Posted: 3/9/2016 10:34:07 PM EDT
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I want to stream videos to my Samsung Smart TV from a storage device attached to my computer. I want this to be seamless and simple. Here is the equipment I have:
Samsung UHD Smart TV (with Plex) Synology DS415Play NAS with Plex Server WD TV Live (wireless media player) Various external Hard Drives Desktop Computer Amazon Fire Stick (with Plex) XBOX 360 Roku 3 (with Plex) I have tried Plex, and IMO, it sucks ass. It's great for playing videos on a computer, but on a TV it sucks. I have tried it with the TV app, the Roku app and the Amazon app. More often than not it fails to play, or plays crappily. I have tried playing the native media apps on Roku, and the TV. Again, very hit or miss. The only thing that works consistently well is the WD TV Live, but it requires an external HD to be shuffled back and forth as I rip new stuff. I want to avoid that. What is the setup of choice for watching ALL of your media on your TV? Can it be done with my equipment? Do I need a different app or different equipment? Is there some magical setting or way of setting up Plex that will make it stop this stupid nonsense without transcoding virtually everything I own? Thanks, HaM |
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Everything direct plays for me on the FireTV Stick.
Direct Play
Media can be Direct Played on a device if the source media is compatible with the client's playback capabilities, meaning that the source media: Is stored in a compatible file container Is encoded in a compatible bitrate Is encoded with compatible codecs Is a compatible resolution Basically, the file is 100% compatible with your device. To find these requirements for your device, you should consult your device's documentation. When a media item is Direct Played on an App, the file is sent directly to the device without being changed. https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streaming-Media-Direct-Play-and-Direct-Stream https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/devices/fire-tv/docs/media-specifications |
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I went through four different types of systems before I settled on a $99 Roku 3 and Plex. Works beautifully. Wife and kids love it, and they aren't exactly computer engineers. The whole setup is very simple to use. How do you have it set up? I'm wanting to do something similar. I'm assuming you have Plex on a dedicated computer and you're just accessing it through the Roku? I was looking at getting a dedicated NAS box, probably synology but have heard they don't do transcoding very well. So, I was thinking about building a FerrNAS box doing a Plex install on that. Also, there's the Raspberry Pi route. |
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Quoted:
How do you have it set up? I'm wanting to do something similar. I'm assuming you have Plex on a dedicated computer and you're just accessing it through the Roku? I was looking at getting a dedicated NAS box, probably synology but have heard they don't do transcoding very well. So, I was thinking about building a FerrNAS box doing a Plex install on that. Also, there's the Raspberry Pi route. Quoted:
Quoted:
I went through four different types of systems before I settled on a $99 Roku 3 and Plex. Works beautifully. Wife and kids love it, and they aren't exactly computer engineers. The whole setup is very simple to use. How do you have it set up? I'm wanting to do something similar. I'm assuming you have Plex on a dedicated computer and you're just accessing it through the Roku? I was looking at getting a dedicated NAS box, probably synology but have heard they don't do transcoding very well. So, I was thinking about building a FerrNAS box doing a Plex install on that. Also, there's the Raspberry Pi route. Amazon FireTV Stick does not have enough horsepower to play full-bore Blurays, which is how some of my media is stored. Roku3 plays everything. My litmus test is a 50GB Avatar MKV file, full quality Bluray. Amazon puked, Roku plays it fine. I was going to build an HTPC, but the Roku was many orders of magnitude cheaper, and basically runs with the ease of an appliance, vs having yet another PC to deal with. I have a dedicated NAS server which stores, among other things, media. Plex is running on an ESXi VM along with a few other things, the CPU is a 2.5GHz i5, 16GB RAM total, 4GB dedicated to Plex. I was running it under linux, but had issues with it playing nice with my NAS, so switched to Windows 7 Pro for SMB access. So Plex VM streams to all the devices in the house and transcodes what can't be direct-played. Works very, very well. |
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Roku + Plex works fine for me overall. If you are using a wifi connection to stream, hook it up wired via ethernet and see if the problem resolves. If so, you have a bandwidth issue vs. a Plex or hardware issue. Same here. If fact, it's great. Have two Roku's, one has an ethernet connection the other is wireless and I see no difference. I have a PC running Linux Mint that serves as a NAS and Plex server and runs 24/7. There are no lags in playing video or audio files. I also have a Visio smart TV with a Plex app, but it sucked. The TV just couldn't decode the video stream good enough. |
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I also have a Visio smart TV with a Plex app, but it sucked. The TV just couldn't decode the video stream good enough. As an aside, I have learned to be careful with Smart TVs. A friend gave us a 40" Samsung LCD TV last year, our first flat screen (late adopter and I saw nothing wrong with my decades old tube TV that still works to this day!). The Samsung had stopped working. Some research indicated a common problem with that series, in that Samsung neglected to adequately cool some of the ASICs on one of the TV's logic boards. Thus the logic boards were dying prematurely. It ended up being a $50 fix, but something to consider... Smart TVs obviously have ASICs and/or CPUs, and if they are not properly cooled, the more you use them, the quicker the TV will fail. Thus I use my TV for display only -- everything else in terms of content delivery or transcoding is handled by another device; WII, Roku, etc. |
Start here to load Kodi on the TV.
