Backing up DVD / blu ray & CD collection?

[+BudMan MVC]

No the dashboard!

 

When something is playing it will give you details - so you bandwidth used, is it transcoding or direct, etc. etc.

 

You can get to it from settings, or from the activity icon top right.  When your on the dashboard you can click the little menu icon to see more details of what is playing.

 

Sure you "could" run it on a pi... But I just run it on my nas.. https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS918+

 

I do have lots of 1080p stuff off blueray... But I don't keep it at native bitrate.. I normally trim them down.. Just recently really bumping stuff up to higher stuff since my old plex was running on N40L microserver in a VM.. And couldn't really do 1080, had 720 etc..

 

So here is something playing at higher bitrate

 

So that is 22Mbps bitrate (avg)

Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Commercial name                          : HDR10
Format profile                           : Main 10@L5.1@High
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 25 min
Bit rate                                 : 22.0 Mb/s
Width                                    : 2 968 pixels
Height                                   : 2 160 pixels

 

But see how the bitrate is all over the place - high then low.. See that low place there - the credits were playing, so low bitrate needed.. Then you see higher peaks.  And lets not forget the bitrate of the audio.. And extra overhead.. See how plex calls it 36mbps..

 

Here is the audio of that file

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 25 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 384 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
 

And you see here its up and down, letting it play in the background in another tab

 

So while your movie might be at bitrate X on avg.. Maybe this problem your having issue with in it is much higher bitrate area and your network or cpu or whatever can not handle it.. You could see much higher spikes depending on the avg bitrate of the movie.. You see there 57Mbps, see run high at 95mbps for some time depending on the movie..  My TV has limit of 100mbps interface.. So depending on buffer the player might have, buffer your plex server built up if transcoding, etc.  You might be able to ride through high peaks - maybe not, etc.. Notice that mine is transcoding that down from 4k hevc to 1080p - since my player (browser in this case) and my pc monitor doesn't do 4k.. and notice the little (hw) means its transcoding it from the 4k to 1080 in hardware vs just pure cpu.. But I don't think server will use hardware transcode unless your plex pass subscriber..

 

Do you have this option in the advanced settings under transcoder.. Pretty sure you have to be running 64bit version as well.. Did you download 64 or 32bit?

 

Such info can help you figure out what might be the problem.. And sure lowering the bitrate of the movie could help you play it fine. Or maybe change up the container or format so you can direct play it vs transcode it, etc. etc..

 

As I said in the beginning this is a rabbit whole that will suck up your time and money!  But it is a FUN hobby!!!

 

I gave a new friend access to my server the other day - she was blown away with it.. She was watching something at 1080p on her 65 inch.. She thought it was 4k   Hard to really tell difference 4k and 1080 for most people.. She watch the whole movie without a hitch, while I was also streaming to my son out in CA, etc. I texted here picture from tautualli dashboard showing her it wasn't 4k, etc.

 

So here is that same sort of info from the dashboard in tautulli

 

To be honest working out the sort of issue your having now is part of the fun of the hobby.. Learning to live with specific restrictions placed upon you by hardware or network.. Then either working around them or spending the $ to get more hardware... Remember the pic I posted a while back of your "future" plex setup

 

Dude I saw a guy post on reddit the other day that he was over 10k movies and 100TB of space... So yeah this can really get out of hand if your not careful...

 

If your not up for the task and the learning curve that will be required.. Then you might want to stick to just popping your media into some player connected to your tv..  Or you could throw Money at it!!!  Which is always an option.. IE the pic of the crazy home rack with TBs of storage and rocket ship of server to play his media   Cost $$$ I am sure...

 

There are all kinds of pics like this

 

If you had a setup like that - pretty sure you wouldn't have buffering issues hehehe

 

edit:  Final note - here I fired up movie in plex player vs firefox on my pc.. Now you see that switched to direct PLAY vs stream... Also notice the SPIKE.. 240 Mbps at the get go.. So that means can jump right in.. If your bandwidth is limited that there might be buffering at the start or resume, etc..

 

[Technique]

Look i'm not trying to be difficult here or anything. I would love to be able to provide you with what you need to help me & i'd love to be able to do it first time so that you don't have this vision of me as some difficult [insert 5-letter-word that the mods banned me from using] but i'm going where (i think you) go and mine looks different.

