I find Plex Media Server incredibly frustrating on Macs. Whether Apple’s issue or Plex’s, transcoding is still insanely slow, and barely uses any CPU power. I wish there were a way to actually take advantage of the new minis for PMS transcoding faster.
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New mac mini as a Plex server?
- Thread starter slagathor001
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That’s really sad.
I’ve read on another forum that he is using Direct Play and it works perfectly.
How do you use yours and what devices use your Plex server?
Direct Play does work perfectly. But if I want to put some TV shows or movies on my iPad I want them re-encoded for size. And that is slow as slow can be due to whatever limitation in the app or OS is present.
hey all, found this thread after wanting to change my setup. i currently run my pms off a 1019+ synology nas. not cutting it. and my 2017 imac isnt near the gateway. so im thinking of getting a mac mini to hook up via ethernet and act as my PMS.
read over the thread very quickly. am i understanding this correctly??
the hardware doesnt really matter on transcoding as much as having the right video file playing on the certain player? how do you know which plays better with what player? so if im running the PMS on the syno nas, and its going to my appletv 4k box via wifi stream, local network...how do i get that to direct play? not a hardware issue?
read over the thread very quickly. am i understanding this correctly??
the hardware doesnt really matter on transcoding as much as having the right video file playing on the certain player? how do you know which plays better with what player? so if im running the PMS on the syno nas, and its going to my appletv 4k box via wifi stream, local network...how do i get that to direct play? not a hardware issue?
With the 1019+, do you have PlexPass? If so that will take advantage of the Intel CPU's QuickSync capability for vastly, vastly faster HW transcoding (and decoding), making your 1019+ viable again. It will be significantly faster than even an i7 Mac mini due to QuickSync. Just the CPU alone on QC Celeron in there isn't viable, but with QS, it's a beast.
"Direct Play" means that your network is fast enough to stream the file to your player, and your player (AppleTV, say) understands the format you're giving it (H264 MKV DD, for example) and can play it natively. If any of those statements aren't true, "transcoding" is then required, which takes massive CPU speed (unless you have Intel QuickSync, or nVidia NVENC, in which case, that hardware handles it, and you're fine - but the HW transcoding there requires PlexPass).
So the gist is, LEARN HOW to read the Plex dashboard (or install Tautulli) and learn how to read that data. It will tell you if you're direct playing (in which case the CPU isn't important; it isn't stressed - a Raspberry Pi can do this) or if you're transcoding (in which case you want QuickSync or NVENC). Oh, and MacOS is crippled with only one concurrent hardware transcode; MacOS is not a good choice for a Plex server if you do any transcoding.
If you own it, then install PMS and let it work, watch the dashboard while people are using it and you can see what's going on.
It may be fine, it is just difficult to gauge that unless someone else has done the specific thing.
I started with a Core2Duo Plex Server in 2009 and it has grown to an 8Core 30TB w/ hardware decoding machine.
So the mini did serve my purposes for quite some time, mainly because my family that would stream would never hit it all at the same time, and high bitrate files weren't a thing then, a 6core Mini is also more powerful than a dualcore from '09.
So if you have one, there is no reason to not try it out and know for sure.
If you are going to buy a machine that is for Plex, I would, myself, look elsewhere.
It may be fine, it is just difficult to gauge that unless someone else has done the specific thing.
I started with a Core2Duo Plex Server in 2009 and it has grown to an 8Core 30TB w/ hardware decoding machine.
So the mini did serve my purposes for quite some time, mainly because my family that would stream would never hit it all at the same time, and high bitrate files weren't a thing then, a 6core Mini is also more powerful than a dualcore from '09.
So if you have one, there is no reason to not try it out and know for sure.
If you are going to buy a machine that is for Plex, I would, myself, look elsewhere.
Its running in the background on my Mini right now. We use it all the time but I don't ever have more than 1 or 2 people in the house using it. I basically ripped my entire DVD collection in Handbrake and threw it on a WD My Book connected to the Mini (was using my Mac Pro before I bought the Mini) so we can watch whatever in the living room, bedroom, etc.. At night the misses always has something on while she's in bed and Im up playing on forums or some late night gaming. Haven't had any issues this past week at all while she was streaming something and I've been playing Baldur's Gate at the same time. Our TV in here only does 1080 though and I ripped all my stuff at 1080 long before we had a 4K tv so its not like it has to do any extra work.
I just set up a refurb MacMini for PMS. Got it working headless and can screen share in or use Screens/Screens Connect to get in. All of that work fine. But the PMS goes offline when I'm not connected to it. Things like cTivo are all still running so it isn't "asleep" but PMS goes offline. Does anyone know why or how to fix?