Streaming 101

[Franky_024]

Hi guys im usually good at figuring this stuff out but need a bit of guidance understanding what i can and cant do streaming wise in my house.

So basically my setup is a 2008 imac that is on all the time that acts as my plex server. It has a 4tb hard drive plugges to it with movies, tv shows ect. In another room i have a ps4 with plex app running that connects to the imacs server and until recently seemed to stream movies and shows fine without any issues.

As i suggested recently things have gone balls up and movies keep buffering. I initally thought my interent speed maybe the issue, but as everything is played locally this shouldnt be an issue.

Ive read that in some cases plex only uses net to show the library and update it, then uses dlna to stream movies. Then ive read that maybe ps4 doesnt have that support and maybe it uses the internet to stream and transcode files simultaneously and that maybe the issue.

Honestly this thing is doing my head in i can just run a laptop through my tv and play everything off it but at the same time i think streaming is more convenient when i works. Thanks in advance for any help

 

[funk44]

I use plex across a few devices including a raspberry pi which is hooked up to my main tv, i was having issues playing some 1080p files i had

If it's an issue that has come out of nowhere the problem may well be your network

Most of the issues came down to my wireless network (wireless n) not being up to snuff - for reference my pi is wired (EoP) but my server is wireless. So i looked at/changed the following
1. Made sure my network was on the 5ghz band
2. Ensuing channel traffic wasnt congested
3. Enabled QoS settings on my router and maxed the upstream
4. Enabled a 'media' feature for the 5ghz band on my router
5. Maxed the buffer on plex client
6. Changed the transcoding options to slightly down sample the media files as i was concerned that 1080p was too much for the very low powered pi cpu

After following those steps i havent had a single stutter in months. I would first look at your network then start playing around with the transcoding to determine whether altering those makes any difference, if not, keep on reading i guess

 

[POGMA]

Not sure if it's the right thread, but is there anyway to stop ytube from buffering videos?....for example, I'm at the video to read/respond to comments but ytube will buffer 50mb or more from my mobile bandwidth?