Blu Ray drive for Mac Pro (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

Thanks a lot Josh! Your naming protocol info is very helpful. I did not know about that website, TV Movie Database. I of course know of the IMDB and use the app. The TV Movie Database site is new to me. I’ll rethink my file organization And naming too so it’s more similar to how you’re doing it. Makes sense.

 

[Nelson Au]

I got the Plex server working with the Star Trek titles now. At first I didn’t realize I needed to launch the Plex server app on the computer. Opps.

I watched Who Mourns for Adonais and it played fine on my Apple TV 4 in the family/kitchen area. Later I tried the Apple TV4K in the home theater set-up. I set up Infuse, and I was surprised I kept getting “your connection to the server is not fast enough to play this video”. It would pause and buffer and resume after a long several minutes. This happened several times during The Force Awakens. I tried it too using the Plex app on the Apple TV4K and had similar pauses. Less on the Star Trek TV episodes though on both Infuse and Plex. So not sure what the issue is yet, the Plex forums had several people complain this happened to them after upgrading to the latest Plex version. I was playing the files at full resolution. I tried to use a lower one and 1080 HD was OK. Maybe my Airport router is the issue. I could restart the router. Though I tried the film on iTunes that I ripped and converted to m4v and it was OK via the Apple TV4K.

 

[DaveF]

Back on the Plex situation, I’ve been thinking about how to do it. Firstly I’ll try it via the Mac as the server. But Dave’s comments about using a NAS and speaking to a co-worker, I found out he built his own NAS. He admits he went overboard because he had a free i7 chip lying around and didn’t like how laggy some NAS servers can be. So he built his own. He said if I used a NAS, make sure it’s got a super fast processor. and don’t buy anything under $900 or else it’s not going to be up to the task..

Pretty sure that’s all completely wrong, in general. People don’t build NAS with i9 processors. Not much is needed to serve data from spinning drives over a network.

But, if you’re anticipating a lot of transcoding, then you need to think about what you’re doing. But even then, if you use software that takes advantage of Intel QSV with Intel integrated graphics, an i3 may be just fine.

There are dedicated threads and forums on DIY NAS in various places. I’d do the right research if that’s of interest.

 

[Nelson Au]

Ha, ha! Yeah, this coworker of mine likes to tinker around with electronics and does a lot of DIY projects like this. He thinks very highly of himself too. He wanted a NAS with no lag and could power multiple users in his family at once. He also knows it’s a little overkill.

I’m now just trying to make Plex work from my Mac as the server for now as I get into this. If I continue on this route Of streaming, and I see a need, I’ll either buy a Synology NAS or consider building one.

As I posted above though, I am right now trying to understand why there is this message on screen from the Plex app that says my connection “is not fast enough to stream this video.” This happens in my Apple TV4K. From the Plex forums, the users are blaming Plex for ignoring this complaint. Seems to occur in many devices and on networks with the needed throughput.

 

[Traveling Matt]

Here’s how far I’ve come in just a short time. I just got the new Jetsons Blu-ray set. I ripped it and put it into Plex immediately and watched it from there. Put the disc in storage. Never once made it into my disc player to watch the old fashioned way.

That's how things have been for me for a few years now. I don't watch discs anymore but I want them in case something goes wrong and I have to re-rip. In fact I've never owned a Blu-ray player. I jumped from DVD playing to BD ripping. I can't even play the BDs I own unless I bother to install software, which I haven't.

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, I’ve been asking my coworker and reading up about my issue with Plex lagging.

As I said in my earlier post, I’m experiencing a long lag as I’m streaming a video from the Mac Pro with the Plex server to the Apple TV4K. The video will stop and I have to wait for some time before the video resumes. And I get the message saying “Your network connection is not fast enough to stream this video”

The video was a The Force Awakens and the video was playing at 1080HD high. But I thought it was actually playing actual quality too at one point, though I’m still learning how this works so I could be mistaken.

Funny I don’t think I experienced this on another system with an Apple TV4 playing to a Pioneer plasma that’s a 720 resolution screen. So maybe the ATV4 knows the set is not requiring 1080.

My coworker suggested buying the Plex pass as that solved his problem of lag. It would enable hardware acceleration using the GPU’s processor. He is able to do two 4K streams and a 1080 video stream at once.

