Hoping this is just something I’m overlooking since I’m new to plex. I have a NAS I built with an integrated J4105 board and a few drives (I know, I know but its plenty powerful for me). I have unraid installed and decided to download a few 4k HEVC movies since I got a fancy new TV. Plex and Jellyfin installed through docker can’t seem to play these videos. It takes a good 60 seconds to start when I hit play and then just stutters ever frame.
I’ve had Jellyfin running for close to a year now with no issues - granted everything else is in 1080p. I’m not trying to watch outside my network and am the only person ever accessing the system. Never had any hiccups before. I thought maybe it was something to do with Jellyfin so I installed Plex and the same issues. Ive tried to turn any transcoding/encoding settings I’ve found off with no luck.
I just don’t understand what the issue is and maybe its just my noobness to the media center programs. I can access the file on my desktop and play it through VLC just fine. And installing VLC through google tv built into the tv can access the files and stream them just fine over wifi. Same with the VLC on my phone or laptop. I don’t understand why adding Plex/Jellyfin to the mix presents such issues.
I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I am not understanding your issue. You have a NAS (but don’t state what OS your are running). I am guessing it is running your Plex and Jellyfin dockers to catalogue and and it is serving up media to your “fancy new TV”. On that TV you should have Plex or another client like Kodi installed on your TV to play your media. If it is only 4K that is not playing well, then it could be your network speed, or your server is trying to transcode when it should be sending native 4K. Hope that helps but more details of your server, network, and clients would help.
I have Unraid with plex and jellyfin installed as docker containers. And then plex and jellyfin installed as apps on the tv and phone. I have also have tried accessing them through the web app versions of plex/jellyfin on my laptop or desktop as well
It doesn’t seem to be a network speed issue. I’ve installed the google tv version of VLC and browsed to the file and played directly that way without any issues. Same with other devices.
It seems to be trying to transcode would be my guess. But afaik I’ve turned off ever single setting that I can find with transcoding. There must be something I’m missing?
I would try Kodi, at least for testing. There is also a Plex ad in for Kodi that you would think you are in Plex. When you say you turned off transcoding, did you mean on the server, client, both? Just to clarify it is only the TV having the issue? The others work OK?
Ok I spent a little bit playing around with the settings some more. I couldn’t get it to work in Plex but in Jellyfin you have to go in to the admin settings and then go to each individual user to fully turn off transcoding. That seems to work and now I can direct play with no issues. Just wanted to put the solution here in case any other noobs ran into similar issues.
The most common problem I have when it comes to 4K videos is the subtitles that are PGS instead of SRT and your TV does not support it then it will transcode. Another thing to check is the audio, because a very large audio file like 7.1 Dolby Atmos or higher etc could also cause transcoding and that also could bring the server to its knees. I am not sure about your setup but sometimes I have to toggle on/off HDMI passthrough and/or “Burn subtitles” in the settings of the Plex client.