 

 

Is it because i'm not premium and perhaps you are and those are premium features?

 

 

Annoyingly i'm playing the movie right now (obviously) to create the log that you're asking for and it doesn't seem to be buffering at all. I've gone through all the scenes that were pretty unwatchable at the weekend and it sailed through them. I tried on both weekend days and they were horrendous both times.

 

I found your other screenshot and took a look for comparison (like i said, i'd love to answer your questions first time so at least i can get one...) and it appears my Plex is different to yours...

 

 

Our entries are slightly different as you can see but also i don't have those check boxes that you do.

 

As for did i download 32 or 64 bit i'm assuming you mean Plex and not Windows. To be honest i wasn't aware there were different kinds so i couldn't honestly tell you. I would GUESS that i would've chosen 64bit as i tend to if i see an option but i couldn't tell you that with any degree of confidence really because it could've just as easily been the 32bit version.

 

 

 

I do want to discuss with you a little about your trimming of your movies but i don't want to be tackling too many topics at once. For now i'll try and stick with the problem rather than the finer points.

 

And i'm not totally put off by this hiccup. I don't like stumbling blocks but it is rewarding when you work through them. At the moment all it's costing me is time so i don't mind investing it and trying to learn. I may not be the fastest learner and i appreciate i may be a frustrating student but i'll get there eventually.

[+BudMan MVC]

You are correct in that maybe the advanced feature of the now playing dashboard is prem feature.. I am almost sure that the Hardware Decoding is a prem feature..

 

Your on the dashboard in your shot - but you should see this little menu item to be able to toggle advanced showing of what is playing.

 

 

Or maybe its your just on slightly older version - I am on the latest beta, actually new one came out today.. But prem does allow you to run latest betas

 

 

Pretty sure you can get a free 30 day prem pass... Or you could just buy 1 month of prem which is $5.. To help you troubleshoot your issue.

[Technique]

I'm about to hit the sack as i'm well overdue bed time with the early start that i have so short and sweet on this one...

 

"Version 1.14.1.5488"

 

Apparently that is Plex 'up to date', although clearly this isn't correct. I also didn't have that wiggly thing on the right when playing a movie. I'll look at a free pass tomorrow when i get home from work. I'm curious now why all of a sudden the movie didn't buffer tonight after it was sooooooo bad at the weekend.

[Circaflex]

1 hour ago, Technique said:

I'm about to hit the sack as i'm well overdue bed time with the early start that i have so short and sweet on this one...

 

"Version 1.14.1.5488"

 

Apparently that is Plex 'up to date', although clearly this isn't correct. I also didn't have that wiggly thing on the right when playing a movie. I'll look at a free pass tomorrow when i get home from work. I'm curious now why all of a sudden the movie didn't buffer tonight after it was sooooooo bad at the weekend.

That is the most up to date version, unless you use the BETAs. That is the version I run. The advance piece budman refers to on the now playing screen also is a premium feature.

 

Actually, even with beta I dont see the feature budman is referring to, budman what addons or plugins do you use with plex?

 

edit nvm, I had to restart plex for it to show. WOW, I shouldve payed the 5 bucks sooner, this information is great and the hardware transcoding is excellent!

Edited March 13, 2019 by Circaflex

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah I have been buying the year subscriptions for a couple of years now... Keep thinking I would get a deal offer for the lifetime... But should prob just bite the bullet and get the lifetime sub..

[+BudMan MVC]

11 hours ago, Technique said:

of a sudden the movie didn't buffer tonight after it was sooooooo bad at the weekend.

Because you were having network issues and the bitrate was too high for your network?  Your PC was being doing other things and having a hard time transcoding it? etc. etc. etc... Lots and lots of variables - not a lot of info!  We don't even know if this being transcoded, or what your sending out the network for speed wise.. All we know these are high bit rate movies over wireless.. Yeah that is going to have issues..

 

Maybe when you have your problem something else is using up your wireless.. You do understand its shared bandwidth right. etc..

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Yeah given that the file played okay more recently, it probably narrows it down to either the bandwidth of the network or your machine falling over when trying to transcode. 