This seems crazy so I’m just trying to learn all I can to see if there’s a reason for the lag that might fix the problem. Is my router ok, is there a setting in Plex that can be adjusted? (I see there’s some thing I might try there.) Is it the Plex app itself? I saw many users on their forum complain about the lag after a new version of Plex was installed.

If I can’t fix this, I might as well stick with playing the blu rays. So I’m curious how the streaming is working out for you guys. Thanks!

 

[DaveF]

AppleTV can play direct HD full bitrate without transcoding. So it shouldn’t be a server capacity issue.

That said, it sounds like you might have transcoding forced on. Make sure you don’t. You might be making your server CPU transcode witch might lead to buffering or latency problems.

Try another server (Kodi or Emby or ...) to check if it’s Plex or actually your network.

Can you test your network speeds? Make sure you do have the throughout needed?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That’s what I’m thinking. The lossless audio tracks in particular can be huge and take up a lot of bandwidth. And I think Nelson, you mentioned your router is an Airport? Apple discontinued making those a few years ago and since that time wireless protocols and speeds have evolved. Your router might be your bottleneck here.

My AppleTV is hard wired into the router, as is the computer I run Plex from, so I haven’t really run into direct play issues for the most part.

 

[Nelson Au]

Dave, Josh, thanks a lot for the suggestions!! I’ll check out those things tomorrow evening or this weekend.

I do have an AirPort Extreme 6th Generation, the last one in the series. I’d love to be able to hard wire direct from the router to the Apple TV. I’ll keep that in mind if I can find a way to do that. And I’ll look into Emby or Kodi if the other tests don’t improve things.

 

[Nelson Au]

I had a chance to check some things in my system.
When I check the wifi speed in the house on my MacBook Pro, it shows a Tx rate of 78 to 195 mbps. Not sure why it was varying. After that, I also checked the Apple Extreme utility. There was a firmware update waiting for it, so I enabled that and installed it. It is 802.11 ac. On the desktop, the Mac Pro which is the server is wired into the router. Checking built-in WiFi on the Mac Pro, it’s at 300mbps. Maybe I should turn off it’s WiFi?

I don’t know if Plex is forcing transcoding, I don’t know the application well enough to know what to look for. From what I can see on the Mac Pro, transcoder quality is automatic.

On the Apple TV4, the Plex app is:
Home streaming was set to Max. I reset it to 20mbps, 1080p HD
Auto Adjust quality is off.

I tried to play a video this evening and I had to manually change playback setting on the Apple TV Plex app to convert to 1080p HD while the video was playing to avoid the lag. That’s the lowest 1080p setting, didn’t want to go down to 720p. Of course I’d prefer to play at full quality.

For the Apple TV4K, I haven’t checked it’s settings yet. It’s late, but I assume they are the same.

 

[Clinton McClure]

On the desktop, the Mac Pro which is the server is wired into the router. Checking built-in WiFi on the Mac Pro, it’s at 300mbps. Maybe I should turn off it’s WiFi?

So you're saying your Mac Pro is hitting your AEBS with both wifi and ethernet cable? If so, disable the built in wifi... you don't need both.

 

[Nelson Au]

Clinton, Sorry, didn’t mean to say that. The Mac Pro’s internal WiFi was turned on. But it’s not connecting to anything as far as I know. I did disable it. And it did not make any difference in the Plex performance. It was still laggy.

It seems there’s two routes to solve this. The network speed as the pop up window says “your network is not fast enough to play this video” is one issue. So a new router that has all the newest tech and standards to replace my Apple AirPort Extreme.

Or figure what the issue with transcoding possibly slowing the system down.

 

[DaveF]

WiFi speeds can vary with local conditions, distance to router, what's going on with neighboring wifi networks, microwave over usage, etc, etc. I've had my wifi vary from 15 Mbps to 460 Mbps.

 

[DaveF]

Make sure Direct Play and Direct Stream is enabled
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/

The server should have a page that shows what's being played, and give details of whether its transcoding or direct. Emby has that so I can check if transcoding is being used while I'm watching something (e.g. bring up server page on iPad while playing on another device).

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Dave for that link. I was a little confused by it. Direct Play and Direct Stream from how I read it in the link are files that should be compatible with the device. So I thought Apple TV cannot play MakeMKV files, so there’s the need for the transcoding to make it play on the Apple TV. Unless that direct play feature encodes the files prior to streaming?

