Channels & viewing

[Jdnlns]

Anyone have any idea why Plex on Roku only loads up to 33% when watching content from Nvidia Plex server? Plex on Roku is very user-friendly. However my Plex server is on Nvidia shield. When watching any video content from that server on Roku, it loads to 33% and then times out. Thanks!

[atc98092]

The only time I've seen Plex stop loading like that is when the network connection wasn't sufficient for the media. The Shield is an excellent player, and many people do use the Shield Pro as a Plex server. But I prefer running Plex on my media PC, which has even more processing power than any of my Shield players (I have three of them). 

So, is your Shield connected via WiFi to your network? How about your Roku, which model do you have? What sort of media are you trying to stream? Are they DVD rips, or 1080/4K Blu Ray discs? If they are from a Blu Ray, your Plex server is transcoding at least the audio, and perhaps the video as well. transcoding audio doesn't take a lot of power, but transcoding video really takes a lot. And sometimes Plex will transcode media that really doesn't need it, so knowing your media content will help there as well.  

[Jdnlns]

Thanks. Everything is connected ethernet. Mostly DVD, however Blu-ray material as well. Movies and TV shows are DVD 480P/1080p. Interestingly, I try to do the same thing with Apple 4k TV, it’s intermittent. It’ll play some content, other content you can only hear audio, other content is played normally. It’s almost as if Nvidia doesn’t want to play nice with other streaming boxes. I agree with having Plex server on a PC, which I’ve had for over 10 years. Just trying something different since everyone on the Internet claims Nvidia is the best. I guess not. When viewing content on the Nvidia itself, it’s very fast. So it’s a good player. Just not a good server.

[atc98092]

My personal belief is that most people that use the Shield as a Plex server are streaming content to devices that don't require transcoding, or only needs the audio transcoded. Things like other Android based boxes, Blu Ray players, or even some TVs. And their content is possibly in a better format for those players. For the Roku, you have a limited amount of codec and container support, so many more videos require transcoding. For example, there are a number of Blu Rays that use VC-1 video, which isn't supported by Roku so needs transcoding. Roku devices also only support a small number of containers, although as long as the codecs are supported the server only needs to "transmux" the video into a new container. This doesn't take a lot of power either but still might be reaching the limits of the Shield, especially the older models. 

You mentioned everything is connected via Ethernet. Remember that the Shield has a Gigabit Ethernet connector, but no Roku device does. Roku has a limit of about 90 Mbps on a wired connection, and some 1080 content can bump into that, and 4K content absolutely does. My Ultra 4800 will connect wirelessly at about 225 Mbps, so that appears to be a hardware limit for Roku devices. Of course, that's more than even for even the highest bitrate UHD rips I have. But I still use my Shield for playback, since it supports bitstreaming the lossless audio (including Atmos/DTS:X) and will also display image based captions.

And that's one other item to note. Virtually all DVD/BD discs use image based captions, which Roku devices cannot display. So if you've enabled captions, the server has to "bu-rn" (can't believe the forum is prohibiting that word) the captions into the video stream. That takes as much power as transcoding the video, so that could be another reason the Roku is getting stuck at 33% load. 

[Jdnlns]

Thanks. None of my rips contain captions. Also the 90 Mbps limit on Roku doesn’t appear to be the issue. Some of my content are home movies as well as ripped tv shoes at 480p. Since I’m getting similar issues with Apple 4k Tv, I bet this is an issue where Nvidia doesn’t want content viewed on other devices even though it’s a server. Another issue is that I can’t remote stream even though it’s enabled. 

[atc98092]

I'm in a hotel right now, and have been streaming from my Plex server to a Roku Stick without a problem. But mine is PC based. I have three hard drives with about 20TB of media, which would be difficult to connect to a Plex server running on a Shield. To paraphrase Jurassic Park (nod to Jeff Goldblum) just because you can, doesn't mean you should. 😄

[Jdnlns]

Thanks I’m sticking with Plex on my laptop. I was just trying Nvidia shield in hopes of being able to rip, transcode, and play 4K video, which most laptops cannot do because of lack of processing power. Hopefully, my GPU can transcode them on the laptop. Nvidia shield can transcode 4K rips. But the other issues I’m having with this thing is not worth it. They market the Nvidia as a server so it should be no problem playing remotely, but there is.

[Jdnlns]

I narrowed it down to older 1080P and 480P movies not playing on Roku through Nvidia. Newer 1080P and 4K movies stream fine from Nvidia through Roku.

[Thrasis]

I’m having the same issue.  Certain formats are doing this and hanging on 33% when launching from Roku.  Everything plays fine when it can direct steam.  But seems like if the roku doesn’t support it, and the shield should transcode it, it just doesn’t and will never load on the roku.

[atc98092]

@Thrasis that is a Shield issue, not Roku. My Plex server runs on a PC, and I never encounter the loading hang. While I have several Shield players, I don't run Plex Server on any of them.