Plex on ReadyNAS Pro

All your files appear to be SD (e.g., DVD rips), so either your players or your TVs are upconverting.

My players all handle 1080p, and have no trouble with BluRay rates. So I don't need to transcode (and avoid DLNA anyway - I use NFS or CIFS sharing instead).

ReadyDLNA never transcodes - so if your player can't down-mix surround sound to normal stereo, then you'd need to make sure you have a stereo track in the file. Otherwise you will won't hear dialog very well (since it is often in the center channel). Most players do handle the down-mix though.

At the high level, you have 3 basic choices.
-Convert your media to something all your players can handle well
-Beef up your server so it can do that conversion on the fly
-Replace your players so conversion isn't needed.

All are viable, all have some level of expense/pain.

Thanks very much. I suspect I can end this line of questioning with just a few more questions (not really readynas issues any longer, but I still would appreciate the input):
1. For a relative newbie, how do your players recognize the NAS via NFS or CIFS? I can disable ReadyDLNA, but need PLEX for ease of streaming for my non-techie relatives.
2. I understand the lack of transcoding with DLNA. My Handbrake copy has 2 channels so I can use that for streaming even for my projector expecting my preamp to do the up converting. Recommend that over the 6 channel? Both will have to play through the bluray player before going to the preamp.
3. In regards to your 3 suggestions: How do you beef up a Pro 6? And if you have a Pro and are streaming 1080p bluray streams, what type of players do you have? As of now, my Handbrake files stream very well via PLEX using my Roku 2xs and bluray player.

Thanks.

Jjnsgy wrote:
Question for btaroli: clarification for you. "Further, I'd strongly recommend using native PLEX clients to DLNA." Do you set PLEX on your Samsung Smart TV to stream from DLNA or from PLEX?

There is no such thing. The PLEX app on Samsung is a native client. You *can* use the Samsung Internet TV app to attach to PLEX via DLNA, but that's a distinctly different experience. I've found the latter to be a bit of a disappointment, mostly because of the codecs it doesn't support. I've had better luck with DLNA on our PS3. :) In general, I do most of my @home PLEX viewing in the PLEX app on Samsung (second is PLEX on iPhone, when TV is busy).

Jjnsgy wrote:
1. For a relative newbie, how do your players recognize the NAS via NFS or CIFS? I can disable ReadyDLNA, but need PLEX for ease of streaming for my non-techie relatives.

The only time I've used CIFS for doing media playback from NAS was when I was using Boxee. It's... OK. But if you're delving into DLNA or PLEX, you're doing far better already. ;)

Jjnsgy wrote:
2. I understand the lack of transcoding with DLNA. My Handbrake copy has 2 channels so I can use that for streaming even for my projector expecting my preamp to do the up converting. Recommend that over the 6 channel? Both will have to play through the bluray player before going to the preamp.

There are definitely different thoughts and approaches to this. What will make sense for you will depend on many factors. I will describe my situation and perspective and let you take away from that whatever you will. ;-)

As perhaps a side effect of my photograph processing workflow, I abhor keeping extra copies of files around. I have evolved toward digital negative (DNG) format as my primary hi-res copy -- I shoot in raw format, whenever possible -- and only export in lesser formats to publish/print; I *never* store these for myself. Similarly, transcoding is attractive to me because I can keep a single source media file and let it be translated on-the-fly depending upon however and wherever I might view that file.

At this point, some will argue that this is a waste because pre-transcoded files are much more efficient, you have original CD/DVD/BluRay media if needed, etc. But to me this is a hassle. Once I transcode a physical media, it gets stored away in a place I never ever want to go back to. My grandchildren can unearth those and gasp that we ever used such horrid products. I therefore want to rip the media into as good a format as the best device I use can display. So I preserve full resolution, I do modestly reduce bitrate, and I keep full audio (passthru, so doesn't matter if it's AC3/DTS/etc). I can see the argument for doing the other, but of course situations vary.

Jjnsgy wrote:
3. In regards to your 3 suggestions: How do you beef up a Pro 6?

About the only two ways I've ever heard of a Pro 6 being upgraded (for performance) are memory and CPU. I haven't upgraded my CPU but I have 8GB of RAM in it now. I run several NAS-side services -- Transmission, Automatic, PLEX, DVBLink (TVSource + IPTV), etc -- and found that default memory (my Pro6 was diskless) was way to constrained. I have not, as yet, had issues with the CPU. Newer PLEX releases have gotten much better about CPU usage and adaptive transcoding... I have had as many as three simultaneous streams going and simply not noticed an impact.

