Best hardware to provide content to Plex / Roku

[ClicketyClack]

UPDATE: I've been thinking about all of this since this post. I considered pretty much all the options and ended up buying a more-than-capable Amazon refurb to use as an HTPC for less than half the cost of building one. Everything is in that one box, which has an ethernet connection to my LAN. The performance increase is absolutely amazing. Every video launches instantly. (I don't have anything 4K, so I don't know how that would work.)

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I am in need of more transcoding horsepower than my very-long-in-the-tooth HTPC is able to provide. Mobo with ATI Radeon HD4290 graphics, AMD Phenom II CPU and maxed memory at 8GB.

Plex buffering the launch of most .265 1080p videos with subtitles for 5-10 seconds is becoming a nuisance.

I find myself sitting on the fence regarding the best approach and am hoping for some real-world equipment scenarios that will help me make a decision. Specifics would be very helpful to me.

[Notes]

I don't have any remote users and it's only my wife and me in the house. 12TB TOTAL for media should be plenty, (which is an upgrade from my current 6TB that has just under 1TB free.)

I would guess that some flavor of RAID is what I would want in order to not have to worry as much about a drive crash or content loss. I would just have to Google to figure out which RAID and how many drives are needed for it. (3?)

I've thought: New HTPC in a tower case with sufficient drive bays and a RAID controller of some sort, NUC & NAS, ???

Thanks in advance!

 

[DQ]

I have been using Plex with my media collection for years. Here is where I ended up over time.

I have a dedicated Plex server but it is not a HTPC it just sits on the network. It is dedicated because I have a tuner card in it that an antenna hooks to and because I wanted decent transcoding power. Which right now happens on an old Intel CPU and an Nvidia 730.

For space I use a NAS. The Plex server accesses the NAS over the network. I used to use the dedicated Plex server for storage but PC RAID stinks and is unreliable compared to a NAS in my opinion. Now technically I could run Plex on my NAS but I choose not to for the reasons of transcode power and the tuner card.

Now the way I view the collection is via Roku's on every TV using the Plex app on the Roku.

All these happened over time I did not start out like this day one and everything I mentioned does come with a pretty decent cost.

Hope this helps. Happy to give more detail if you want/need it.

 

[ClicketyClack]

Thank you! I'm inclined to think that a NAS might be the way to go. If it's OK to ask, what NAS do you have? I know that Plex has their NAS support spreadsheet, but there is a large number of them listed and I'm struggling to figure out brand and model.

Thanks again for your reply.

 

[DQ]

Thank you! I'm inclined to think that a NAS might be the way to go. If it's OK to ask, what NAS do you have? I know that Plex has their NAS support spreadsheet, but there is a large number of them listed and I'm struggling to figure out brand and model.

Thanks again for your reply.

Sure no problem at all. Now again, keep in mind I COULD run Plex on my NAS as a VM but I do not. I just use it as storage. I have a QNAP TS-653D. But as mentioned that model can indeed run Plex and it can transcode on it as well.

 

[ClicketyClack]

Sure no problem at all. Now again, keep in mind I COULD run Plex on my NAS as a VM but I do not. I just use it as storage. I have a QNAP TS-653D. But as mentioned that model can indeed run Plex and it can transcode on it as well.

Thank you! I'll check that one out. I can read and have heard of Google but assembling all of that information in the hope of making the best choices is a little overwhelming. Getting first-hand experience such as yours is super helpful!

EDIT: (of course...)

Availability: Out of stock

SKU # TS-653D-8G-US

 

[DQ]

I totally understand, it's A LOT of info and a ton of variables to it all.

 

[mmdavis]

Thank you! I'll check that one out. I can read and have heard of Google but assembling all of that information in the hope of making the best choices is a little overwhelming. Getting first-hand experience such as yours is super helpful!

EDIT: (of course...)

Availability: Out of stock

SKU # TS-653D-8G-US

I am using a QNAP 453-D 8GB with 4 14TB drives. It comes with Plex on it.

 

[cartman0208]

Plex buffering the launch of most .265 1080p videos with subtitles for 5-10 seconds is becoming a nuisance.

What format are the subtitles? If it was .srt, no transcoding sould be necessary.

That's the way I went ... whenever possible I want Direct Play, especially on Hi res content.
That way I can have everything running on the Synology NAS with very few CPU power needed.
If you need to transcode, the current models feature a Ryzen 1600b, which should be sufficient for at least one smooth 1080p transcoding

 

[ClicketyClack]

What format are the subtitles? If it was .srt, no transcoding sould be necessary.

That's the way I went ... whenever possible I want Direct Play, especially on Hi res content.
That way I can have everything running on the Synology NAS with very few CPU power needed.
If you need to transcode, the current models feature a Ryzen 1600b, which should be sufficient for at least one smooth 1080p transcoding

I have a mix of content, but ALL of it has .SRT subtitles that I manually added to the video file using MKVToolNix - .MKV format. I'm not positive what's going on, but I can count on the .265 .MKV video to have a slow start. Plex typically sticks on 33% before it finally jumps ahead and plays the video.