I’ll try to find those settings for Direct Play and Direct Stream and see what I can do. Maybe I can’t see them because I’m not using the paid version of Plex. I’m still fooling around with the free version until I’m sure I can use Plex.

I tried Infuse but it required I pay. So I did set it up for the 1 week trial. I’m finding the same lagging issues there if I use the default settings.

 

[Nelson Au]

Dave, about the WiFi speed, my router is pretty far away from the Apple TV’s. I’m beginning to feel that Josh’s input about my Apple Airport being older is one reason I’m having trouble. As you said, distance of the router to the Apple TV has an affect. So maybe that’s playing into this.

Right now I can stream CBS All Access and iTunes movies and other files compatible with Apple TV fine. Maybe the larger MKV files are reaching the systems limits.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Have you tried running a long Ethernet cable from the AEBS directly to the AppleTV? That might point you to whether it’s a router problem or a transcoding issue.

 

[Nelson Au]

I’d have to buy a cable over 50 feet long. 100 feet to be sure.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

So I thought Apple TV cannot play MakeMKV files, so there’s the need for the transcoding to make it play on the Apple TV.

That could certainly be part of it. The Plex app for AppleTV is extremely limited in what it can play directly.

Let’s use those Star Trek Blu-rays for example. The video is encoded as VC1, and the audio as Dolby TrueHD on the discs. AppleTV’s operating system doesn’t support either of those formats natively (though the hardware is certainly capable of it) which means the Plex app for AppleTV doesn’t either, which means forced transcode. This is why I’m such a big proponent of the Infuse app. Infuse is able to harness the capabilities of the AppleTV hardware and ignore the false limitations built into the operating system that the Plex app chooses to observe.

So when you play that same file with Infuse, it doesn’t need your computer to transcode VC1 to MP4 and it doesn’t need your computer to transcode Dolby TrueHD to AAC. It just plays the file as it is.

I think you’re potentially running into two issues. The first is, if you’re using the Plex app on the AppleTV, it’s requiring this material to be transcoded which may be placing a strain on your computer if it’s trying to do “too much”. Ideally you don’t want any transcoding - you want the system to play back the same video that you would have played with the disc. Afterall, why are we putting the effort into collecting high quality Blu-ray if we’re gonna throw away a bunch of the data that makes it so high quality?

So the Plex app for AppleTV should be an “avoid at all costs” thing if we’re trying to play back exactly what’s in those MKV tips of your discs. Infuse is the best bet with AppleTV and there are a few pricing options. You can buy the latest version of the app for $25. Or you could subscribe for one year at $10. Or subscribe month to month for just $1 a month, which may be your best option just for playing around with this to make sure it’s something you want to pursue. (If you try the Plex app for boxes like Roku or Nvidia Shield, it’ll play everything directly without any of the Apple limitations. But then you’re shelling out $100 for a new box you might not have any other need for instead of a few bucks for software. Neither option is wrong, for me I preferred to use Infuse instead of buying new gear.)

Once we’ve got the hardware and software and transcoding issues worked out, then we have to address the lag or bandwidth issue with Infuse that you’re having, which I think is more about WiFi/network speeds than anything else. See, the MKV file has a lot of data and needs a lot of bandwidth - maybe 30-50mbps with HD video and lossless audio. Infuse is trying to play your video as it is but is probably not getting the bandwidth it needs to do that. WiFi speeds can fluctuate within a house depending on distance from router and obstructions in the way. And it might be the kind of thing you never notice when playing something purchased from iTunes or streaming on Netflix or whatever, because those files are so much more compressed than the MKVs that are direct rips of your discs. A Netflix or iTunes Store stream probably requires closer to 4mbps at top quality - so your MKV stream can be ten times the amount of data, hence the bottlenecking that never had been an issue before.

I set up my system so that the computer than runs Plex and the AppleTV that plays it are both hard wired to the router. I know that I technically have the bandwidth to stream wirelessly but I wanted to try to avoid any chance of signal or bandwidth issues getting in the way. But you should be able to stream without a direct connection provided your WiFi is strong enough.

 

[DaveF]

I’d have to buy a cable over 50 feet long. 100 feet to be sure.

$13
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=3384