 

You may (or may not have) mentioned this, but is the machine dedicated to Plex or it is used for other things too?

 

I think you mentioned that your PC and TV are not connected via wireless, so I'd be surprised if bandwidth was an issue (unless it's 100/10). 

 

It seems like your hardware can play the files properly without any other issues, but if you consistently see these sort of issues, you can probably look to reduce the size/quality of your rips

[+BudMan MVC]

If PC and TV are wired.. Then shouldn't be a network issue, unless again your network is not up to it.. Or one of the devices is connected at low speed.. Be surprised if TV had gig, almost all of them are 10/100 interfaces..

 

The thread is HUGE and has been going on for what couple of months now - so I do not recall the connectivity, and don't have the motivation to look through 19 pages of thread

[Technique]

9 hours ago, BudMan said:

 

 

The thread is HUGE and has been going on for what couple of months now - so I do not recall the connectivity, and don't have the motivation to look through 19 pages of thread

That's fine and i genuinely don't mind, so long as other people don't start getting all upset when i don't recall something they said on their 3rd post on page 7 in the 5th paragraph

 

But yeah my connection is wired. PC to the router, router to some hub, TV to the hub. All cat6 cable. I'm not trying to say that makes a difference but just throwing in extra info IN CASE it makes a difference.

 

And to try shed extra light, there are other things connected to the hub yes but these are like the Wii U which is turned off.

 

Also when i'm watching a movie there's nothing else happening on the network. My PC will be doing nothing else. I'll have no other program running. We're not on our phones or tablets (obviously) so i can't think of any other drain on the resources.

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

12 hours ago, Technique said:

PC to the router, router to some hub, TV to the hub. All cat6 cable.

Huh?  You have a different router then your ISP device?  So you have this?

 

 

Dude that could be a HUGE issue for connectivity!!!  And could force relay mode for connectivity from your player (tv) to your server..  Your in the UK right, your not talking about the smarthub like here

https://www.bt.com/broadband/smart-hub/

 

Or do you mean you have everything connected to a "switch" hanging off your router.

 

[Technique]

Did you edit that second part in later on? I could've sworn i never saw that there when i checked replies on the thread this morning. Maybe i just missed it. Anyway i never saw it so i've just painted up my home network so i'll post it anyway...

 

 

Not as fancy as yours but hopefully it makes sense.

 

As i said, there's other things running off the switch like the Wii U but these are turned off at the time.

 

Final note - i know i said hub earlier. It was only when looking for it in my invoices that i realised the correct term is switch so that's my mistake. Although yes i do have a BT smart hub actually but that's just my modem/router.

 

This is it: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/5-port-tp-link-tl-sg1005d-gigabit-10-1000-desktop-switch

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah no worries just need to clarify terms, especially when not from the same region of the English speakers..

 

And now a days they user the term hub for lots of ######, but us old time networking guys hub is something different , etc..

 

So great we are all on the same page then.. All you devices are on the same L2/L3 and that is not part of the problem all connected with a wire.. But I would bet large piles of money that your TV is only 100/10 and not gig.  We all deal with it, not an issue just info in the troubleshooting process.

 

So did you enable free trial, or pay for a month (cost of 1 beer) so we can continue troubleshooting your issue by getting some actual info about your connection and what your plex server is serving up, etc..  Since you don't seem able to follow time stamping in a text file to see if there was anything reported by the server when you had a blimp in it serving you a file.. 

 

BTW:  Before you complain about buying "prem for a month for $5".. You do understand if I ever come over to where your at you owe me like a whole night of drinking

 

edit:  Looking back on this thread.. I should of prob just not left it alone   Don't say I did not warn you from the git go that this was a rabbit hole.. It will suck up your time, our money, your soul if you will.. I am currently sucking up cpu cycles shrinking ###### on my plex.. Because its better to spend cpu time then buy HDD space.  Unless you want to join the hey I have X TB of space crowd

 

edit2:  And then once you share out your sever - you run into this problem..

 

 

There is an update avail.. An everything in my "soul" ok maybe its the beers an bourbons been drinking for hours telling me to update.. But then again prob be better to do it later so you don't get a call/text

 

edit3: and just when you say ah well.. F "X" only be a few seconds..