Jjnsgy wrote:
And if you have a Pro and are streaming 1080p bluray streams, what type of players do you have? As of now, my Handbrake files stream very well via PLEX using my Roku 2xs and bluray player.

My primary viewers are:

• PLEX app on Samsung Smart TV (8xxx)


• PLEX app on iPhone

I have also used or occasionally use:

• PLEX Home Theater (Mac or Win)


• Roku (various; have to manually adjust bandwidth)


• PLEX app on Android


• DNLA (PS3)


• DNLA (Samsung Smart TV, but really bad codec support)


• Windows Media Center

More importantly, on the mobile devices, is that I view both at home (WiFi N 5GHz) *and* remotely (HSPA+ or LTE). This, for me, is the real power of PLEX. I don't have to pre-think what, how, or where I view my media. I just view it. My favorite recent use case was iPhone 5, ship-board WiFi (meaning satellite), and PLEX. That was from the Bahamas, and my uplink at home is about 200KB/sec (nominal). I was mostly viewing 720p MKVs with 5.1 audio, but for fun I watched a bit of a 1080p AC3 just to prove I could. The only issue I encountered was occasionally having to relog into ship WiFi because of how they manage that part. And, for the record, we had unlimited WiFi with our suite so I wasn't too concerned about usage fees. ;)

btaroli wrote:
...The only time I've used CIFS for doing media playback from NAS was when I was using Boxee. It's... OK. But if you're delving into DLNA or PLEX, you're doing far better already. ;)...

Maybe with PLEX, but I would certainly disagree on DLNA. The DLNA architecture has an inherent flaw - support for any codec, container, or feature has to implemented in both the player and the server in order for it to work. It has no real advantages, and results in a lot of compatibility issues. NFS/CIFS works out much better for me. In addition to handling the "normal" media formats (avi, mp4, mkv), I can also directly play dvd and bluray ISOs.

Another tradeoff is stored media vs internet video-on-demand. A lot of the newer players are focused on netflix, etc. and have weak or non-existent support for stored stuff.

Since we are sharing our approaches, here's a sketch of mine.

My current setup is that all my media is on my Pro-6. This includes music (MP3), photos (jpg), TV shows (mostly SD mp4, but some older xvid avi and some mkv), movies (lots of formats - mostly 720p MKV, with some 1080p mkv, m2ts, mpg, DVD ISO,...). I also have quite a few reference videos I keep (I developed my own conversion tool a few years ago, and they were handy for that).

I have 3 players set up for regular use - 2 EVA9150s and 1 NTV550. Both models are EOL, so I wouldn't recommend them for new users. I also have a Western Digital Live player (picked up for comparison purposes) and an Apple TV v3 (which I got mainly to display my iPad screen wirelessly). I do recommend the WD Live for people who want an inexpensive but versatile player. It handles a wide range of formats, and supports both DLNA and CIFS. I've had no trouble using it with the Pro. The Apple TV is more limited - you need to use iTunes (and the iTunes linux servers will not work).

For mobile, in my case that is an Android phone (Galaxy S4) and an iPad. So far I use AVplayerHD on the iPad, which reaches the Pro using FTP. Internet connection speed makes a difference of course, and you will get stuttering if you use it for high rate video. On the phone I use ES file Manager, which reaches the Pro using either CIFS (local) or FTP.

The main answer though is that I have a Seagate Wireless Plus (with non-standard firmware). That amounts to a wireless NAS in a 2.5' form factor. I maintain some media on that, for viewing when I travel, with some more on the devices themselves. The portable NAS also lets me overcome the limited device storage generally. Most of the stuff I watch on mobile is SD.

On converting media, I generally stick with 720p at around 5-6 mbits for HD material. That results in 5-6 GBs for a typical movie (comparable to a full DVD rip). For SD DVDs, I generally convert to H.264 high profile @ 1/2 the rate of the original. For most material, H.264 is 2x the performance of MPEG-2 (used in DVDs) - meaning that in subjective viewing tests, users generally can't distinguish between MPEG-2 at rate X and H.264 at rate X/2.

