Video How suitable is Raspberry Pi for a plex server?

nitin_g3 said:
How suitable is it for a plex server? 4k streaming mostly.
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napstersquest said:
If no transcoding, then sure!
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I tried running the plex server on RPi 4gb but it was a no go for me for two reasons. As @napstersquest suggested, it lacks any real transcoding ability, and second, I was experiencing quite a bit of latency even on LAN. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t a dumpster fire either. You can try just don’t have high hopes. You’ll have a smoother experience with any old pc with an nvidia gpu 1050 types.
 
nitin_g3 said:
How suitable is it for a plex server?
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Do you need streaming capabilities outside of your home or only on LAN? The devices you'll be streaming to, are they capable of playing the content locally? (most smart TVs these days can play all kinds of content locally).

If your answer is No;Yes, then you can just use Pi as a NAS server and use Kodi to play content locally. That's what I do.

However, if you're already used to Plex, then the switch might be difficult, in which case and 8th gen NUC will probably serve you better.

Also, if you use multiple devices to stream, then keeping your library in sync with Kodi requires a bit of effort initially as you will have to setup a MySQL database.
m0h1t said:
I was experiencing quite a bit of latency even on LAN
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That's surprising, I was using my Pi as NAS server for a while over 100 Mbps ethernet and never experienced any issues even with 4k content. I was using Kodi to play, but the content being streamed should still be similar.
 
m0h1t said:
I tried running the plex server on RPi 4gb but it was a no go for me for two reasons. As @napstersquest suggested, it lacks any real transcoding ability, and second, I was experiencing quite a bit of latency even on LAN. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t a dumpster fire either. You can try just don’t have high hopes. You’ll have a smoother experience with any old pc with an nvidia gpu 1050 types.
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Actually if you use a good enough power supply, it is pretty good. Make sure to always use native clients, and enable hardware decoding for all. Not good for browser use.
If you download movies in H264, it plays back pretty smoothly.
For 4K HEVC content, I found the playback on my Android Phone (Nord 2 with 1080p screen) and LG TV (4K with FireTV Stick 4K) pretty smooth. However on an old 1080p TV with Fire TV Stick (1080p) it used to stutter like playing intensive games on iGPU.
 
gourav said:
Do you need streaming capabilities outside of your home or only on LAN
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LAN only.
gourav said:
devices you'll be streaming to, are they capable of playing the content locally
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I think yes, it's LG TV with webos.
gourav said:
then you can just use Pi as a NAS server and use Kodi to play content locally
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Kodi is not available for webos.

I currently use my old gaming laptop with 7th gen i7 as plex server for occasional movie watching, but I don't want to keep it ON just to be used as a plex server.
 
nitin_g3 said:
LAN only.

I think yes, it's LG TV with webos.

Kodi is not available for webos.

I currently use my old gaming laptop with 7th gen i7 as plex server for occasional movie watching, but I don't want to keep it ON just to be used as a plex server.
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ibose said:
Off-topic but test builds are available -
I would request Mods to move these to the Pi thread
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skt907 said:
I have two 2 GB variants, does the 4GB or or 8GB really make a difference if I want to use it to play movies from NAS?
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Let's continue the discussion here

For transcoding, RAM size will have an impact.

I'm learning about the limitations of WebOS now, reading about Kodi not being available for it. It seems WebOS TVs don't have hardware Decoder, so Kodi is problematic.

I was actually thinking of getting LG next time, but now I'll have to reconsider. I can always continue using Fire Stick though, so not a complete deal breaker.
 
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