 

 

You get billy to jump in.. So sorry I don't feel your pain about your stream to your 1 TV blipped.. I have multiple friend and fam off mine that always complain if it "blips"

[Technique]

On 3/15/2019 at 2:28 AM, BudMan said:

So great we are all on the same page then.. All you devices are on the same L2/L3 and that is not part of the problem all connected with a wire.. But I would bet large piles of money that your TV is only 100/10 and not gig.  We all deal with it, not an issue just info in the troubleshooting process.

Is there a way i can find out what it is?

 

On 3/15/2019 at 2:28 AM, BudMan said:

 

So did you enable free trial, or pay for a month (cost of 1 beer) so we can continue troubleshooting your issue by getting some actual info about your connection and what your plex server is serving up, etc..  Since you don't seem able to follow time stamping in a text file to see if there was anything reported by the server when you had a blimp in it serving you a file.. 

I haven't yet enabled it no. What i have been trying to do is to get it to act up again so that i can find the entry in the log at the specific timestamp as you suggested earlier...

...thing is, it's no longer acting up. It's playing pretty flawlessly.

 

Now after it did act up for days i ended up pressing things within Plex, some of which i forget. I think one was concerning optimizing.

Now i've just tonight watched a (poor) movie and when fiddling around with subtitles since i struggle to hear clearly the audio i noticed the picture quality...

 

Now in that image i actually have 20Mbps selected but that's only because whatever is selected doesn't show clearly in a photo. What was selected by default and throughout was 12Mbps which made me think - i'm sure i changed some setting for Plex to auto-select quality. I do know that weeks ago movies i watched were at their original quality.

 

SO........basically what my waffling on is trying to ask is could this be why the movies are now playing fine, or not?

 

On 3/15/2019 at 2:28 AM, BudMan said:

 

BTW:  Before you complain about buying "prem for a month for $5".. You do understand if I ever come over to where your at you owe me like a whole night of drinking

🤣 no problem. Hope you like large measures

On 3/15/2019 at 2:28 AM, BudMan said:

 

edit:  Looking back on this thread.. I should of prob just not left it alone   Don't say I did not warn you from the git go that this was a rabbit hole.. It will suck up your time, our money, your soul if you will.. I am currently sucking up cpu cycles shrinking ###### on my plex.. Because its better to spend cpu time then buy HDD space.  Unless you want to join the hey I have X TB of space crowd

See i can handle time and money within reason. By the time i've done everything in the day that needs doing and i have time to actually sit down i'm looking at 8:30pm-9:00pm. That gives me about a 1:00-1:30hr window to research anything i need to outside of a weekend (or mainly a Sunday since i work most Saturday's also). As i've been on my feet since 6:30am sometimes i'm just so kufced that i don't want to do anything that requires thinking - hence why some of these things take time for me to do (i'll save a lot for the weekend/Sunday). I don't mind putting in the time as i'm still enjoying this. I can picture the end goal, i'd like to get there and i'm enjoying it so far.

 

I probably will need to look in to shrinking some movies at some point though.

 

[+BudMan MVC]

Why would you not be watching them in original quality?  Again if you would spend the less than a cost of pint for a 30 days of info!!  You would be able to SEE exactly if your transcoding or direct play/steam, etc. etc..

 

I even think you can get 30 days for freaking FREE!!!  So while you might only have a couple of hours a day to fiddle with it... Enable it so when you do get the 1 hour trmw to fiddle your not having to day yet again you didn't enable prem..

 

If your not watching in original quality then your plex is transcoding on the fly.. And yeah watching with subs, unless they are hard coded is going to force an on the fly transcode.. For most hardware and most types of subs.  AGain - until you go prem, or setup tautailli, etc. we have no idea what is actually going on.. Unless you want to did through the logs - which seems is like asking you to translate ancient greek or something

[Technique]

14 hours ago, BudMan said:

Why would you not be watching them in original quality? 

 

If your not watching in original quality then your plex is transcoding on the fly..

Well as it's Sunday i hope to have a treat for you later I just wanted to get this one here on its own post....

 

I think an important point here is ... i didn't even notice it wasn't blu ray quality. I've been watching blu ray rips in original quality on there & they've been great. If i hadn't been struggling with the audio last night then i wouldn't even have noticed that the quality was 2 notches down.

