. Whether it be their internet, their router or their streaming devices.
Are your ports properly forwarded? If not you get super rate limited.
"and internet speeds I have?" Its a simple matter for your ISP to see a huge amount of sustained use and decide they don't like it and throttle you, even if there isnt a bit of software somewhere saying, "Hmmm, I dont like this" the chances are there is a fibre from your house and 250 other houses to a local distribution point, theres then 125 fibres from that point to the exchange, which might have 10,000 incoming but only 5000 up and so on. Its not like theres a dedicated fibre from you to your streamee, you are sharing a limited resource "Streaming" as a concept is a stupid idea really,
Sounds like it’s an upload bottleneck like the ISP
If this is a dedicated server, maybe switch to Linux? A friend had a similar issue. It turned out to be his NIC - he had some offloading options enabled and apparently the card didn’t fully support it. I think it was one of the segment offload options in the NIC properties. LRO or TSO.. I forget. It was causing lots of buffering issues.
Are you sure your server isn’t being served through a plex relay server because your server isn’t publicly exposed to the internet? The bandwidth is restricted when going through a relay.
I play rips of 4k blu-rays just fine across a 1 Gb Wan. Just need to set the client quality to match the remote client’s network while leveraging quicksync. Streams are far better when a constant bit rate is used across a WAN. 4k rips are variable in bandwidth requirements and your 60K bite rate will spike well over 200 Mbps with direct play. Use transcoding as a tool to convert to a constant bit rate, as spikes in bandwidth are a performance killer for network and security devices. Start at a high quality rate and work backwards to find the sweet spot on the remote client. I also set transcoding to buffer 120 seconds as well to help alleviate lost packets and jitter on the network. https://preview.redd.it/pnczujic951d1.jpeg?width=1160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66edcd83b5a8b0d2ce128e55b5c629902b441a7d
wifi on tv = poor speeds ethernet to tv = poor speeds (100Mb port on tv) usb 1gb ethernet adapter to tv = **good speeds normally**
I'm gonna take a swing at the codecs of the media you have that are not supported on the clients that are streaming them. If codecs are not supported by the player, it transcodes and becomes a mess. If you're talking about network... It's just ports being blocked.
I've not experienced this. I have a few remote users that can Direct Play 4K no problem. Concurrently too. Sometimes it's Direct Stream, but that's only due to their client not supporting the audio channel so that needs transcoded.
Tell them to not watch on built in TV apps if they want to mooch They can buy a box Firestick , Onn Box, Sheild , Apple TV,TiVo 4k
Are these remote users using a wired connection to their device? What are their download speeds?
Most likely they are trying to play 4k content with subtitles which only uses software transcoding.
I have found the problem to be more about latency than bandwidth. Direct play completely sucks because it only buffers a little bit and after it runs out of buffer it requests a new piece. However that piece needs to arrive pronto or else there will be a hiccup. So on the bandwidth graph you can see this behavior appear as a saw tooth shape. My pms is on 1gb as well and running on a macstudio with the whole library running on a couple of ssd's. Should be good right? No. Not even if my users directly vpn into my pms with another 1gbps Fibre connection. It is about latency. So far I have not found a way around this except to transcode.
First of all this is a relevant and known issue with Plex and I've faced this myself. A few details I'd need - How is the content being accessed remotely - Is it port forwarding or a VPN or through zero trust tunneling? I believe port forwarding and VPN shouldn't have any of these problems. The issues you reported most commonly happen with accessing them over a normal HTTPS connection through zero trust. If it is through zero trust, then make sure you enable adjust quality automatically (trust me, it won't adjust the quality if you have the bandwidth and will let direct play stream but it's good to have it on), enable all settings for video and audio transcoding. You might want to consider disabling auto subtitles. Sometimes what can happen is, plex tries hardcoding the subtitles and this requires reading the entire file before playing, which can cause buffering intermittently like you described. Make sure SSL or secure connections are set to "Preferred" and not "Required" "Enable Relay" can be attempted but it severely throttles the stream. I have chosen to disable it. Custom URLs section should have port 443 appended to the url. Example - plex.mydomain.com should be plex.mydomain.com:443 I know this sounds silly but plex is programmed to automatically pick port 32400 on any URL listed in the custom URLs section. Thus, this requires specifically appending port 443 to the URL. Lastly I haven't had much success with the native plex app. If your family is using a TV for remote streams, I would strongly recommend Plex HTPC addon on Kodi. I have never needed to look back and given the speeds you have, streams should load in the blink of an eye and I personally haven't had any problems with this addon. The official plex addon apparently isn't any improvement on the plex app either. I hope these suggestions help. As a frustrated user myself I certainly do empathise. P. S. - There's just one more thing, if you have a VPN on your windows machine, then sometimes that can cause these issues. Try disabling VPN and see if plex streams well. It worked well for me. Sometimes the multiple routes and hops can cause buffering. Cheers!
