Help with transcoding 1080p on a Plex Server

[JQLeitch]

I am building an Haswell i3 based plex server over the Summer and I am wondering if I will even be able to transcode to other devices. What are the variables bandwidth wise. My ISP gives us 8-9Mbps which is pretty poor lets be honest, is this a variable with servers or is it determined by something else? My home router is some shitty D-Link router, again I don't know if it's a variable to determine if I can play 1080p media on devices etc. I will be using a wired connection in most cases. Thanks

 

[smitbret]

Any 100/1000Mbps connection will be fine. If your are streaming in home, then your internet speeds don't mean a thing.

Wireless can be tricky and all just kind of depends on the quality of your wireless connection and the nitrate of the video file.

 

[JQLeitch]

Any 100/1000Mbps connection will be fine. If your are streaming in home, then your internet speeds don't mean a thing.

Wireless can be tricky and all just kind of depends on the quality of your wireless connection and the nitrate of the video file.

YES! Just what I wanted to hear, thanks for your advice. So you're saying ISP speeds mean eff all?

 

[smitbret]

They only matter if you're streaming outside your home and then it's the upload speed that matters, not download.

 

[JQLeitch]

They only matter if you're streaming outside your home and then it's the upload speed that matters, not download.

Okay, so as long as my Server is connected to my router and my clients are connected to the router, I should be able to run 1080p videos with no buffer. (Sorry it sounds like I need reiteration all the time, I just need to be sure)

 

[smitbret]

Okay, so as long as my Server is connected to my router and my clients are connected to the router, I should be able to run 1080p videos with no buffer. (Sorry it sounds like I need reiteration all the time, I just need to be sure)

You got it.

 

[XavierMace]

I would mention that with an i3 you may be limited in how many 1080p streams you can transcode at once.

 

[Mushkins]

I would mention that with an i3 you may be limited in how many 1080p streams you can transcode at once.

Transcoding is a pain :/ I've got a media server pretty much how the OP wants to set it up (ivy bridge i3, running Plex, etc) on a gigabit lan and I dont think I'd try to do more than 3 simultaneous transcodes at 1080p. Granted, when is anyone in my home ever going to be transcoding 3 1080p streams at once?

You're more limited by how the receiving device handles transcodes. FF/Rewind pretty much never work and good luck with anything that has subtitles. I've also had them get stuttery and cut out mid-stream. IMO it's much better to avoid transcoding if at all possible and either take a weekend to re-encode your library to a supported format for your device, or switch to a device that supports your formats.

 

[azazel1024]

That is pretty much the tack I take. Too many issues (for ME) with transcoding. I rip, encode once and live with it. I pretty much live with all very high quality 720p copies of stuff. Some high quality 1080p copies of stuff I really care about.

I almost never watch anything on my phone and my tablet (T100) doesn't have that much in the way of space limitations to store a 2.5-10GB video on it if I want (or several). Streaming isn't an issue when I am on my WLAN for the full fat files and I've found its generally better quality with a high quality 720p than it is a transcode from something like PLEX.

I am not saying its total crap...just, well, short cuts are needed in the transcoding for something like an i3 to handle 3 1080p transcode streams at once...versus the quarter real time frame rates I get out of my i5 quad core Ivy chip doing 1080p BR to 1080p h.264 with my settings. That is a factor of 12 difference in frame rate through put, with roughly double the procesing power...

Conclusions can be drawn.

Non-transcoding on the fly means things FF/Rewind work perfectly, I can load up a movie immediately if I want to take it on the go (or at least as much time as it takes to copy over wired/wireless) and other benefits (like no temptations to store full BRs on my server).