Now whether that's important or not i don't know. You'll have a better idea than me. Does that mean i can then convert my files (let's say using Handbrake) and so long as i don't reduce it too much then i wont notice a difference & it *should* play smoother/more consistently? Who knows, not me.

 

Another key point is that after i got Pd off last week i went changing settings and i probably should've noted what i changed as now i can't remember.

 

As said, i have tried to trigger the buffering so that i can get the log entry but for now the videos are playing fine so i'm guessing it's pointless telling you about a log of a video that is having no issues.

 

Now don't mention that premium thing again until today's over with

[+BudMan MVC]

Yup if you could not notice the difference - then yup tells you could save space by shrinking them up front, vs taking up the space and then transcoding them down on the fly.

[Technique]

Ok here we go.

 

 

Now i started the movie which was (like last night) 2 notches down on the quality so i put it up to original quality which i think was 30MB or something & started playing in the section where it was buffering last week.

 

This time i didn't get the 3 yellow dots on the screen but it did start acting up. The best way i can describe it is it was as though i was quickly hitting pause-play-pause-play for a second or so and then it'd play the movie fine before randomly doing the same pause-play thing again.

 

 

^^^ Right that's where i finished typing as my takeaway arrived. 😂 At some point during me eating it i got the 3 yellow dots (i'd left the movie running). I noticed this at 6:49pm so i've no idea at what specific time it totally buffered & then stopped other than it'd be after 6:37pm which is when i came upstairs to begin this post.

I consulted the log file named [Plex Media Server.1] There seems to be 6 of them. I looked at Plex Media Server but since this had entries up to 6:58pm when i came upstairs and Plex Media Server.1 ended at 6:44pm i'll assume that's when the movie stopped.

I selected the final minute of that entry ........... which lead to 128 pages. So sorry but i've only copied the final 2 pages.

 

Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.593 [7576] VERBOSE - We want 60 seconds ahead, last returned was 850.100111 and max is 909.117456.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.593 [7576] DEBUG - Session eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk (3) is unthrottling
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.603 [7576] VERBOSE - It took 0.0 sec to serialize a list with 0 elements.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.603 [4568] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:65514] 206 PUT /video/:/transcode/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/afba4df5-d36a-4f5d-8d6a-2b9c72b278ca/progress?progress=15.1&size=-22&remaining=22202&vdec_packets=21857&vdec_sw_ok=21850&vdec_hw_status=0 (11 live) 8ms 355 bytes (pipelined: 2504) (range: bytes=0-) 
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.603 [0204] DEBUG - [Transcoder] Throttle - Getting back to work.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.874 [9728] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:52985 (Loopback)] POST /video/:/transcode/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/afba4df5-d36a-4f5d-8d6a-2b9c72b278ca/seglist (11 live) Signed-in
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.875 [9728] VERBOSE -  * Transfer-Encoding => chunked
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.875 [9728] VERBOSE -  * User-Agent => Lavf/58.9.100
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.875 [9728] VERBOSE -  * Accept => */*
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.875 [9728] VERBOSE -  * Connection => close
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.875 [9728] VERBOSE -  * Host => 127.0.0.1:32400
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.875 [9728] VERBOSE -  * Icy-MetaData => 1
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.879 [9728] DEBUG - Transcoder segment range: 0 - 909
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.882 [4568] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:52985] 200 POST /video/:/transcode/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/afba4df5-d36a-4f5d-8d6a-2b9c72b278ca/seglist (11 live) 8ms 166 bytes
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.013 [4568] VERBOSE - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.013 [4568] VERBOSE - Auth: Came in with the master token, authorization succeeded.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.014 [8296] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:65514 (Loopback)] PUT /video/:/transcode/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/afba4df5-d36a-4f5d-8d6a-2b9c72b278ca/progress?progress=15.1&size=-22&remaining=21931&vdec_packets=21876&vdec_sw_ok=21869&speed=1.5&vdec_hw_status=0 (11 live) Signed-in Token ()
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.014 [8296] VERBOSE -  * User-Agent => Lavf/58.9.100
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * Accept => */*
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * Range => bytes=0-
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * Connection => keep-alive
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * Host => 127.0.0.1:32400
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * Icy-MetaData => 1
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * X-Plex-Token => xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * progress => 15.1
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * size => -22
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * remaining => 21931
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * vdec_packets => 21876
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.015 [8296] VERBOSE -  * vdec_sw_ok => 21869
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.016 [8296] VERBOSE -  * speed => 1.5
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.016 [8296] VERBOSE -  * vdec_hw_status => 0
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.016 [8296] VERBOSE - We want 60 seconds ahead, last returned was 850.100111 and max is 910.118456.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.016 [8296] DEBUG - Session eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk (3) is throttling
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.016 [8296] VERBOSE - It took 0.0 sec to serialize a list with 0 elements.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.017 [4792] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:65514] 206 PUT /video/:/transcode/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/afba4df5-d36a-4f5d-8d6a-2b9c72b278ca/progress?progress=15.1&size=-22&remaining=21931&vdec_packets=21876&vdec_sw_ok=21869&speed=1.5&vdec_hw_status=0 (11 live) 3ms 371 bytes (pipelined: 2506) (range: bytes=0-) 
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.018 [8288] DEBUG - [Transcoder] Throttle - Going into sloth mode.
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.545 [4792] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.66:51200] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/base/00849.ts (10 live) 1489ms 5392592 bytes (pipelined: 850)
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.545 [4792] VERBOSE - [IDLE] Removing (1->0) work item http_download - /video/:/transcode/universal/session/eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk/base/00849.ts
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.545 [4792] VERBOSE - [IDLE] * http_download - /player/proxy/poll?deviceClass=pc&protocolVersion=1&protocolCapabilities=timeline%2Cplayback%2Cnavigation%2Cmirror%2Cplayqueues&timeout=1&X-Plex-No-Cache=15528474782261510&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=9kh88cvo3rbmlsorr6iiprju&X-Plex-Device-Screen-Resolution=1280x720&X-Plex-Version=3.13.21&X-Plex-Product=Plex%20for%20Smart%20TVs&X-Plex-Platform=Smart%20TV%20Alliance&X-Plex-Platform-Version=3.0&X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - 1 active item(s)
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.545 [4792] VERBOSE - [IDLE] * http_download - /player/proxy/poll?deviceClass=pc&protocolVersion=1&protocolCapabilities=timeline%2Cplayback%2Cnavigation%2Cmirror%2Cplayqueues&timeout=1&X-Plex-Product=Plex%20Web&X-Plex-Version=3.77.4&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=bum7hn4irbdwhtgolxb5q1mq&X-Plex-Platform=Firefox&X-Plex-Platform-Version=60.0&X-Plex-Sync-Version=2&X-Plex-Device=Windows&X-Plex-Device-Name=Firefox&X-Plex-Device-Screen-Resolution=1920x946%2C1920x1080&X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&X-Plex-Language=en - 1 active item(s)
Mar 17, 2019 18:44:47.545 [4792] VERBOSE - [IDLE] * transcoder - eiujogeg09pjsjorehga1ydk - 1 active item(s)

 

I do note on my image there it says transcoding and yours says direct streaming so there's a difference that way and i guess this is possibly the problem. How to change mine to direct streaming i don't know.

 

 

Anyway i hope this extra info helps answer some questions?

Edited March 17, 2019 by Technique

[+BudMan MVC]

And your transcode is not even in hardware.. Its all software..

 

And your transcoding down your DTS-HD MA 5.1 to AAC something... So your plex machine is doing a lot of work.. It has to do with player not able to direct stream/play the format the media is in..

 

Looks like you got prem, so make sure you enable hardware transcode.

 

You want to try and make sure your doing hardware

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

 

edit:

Mar 17, 2019 18:44:46.593 [7576] VERBOSE - We want 60 seconds ahead, last returned was 850.100111 and max is 909.11745

 

Also you might want to set your transcoder to do more than the default 60 seconds ahead.. See that 600 in my screenshot above, that is 10 minutes of buffer, when it transcodes.

 

[Technique]

The thing is though - i wont have premium forever. Well i might, if i ever pay the lifetime but i'll never pay monthly. If i pay anything it'll be the lifetime.