Note, download the Kodi Xbian program on your PC to load it on a thumb drive first, then with the thumb plugged into the machine with the Kodi Xbain install program on it, you can pull the program down to the TV that way to load it into the TV programming apps. Once you have kodi installed on the TV, then add-on installer.
Using add-on installer once installed to Kodi, load in 1channel, Genesis, Pheonix, and Navi-X to start with. As for watching, over times you will figure out what at the best sites to select for the sources that will give the fastest speeds to watch without having to wait for buffering. If you want to save something, then you can spool it back to either a NAS on Wifi, or even a hard drive that is plugged into a USB port in the TV instead (just aim the downloads back to the device that you want to save them to in download set up for that app, such as Genesis in it's settings). As for the rest of you guys that don't have a smart tv that will allow you to load kodi to it directly instead, then Pivos XS to the rescue instead. Also to note, if you are going to run a XS box, then add a 32g micro SD card to it, and transfer all the OS files to the SD card. This will free the internal memory to run the needed program and will speed up the box as well. https://youtu.be/tGMWvRfsvFA]]https://youtu.be/tGMWvRfsvFA Here, starting with the pivos box added to the tv to run under a HDTV input, your going to flash the Pivos XS to tofu to start with (the version of linux Kodi that runs on that box directly , isntead of loading Kodi in android form to run under the boxes native android that will be much slower instead). http://www.pivosforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=5045 So, data storage folder you will adding to the 32g Micro data card will be labeled "Kodi-data", and not XBMC-data as show in the below linked write up as your settin up the micro card on your laptop to begin with. Also, the install file that you will using is the one Tofu version from the above site I listed (not the one show in the link below). Next once you have the Kodi program installed with the Kodi-data folder added to the card during the Tofu paper clip re-flash, don't forget to go back in boot up afterwards to wipe the cache portion from the machine so you don't have the data on both the machines memory and the micro SD as well. Hence do the first paper clip boot up setting to first flash the box to Tofu, then do another paper clip boot up to clear the programming from the machines memory after you have loaded tofu (select wipe cashe partition the second paper clip restart),since the data was move to the the Kodi-data folder as the last part of the Tofu install to the microSD Kodi-data folder, and this clears the XS's own memory free since it will be using the data on the MicroSD memory in the Kodi-data folder for the needed programming file storage that is copied the same programming to as well instead. http://www.riazsiddiky.com/loading-xbmc-linux-to-pivos.html Once the XS box has been flashed to Tofu (Kodi linux), the data filed moved to the Kodi-folder in the SD card (you did remember to add the Kodi-data folder to the SD card), and the XS cashe memory wiped cleaned to free it the XS internal memory , then your back to installing add on installer step as show above. |
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Good stuff. I appreciate the advice. I will look into Kodi, but my primary goal here is just to effectively stream stuff from my own NAS to the TV, without having to manually hump a hard drive back and forth.
The biggest drawbacks I seem to be finding is format incompatibility. Some things play fine over Plex, some play fine over direct media play, some don't play at all, some play with stutters and some with no sound. I am not looking forward to going back and transcoding or re-ripping multiple terabytes of stuff. 
Are there some settings you guys are using for Plex that I don't know about? What are you using as your Plex Server and your Player device (I know some of you are using Roku) HaM |
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Missing the point , hence Kodi is free, no commercials on recorded material, and will have everything that is available for viewing (including movies may not even been released in movie theaters yet from time to time). Hence not only can you pull every live broad casting from the world that is airing in real time, but recorded items that may have only aired live a few hours before hand as well (and I do mean anything that is out there, so keep that in mind if you need to set up parental permissions for some viewing contents if you have children in the house).
To get a taste of it, just load it to one of the PC as pointed out, and you like it and what it offers, them you can add it to your TV's as well. As for the format that is downloads/streams in, compatible for all the devices that you will use to watch it. |
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also take a look at Emby. its like plex but community developed not a company. i have a samsung smart tv (UN40f5500) and it dose fine. it may just be that the computer cant trans code fast enough or not enough wifi speed. could try limiting the streaming to something slower like 720p at 3mbps.
just installed the emby app on the tv and it works wonderfully. im wondering what settings are the quality of the connection. |
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Op, are you using wireless or wired communications? I've got plex running on my computer streaming to 3 different devices at my house and at least 4 other households that are remote. No issues and no complaints form anyone. I'm hardwired though. If you are using wireless you may be having a bandwidth issue.
Edit: also your samsung TV has a native player for video/music/pictures. You could just share the drives on the network and point your tv to those drives and play directly. |