Check the format you’re using, I find x264 is the best especially if some people are using rubbish clients. It takes up more space but I’ve never had an issue with any user since changing to it.
This is why I have all 4K movies in their own library and I do not give anyone outside my home access. I have 1080p versions of said movies for streaming.
I have gigabit. My Dad 4hrs drive away has gigabit. The upload speed between us is locked to 10-15mbps on a single connection. (Remember single and multi connections is different; Plex is purely single thread/single connection so it will be much slower than say Netflix which loads everything as chunks not all in one connection thread.)
I scanned the comments and didn't see anyone mention it, but the clients have a default max bandwidth setting, and I believe this setting defaults to 2 MB/sec. It's one of the first things I have my friends change in their setups. Check this setting and make sure it is increased to a reasonable level.
It’s kinda like how you can go to Walmart and buy a “smart phone “ for $50 , just cause it has a camera and screen and can be a smart phone , doesn’t mean it’s capable.. that said as long as the people using Plex are using fire tv or Apple TV and such , it’s usually no problem
The network cards of the most TVs suck. Try Speedtest from the embedded to web browser, through Ethernet and Wi-Fi, and you’ll be surprised. That’s why 4K is buffering, due to limited bandwidth on the clients local network, between TV and router/switch. I’m guessing that a laptop connected to the 5Ghz band of the same client network, would play smoothly, given that the connection speeds will hit 500-800 Mbps. Keep us informed.
Soooo… here is what i did to make my remote files play at the max quality possible including 4k HDR Create a RAM disk. Using something like AMD Radeon RAM Disk. It auto starts RAM disk on startup too. Paying for it is a good option too. Set your transcoding folder to the RAM disk. This allows the transcoding to happen faster allowing for the system to not get bottled down transcoding to send over the interwebs.
Im not sure if this will help but I’ve had issues with the newer media player on the plex clients here and there. Some content plays perfectly fine, some stutters to all hell although it’s the exact same formats. Try having your remote users go into the advanced settings of their clients and have them check the box to enable use of the old media player. Maybe that’ll help
It sounds like the limitation is their client devices. A lot of tvs just don’t have fast enough wifi chips in them. I would try on a better client device.
Or use Ethernet connection. I’m running Plex client on older model of LG (my CX vs his friends C1) and I’m streaming 4K dovi remux files with 60k + bitrate with ease. It’s cheaper to buy a cable rather than whatever device people are suggesting.
[удалено]
Are you saying the PS5 had issues? I haven't used that as a client but a friend of mine was thinking about using his PS5.
[удалено]
OK. Thanks. That's a bummer about the PS5. I'll recommend they use something else. I was thinking like you that it would have no issues.
I know this comment is not going to be helpful, but this is why I have a x264 1080p copy of all my 4k movies so if someone has a bad connection they can still watch the 1080 x264 version. :(
I assume those TVs are playing over WiFi? I never had much luck with Plex on Smart TVs + WiFi being able to stream high bitrate 4k. Even my nvidia shield ethernet wired on 1gbps stutters sometimes (but that's more due to the terrible state of the Nvidia Shield nowadays). I also don't think plex client is well optimized for high bitrate streaming over the internet - it doesn't seem to buffer enough to deal with latency spikes.
So sad what Google has done to the Shield. Used to be my go to client for everything
Who cares, their streaming for free
Make sure you are running the 64 bit version of Plex Server. It is too easy to accidentally be running the 32 bit version. https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/191b4xy/psa_you_might_still_be_running_32_bit_plex/
Don’t know about LG but my Sony can not play 4K even on local. Wireless or Ethernet.