 

Why am i transcoding as you say? I don't think i've played with any settings such as that. When i rip a blu ray i just use MakeMKV to put it straight in to mkv format. I never know which is the 'correct' audio and subtitles so i basically just select everything that says English & deselect everything else and that's about it. Put it in my Plex Media folder and job done.

 

So how do you direct stream and i'm transcoding? I'm assuming that means yours is being transmitted (insert correct term here if that's an incorrect term) via your home network which (if i remember right) will be wired since i'm sure i saw you once say if you can wire it then do so. I pretty much made my home a wired connection because of that one comment from you i'm sure i saw 😂.

As my home network is (also) wired then shouldn't mine be transmitted via that - therefore 'direct stream' from my PC to my TV via the cable that connects them?

 

 

Anyway thanks for the feedback there. My wife is currently watching Poirot so i'll have to wait my turn before testing it out.

[+BudMan MVC]

It comes down to sure the container being transcoded sometimes but not the actual codex of the video and audio..

 

Trying playing the file from different players - your phone, your computer using the browser and or the media player from plex, etc.

 

Transcoding means that the player can not understand the format the file is currently in - so plex changes it so the player can play it..   Its a bit of rabbit hole for sure.. Could be just the container, could be the resolution/bitrate of the file..

 

Here one of my friends is currently watching something

 

So while plex doesn't really say why.. Other than its changing res from 1080 to 720 on the video... But the audio its just streaming to him

 

But if I look in tautalli, I can see a bit more info

Where the container is being changed as well from mkv to mpegts..

 

What you will prob want to do is play around finding out exactly what you can direct play/stream to your player of choice.. And then try and make sure most of your library is in that format... I in the process of moving everything to MKV container, because its so easy to add subs, remove subs, label language of audio, etc..

 

Is your audio actually playing that DTS-HD MA, what does your Audio Receiver say its playing?  Or does your tv give you this info?  You can call up the stream info on your TV plex app as well for info.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/

 

[Technique]

Ahh i get it now.

 

I installed Plex on my Amazon Fire Stick so when i get the chance (Mrs is still watching TV) i'll have a play with that. I like the menu system better on the Fire Stick than on my TV but i wondered about the speed vs the TV. One thing i did note is that i have created folders on my PC (example - 1 Fast & Furious folder containing all the films from that franchise, a Jackie Chan folder containing his movies etc etc) and on the Plex app for the TV it doesn't show this - just a ton of individual movies, however on the Fire Stick these folders do exist, although not with any images on the folders. Just basic pictures of folders.

 

Drifting slightly off topic i've actually done more reading on it (i do try ;)) and found that people seem to generally prefer this Roku thing you mentioned compared to the Amazon Fire Stick. It seems to be pretty unanimous that it's just better when it comes to Plex. Snappier.

 

So i guess one possibility is that for arguments sake, the app on my TV may not like MKV format and may prefer .mp4. The Fire Stick may be fine with MKV (for example). If this is not the case then my opening line of i get it can be disregarded 🤣

 

I'll have to take a look at the audio. If i knew which one to select when ripping the disc then i would select only one. For the Asian movies i also include the Asian audio (sometimes there isn't any other option) as some times i actually like to watch the movie in the language it is in with subtitles on. Strange i know as most people would just prefer it in English, but hey ho.

For actual English movies though i know some of the audio is like the director talking about the movie as it's being played but when ripping through makeMKV i don't know which audio is which. I even asked on the makeMKV forums but it seems to be a bit of select and find out which it is. I don't have time for that so i just rip with all the English audio selected.

[Technique]

Right, i think now is a reasonable time to ask about trimming the video file down as i mentioned earlier.

Sure i could have a play with each of the settings, but when one already took me 2 hours and another is set to take 5 hours, i'd rather ask as someone else such as yourself may be able to suggest a 'sweet spot' to try.

 

So far 99% of the movies i've ripped are direct rips from blu rays (so showing up as 1080p). I've maybe 2 DVD rips. They are all in .mkv format.

 

I concede that in the beginning you were right about blu ray vs DVD (quality) and that my defensive replies were based on my PS4 upscaling of DVDs. On that note, i don't really want to have DVD quality, it wants to be more blu-ray quality.

