Plex & regular issue with it.

JustAnotherSaver

First off I see Emby listed as an alternative to Plex. From what I can make out, Plex is the 'biggie' and Emby is an alternative. Is Emby better in any way?

But to the issue at hand. I've been having bother with Plex for some time now. My setup is this...

Movies (usually in blu-ray quality ripped to .mkv format) are stored on my PC.

My PC is connected to the router via cat6 cable as is my TV in the living room which is where I watch the movies.

My TV is a Panasonic Viera 58DX750B. After being in touch with Panasonic, I found that it can play both .mkv files and also .mp4 files (as well as others). Now I don't know if this makes a difference when playing through Plex or whether they're talking about plugging in a USB stick and playing direct.

I use the Plex app that is on the TV. Without going back downstairs to check I think the app version on the TV is from 2017/2018.

The issue that I have been experiencing for a while now is I will watch a movie and it will be perfectly fine. The video quality I have set to 12mbps, the audio is whatever it is, and I will always have subtitles on.

The movie plays perfectly fine but then it seems once it's about 20-40 mins from the end (or since most movies are roughly the same length, give or take, it's more than likely a certain amount of time in) i get the 3 yellow dots, the movie stops for a while and then exits.

I then have to resume the movie. When i do this it will buffer quite bad for a short while before the TV then throws up HDMI1 as the input and the whole thing just turns off.

I then have to go back in to Plex, select the movie once again and resume once again. This time it will buffer really badly, perhaps for about 5 minutes maybe and then it will finally settle down and be watchable again.

........... and repeat for every single movie i've watched for the past however many movies.

Now I remember an age ago when I was going through various settings in Plex I found that someone I was in touch with at the time was direct playing but I couldn't. IIRC i was either direct playing the audio but not video (or vice versa) or the pair of them were being transcoded. I can't quite remember now.

The other day I was on YouTube looking in to Plex, how people run their Plex, how to try and make it better and one guy in a video said that Plex through Kodi on the fire stick (so not Plex on the fire stick but Plex within Kodi on the fire stick) gave him no bother.

I did this last night. I didn't watch the whole movie, just 10mins or so as it was late but i went in to Plex on my PC and saw both audio and video were direct playing. Not sure why or why it seems to make a difference. I'd have to watch a full movie to fully test.

Just wondering why I am likely to be getting this issue I am experiencing on my TV each and every time.

Go easy with me on terminology - servers and clients and all that jazz.

CoastingHatbox

You don't say what operating system you are running on your PC?
The PC isn't going to sleep/hibernating, is it?
I would start be looking for correlating events in the Windows Event Logs.

JJ_Egan

Plex on TV OP says .

CoastingHatbox

JJ_Egan said:

Plex on TV OP says .

The way the PC is mentioned in the OP suggests there is a plex server running on it. At least it is being use to store the media which the OP is playing.

Sandtree

JJ_Egan said:

Plex on TV OP says .

Plex is a server client model.... the PC with the files should have Plex Server running on it and then the TV, tablet or anything else has the client.

To the OP - have you tried playing the same films via a different Plex client? Eg on your phone/tablet or on another streaming device attached to your TV (AppleTV, FireTV etc

I also note that Plex dont list Panasonic as a supported brand of TV so it may be a third party implementation which is a bit buggy

JJ_Egan

I know its a server but i use Plex direct content on my TV and various boxes .

That is not as a server for my own content but to watch Plex content TV Movies etc .

Plex app is available on my 2020 Panasonic TV from new not third party .

Yes sometimes i cannot understand the OP .

JustAnotherSaver

These servers, clients and models.

I'll start with something that I know ....

Regards the PC going to sleep or hibernating - it's not that. I have the power settings set so that the PC doesn't do anything like that within a movie timeframe. I also have nothing else running on the PC and even if i did, it's a bit weird how the movies always seem to go funny with about 30mins remaining. Since most movies are around the 2hr mark, give or take (yes i'm aware there's plenty at the 90 minute mark as well as enough that are 180mins and beyond but i'm speaking roughly & certainly based on what i'm watching...) then it must be somewhere around the 90minute region +/- where it acts up.

As for what role my PC plays, well it stores the movies, so the TV will end up pulling/playing them from my PC. In the bottom right corner near the clock is a plex icon. I can double click this and go in to Plex in a browser.

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit. I know that's a no-no here for other reasons but that's what i'm currently using.

Nope, i haven't tried watching a movie on a phone. Bit too small a screen for me i'm afraid. I have tried through other means (on the TV) though. I tried it on the fire stick (as in the official app on the fire stick, not through Kodi on the fire stick). I didn't actually watch a full movie through it, i just tried it out to see what it was like as i noticed each player is different in some way.

Plex may not list Panasonic as a supported brand and IIRC i contacted Panasonic who IIRC also said there was no Plex app yet one day when I was scrolling through the poor offering of apps on my TV i noticed the Plex app was actually listed - so i installed it and that is what i mostly use. 

If I am understanding correctly then transcoding is bad because it creates bottleneck. Direct Play is good because it's free-flowing. In that case i don't know why when all this is on the wired home network, playing to the TV is transcoding part or all of it yet adding a 'middleman' like Plex through Kodi on the fire stick (so sort of like two middlemen in a way) allows you to direct play ... on the same TV that wont allow you to direct play. I don't know enough about this topic to know why it's the way it is.

As a side note, is Emby better than Plex in any way?

Uptown_Boy

The plex icon on your PC almost certainly means that it's running Plex Server ... so it is the server that sends the movies etc. from the PC to the Plex client making the request.

CoastingHatbox

It sounds to me like something is happening to disrupt the stream.
I would still start by checking the event logs on the PC, looking for events that correlate with the time the stream stops.
Are the PC and the TV using WiFi or Ethernet?

JustAnotherSaver

Uptown_Boy said:

The plex icon on your PC almost certainly means that it's running Plex Server ... so it is the server that sends the movies etc. from the PC to the Plex client making the request.

Ah yes, i've just hovered over the icon and it says Plex Media Server.

So the server is where your media is stored and the client is what is playing it. Got it.

I still can't grasp why my TV to PC transcodes but if i stick kodi and a fire stick in between my TV and my PC so that it's a 4-chain instead of a 2-chain then it direct plays.

JustAnotherSaver

Ok so i've just ran 3 tests all with the same movie.

I have the settings on as equal as i think they can be. Original quality on them all for the video (it's a blu ray .mkv file). The first audio setting in them all, some 5.1 setting, and subtitles every time.

Through the TV app:

Next was the Plex app through Kodi on the 1st gen Amazon FireStick:

Next was the Plex app on the Amazon FireStick just mentioned (no Kodi):