A capable NAS certainly sounds like the way to go.

 

[ClicketyClack]

I am using a QNAP 453-D 8GB with 4 14TB drives. It comes with Plex on it.

Thank you!

 

[cartman0208]

I also have my stuff with embedded subtitles, some of it with image-subtitles ... if I activate those, Plex wants to transcode.
SRT on the other hand works with Direct Play, always.

Unfortunately transcoding also depends on the playback device.
There are still some devices which can't (or refuse to) play H265 natively.
I noticed with my son's iPad lately.
But my Samsung 2019 model direct plays all of it.

 

[ClicketyClack]

But my Samsung 2019 model direct plays all of it.

You've introduced something that I would have never thought to consider a potential playback issue, the TV. I'm still using a Samsung LN46C650L1F that was made in 2010. I would have assumed that the TV would simply display whatever gets passed to it, but apparently it has to be capable itself? I'll have to add this to my list of 923 items to Google.

 

[DQ]

Plex also sometimes has a little heartburn with 265 in my experience. Although it seems to be related to titles that were sourced from DVDs that were transcoded to 265. So maybe it's my process and not Plex but I stopped using 265 for anything not native 265.

 

[ClicketyClack]

Plex also sometimes has a little heartburn with 265 in my experience. Although it seems to be related to titles that were sourced from DVDs that were transcoded to 265. So maybe it's my process and not Plex but I stopped using 265 for anything not native 265.

You're right, at this point I would bet that it's a Plex thing. I installed the current version of JellyFin to run alongside Plex and found that the videos that Plex needs to buffer for 10 seconds or so, JellyFin launches within a second or two.

So now it becomes, "do I throw hardware at the problem or use JellyFin - even though I have a lifetime Plex Pass?" AND, would more horsepower even resolve the buffering if it's a core Plex software problem with 265? Aargh!

The gotcha, or at least one of them, is that although JellyFin technically works well, I've gotten used to Plex and find it hard to get along with the differences between it and JellyFin. First world problems, I guess.

Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[DQ]

Personally I think it is a situation you can solve with what you have you just must find the core problem. There are multiple devices involved here and anyone of them could have incorrect settings that might fix your problem. I have several devices in the the chain in my case and I had to dink with all of them to make it all play nice together. Especially for 4k titles.

Now in your case IF something needs to be transcoded it's going to happen on general CPU. Plex DOES do hardware encoding (which is MUCH faster) but it will only do so on Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. If you look at the Plex dashboard during your playing of a title it will tell you what's going on. You can also install Tautulli which will give you even more info.

It could also be a network speed thing as well on either end if you are going across your network from Plex server to Roku. The dashboard in Plex or Tautulli can give you some info there about that.

What you could possibly do to help you out is drop something like an Nvidia 730 GPU in your server. Plex WILL transcode on that and it while it's a weak GPU for games it does OK with transcoding.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[somervilleslicer]

I run Plex on a NUC and it's fine for me. Storage is a NAS so the Plex server itself doesn't need to be physically big for me. Plex app on Roku is the best Plex experience I've seen. Works great on Ultra and Stick.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6770HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz

8GB RAM

 

[cartman0208]

I'd like my chain to contain as few devices as possible, so with my NAS containing the Plex server and my TV featuring the Plex Client natively I achieve that goal
And I only need ONE remote for that

After a short learning phase you can handle it without watching

You're right, at this point I would bet that it's a Plex thing.

You can check that by using the old Plex app on your PC ... it mimics a Smart TV interface and will direct play when possible.
Search for Plex Media Player v2.58. It's no longer maintained and the most recent version is from around May 2020

 

[ClicketyClack]

I'd like my chain to contain as few devices as possible, so with my NAS containing the Plex server and my TV featuring the Plex Client natively I achieve that goal
And I only need ONE remote for that View attachment 70169

After a short learning phase you can handle it without watching


You can check that by using the old Plex app on your PC ... it mimics a Smart TV interface and will direct play when possible.
Search for Plex Media Player v2.58. It's no longer maintained and the most recent version is from around May 2020

Thank you again, I'll check that out! My Roku 4 Ultra remote lets me control the TV and of course has all the apps that I want on it, so I've achieved the One Remote to Bind Them All situation.

 

[DQ]

I'd like my chain to contain as few devices as possible, so with my NAS containing the Plex server and my TV featuring the Plex Client natively I achieve that goal
And I only need ONE remote for that View attachment 70169

After a short learning phase you can handle it without watching


You can check that by using the old Plex app on your PC ... it mimics a Smart TV interface and will direct play when possible.
Search for Plex Media Player v2.58. It's no longer maintained and the most recent version is from around May 2020

Personally I have always found Roku Smart TV's very lacking (processing power stinks which makes them slow). Even on those I will use a Roku stick or an Ultra. I initially did that just because they were faster and less bothersome but once I started stream my own 4k titles through Plex I decided to stick with them because that seems to beat up a Roku pretty good so I always thought the TV would just give me trouble. But with that said I never tested it, might do that for the heck of it.