I understand that by trimming the files i will inevitably lose some quality but as has been mentioned - this may not be noticeable (and will therefore be acceptable). The movies will still be getting watched on a 58" TV in the living room.

 

So how do you trim your movies, or how do you suggest i approach it?

 

 

Ok the format says mp4 by default. Mine are .mkv currently.

On the right i guess the lower down you go, the closer to original quality (& higher file size) you are. Would you stick with the 1080p regardless or do you drop to 720? Fast, HQ, Very Fast, Super HQ?

 

 

With those tabs i imagine dimensions and filters can be left alone? Perhaps video too? I'm purely guessing here.

 

 

 

Audio seems pretty clear. Just select which ones you want to include. I suppose here i can remove those ones where the director talks over the movie.

Same approach for subtitles.

 

 

 

If i can have a file on my drive for 8GB where the original was 30GB and i can't tell the difference in image quality then it makes sense to do that. Sure that takes time but that's what having the PC on during the night is for

Would this also lower the bitrate which i think was causing issues earlier?

 

Many questions i know but like you said, this can get addictive

 

[Gerowen]

1 hour ago, Technique said:

Right, i think now is a reasonable time to ask about trimming the video file down as i mentioned earlier.

Sure i could have a play with each of the settings, but when one already took me 2 hours and another is set to take 5 hours, i'd rather ask as someone else such as yourself may be able to suggest a 'sweet spot' to try.

 

So far 99% of the movies i've ripped are direct rips from blu rays (so showing up as 1080p). I've maybe 2 DVD rips. They are all in .mkv format.

 

I concede that in the beginning you were right about blu ray vs DVD (quality) and that my defensive replies were based on my PS4 upscaling of DVDs. On that note, i don't really want to have DVD quality, it wants to be more blu-ray quality.

I understand that by trimming the files i will inevitably lose some quality but as has been mentioned - this may not be noticeable (and will therefore be acceptable). The movies will still be getting watched on a 58" TV in the living room.

 

So how do you trim your movies, or how do you suggest i approach it?

  

 

Ok the format says mp4 by default. Mine are .mkv currently.

On the right i guess the lower down you go, the closer to original quality (& higher file size) you are. Would you stick with the 1080p regardless or do you drop to 720? Fast, HQ, Very Fast, Super HQ?

 

 

With those tabs i imagine dimensions and filters can be left alone? Perhaps video too? I'm purely guessing here.

 

 

 

Audio seems pretty clear. Just select which ones you want to include. I suppose here i can remove those ones where the director talks over the movie.

Same approach for subtitles.

 

 

 

If i can have a file on my drive for 8GB where the original was 30GB and i can't tell the difference in image quality then it makes sense to do that. Sure that takes time but that's what having the PC on during the night is for

Would this also lower the bitrate which i think was causing issues earlier?

 

Many questions i know but like you said, this can get addictive

 

With regard to clipping your movies, if they don't contain optional subtitles (not burned into the track, but the kind you can toggle on/off), or multiple audio tracks,  you can trim them rather quickly with no loss in quality with AVIDemux.  It supports "copy" encoding where you can quickly just cut out and remove parts of a file and then re-export it to a new file where it just "copies" the existing audio/video information without making any changes other than deleting the parts you don't want.  This means that it finishes really fast since it's not actually re-encoding anything, and that you don't lose any quality in the process.  Sometimes it might yell that your cut point is not on a keyframe, in which case just change your cut point to the left or right a few frames until it doesn't yell at you.

[+BudMan MVC]

^Yup there are lots of tricks... change the container from mp4 or avi to mkv in seconds with mkvtoolnix,

 

You really need to figure out your own sweet spot, I have been shrinking 1080 to 2500 bitrate of late.. Movies are about 2GB in size at that bit rate, and really look fine..  All of my Godzilla movies I just hard code all the subs..  No reason to let the plex do it on the fly, since its always going to be wanting the subs.  Don't speak Japanese

 

Seems you have peaked your head down the rabbit hole already - and are about ready to just jump in.. I agree, doesn't make a lot of sense to pay for plex month to month - I just buy it a year at a time..

 

If your player can do 265, you might want to look into that if you really want save some space   Depending on your hardware - it can take some time to shrink...