I agree that reducing resolution needs to be done thoughtfully, and that if you reduce the file size too much you end up with material with obvious defects/blurriness. Though I do reduce the file size - I'm unwilling to keep HD movies @ 35 GB each. Storage costs are just too high. Also, you don't want to retranscode multiple times, as that will certainly reduce subjective quality. Results also depend on your TV equipment - the bigger the TV screen, the more apparent the defects might be. Overall, I'd rather have a high-quality 720p or even 480p (SD) file than a low quality 1080p.

The NTV550 is connected to a surround sound system, and handles DTS, DTS-MA, TrueHD. The others aren't and don't handle DTS. So when I rip content, I've always added a dolby digital track (AC3) if it wasn't there already. I discard audio tracks I don't need (languages, sometimes formats (no need for multiple lossless encodings of the same soundtrack), and director commentary (which I don't listen to). You can save a surprising amount of space by getting rid of such tracks.

Jjnsgy wrote:
3. In regards to your 3 suggestions: How do you beef up a Pro 6?

Well, the main thing I was thinking there was choosing a more expensive NAS in order to get transcoding in the first place. For simple file serving, an ultra is enough, so choosing a Pro-6 is already spending more money to get the faster CPU. Upgrading memory is pretty easy, and could help overall (I added some to mine), personally I'd be nervous about messing with the CPU (being a software type).

You can get 2 WD Live players for < $200 US, the price gap between a diskless RN316 and a diskless RN516 (per Amazon at the moment) is ~$700 US. The players are obviously more cost effective, and should play the media you have (based on the mediainfo you posted). The pricing on the older stuff is more advantageous (more like ~$120 gap between an ultra-6 and a pro-6), though that is probably because they are clearing inventory.

The other option is to use a PC instead of a dedicated NAS - perhaps in addition to the Pro-6 (keeping the files on the NAS, and running Plex on the PC - mapping network drives to the Pro). Again, it works, and also provides a better solution for Mac folks (since you also can run standard iTunes home sharing), but investing in better players might be simpler.

I've been successful streaming the mkv files - have basically increased my patience for the extra time to stream and buffer.
When streaming at work though, the higher quality ripped file (mkv version) streamed slower and was of much poorer quality than the Handbrake, lower definition version. Not sure why the quality is different. As you said in an earlier post, I did it just to prove I could, but don't understand the quality issue.

Perhaps this topic deserves its own thread? Successful use of ReadyNAS as a Media Server and My A/V Setup?

Jjnsgy wrote:
I've been successful streaming the mkv files

Using which client(s) and server(s)? :) PLEX? ReadyDLNA? PLEX DLNA? Phone? Computer? PS3? Roku? Smart TV?

There are so many possibilities, that it's hard to put "streaming was slow and of low quality" into context without a liiiitle more background info in terms of which paths you attempted with the MKVs.

If you are not concerned about size, don't use makemkv. It's possible to do a perfect non-transcoded rip of a movie from a DVD. File will usually be 4GB, but the picture is exactly the same as the DVD was. It will be MPEG2 so roku and PS3 are both fine with it. Here are the steps I use:

1. Run DVD Shrink and open the dvd.
2. Select Re-author.
3. Double click the main title on the DVD browser tab.
4. Select the compression tab and pick "No compression"
5. Choose the audio track, deselect others.
6. Select backup, choose an output folder, and hit OK.
7. Run VOB2mpg to convert to mpg and recalculate time codes.
8. Open the .IFO file in the Video_ts folder.
9. Ignore the error message about opening the DVD.
10. Set the output folder.
11. Hit the start extraction icon.
12. Find the .mpg output and rename it.

This is pretty quick since you are not transcoding.

steve

There are other tools which can do this ripping also. I don't use MakeMKV myself, but it is certainly possible to get the media tracks from a DVD into an MKV format w/o transcoding them.

However,file size is not the only concern.

-A typical DVD has a bit rate around 6 mbps. Size of the file is not the only concern, if you want to stream this file (particularly over the internet, not your local LAN) the bitrate can be a problem.

-If you are looking to use the hardware acceleration in an iDevice, you need to use H.264 video (and is easiest if you create an MP4). Doing the decoding in software is certainly possible, but it drains your battery quicker.

-Some DVDs use interlaced video. Deinterlacing on many portable devices is hit-or-miss, esp. if you use a software player. So sometimes it is useful to transcode that material to a progressive format (doing the deinterlacing in the conversion).