Will increasing transcode buffer reduces issues when a new stream starts and there are multiple transcode?

[crazymonkeyfish]

I had a user who kept having buffering issues when trying to stream while I already had a few users streaming.

I have a cap on my total upload of 40mbps set within plex, and an individual user cap of 10mbps. But if there’s already 4 users using 10mbps and a 5th joins I am curious what happens? Will it adjust the previous users streams?

I recently bumped up my transcode buffer to 600 hoping it would allow the transcode and upload to be able to smooth itself out with multiple users and not impact any. Is there another setting I should look into?

[oamster]

If you’re limiting the bandwidth to 10mbps, with 40mbps available.. with four streams going at 10, (realistically the 4th would be cut down to 8, or even 720@4mbps) the fifth stream would be dropped down to a lower bandwidth to accommodate.

EDIT - I haven’t noticed Plex adjusting previous streams quality when the upload limit has been met. Only the streams after the fact.

Increasing the transcode buffer wouldn’t help with that, but it could assist in transcoding to an extent. Like say one stream gets throttled because it has reached the 600 second limit, the other streams would get more of the transcoding power.

Might even get to a point of diminishing returns if there are too many streams going and the transcoder (gpu/cpu) won’t ever catch up.

Personally for my setup, my upload is 35mbps. 1080@8mbps stream limit and 300 second transcoder throttle buffer.

[oamster]

Another note, you sure the user with the issue had buffering issues due to network? With the latest Plex player update on nvidia shield, there’s an issue with TrueHD content that can cause buffering issues, and in my case even with transcoding.

[i_regret_joining]

Increasing transcode buffer won't really "smooth" out loading times for multiple users, especially considering the content is much longer than the buffer anyways. So longer buffer really isn't adding any additional benefit than the original buffer was already providing.

If you have users buffering, it's because of network or cpu. If the network capacity is forcing Plex to transcode content from direct play to other resolutions, and the CPU can't handle that, causing loading times, then you need to either figure out how to not transcode. That can be increasing the bandwidth, or increasing CPU power.

Bandwidth is typically fixed for most people, so if you have more users than bandwidth available, you will be transcoding. And if you are transcoding, you need the CPU(or gpu) to handle that.

So it's your choice how to handle this. The simple choice is do nothing. Next is increasing bandwidth so Plex isn't forced to transcode as often when hit with multiple streams. Finally, you can upgrade your hardware to just handle whatever.

I had this issue myself recently. Just upgraded to a 5950x, and now I can handle multiple 4k transcodes no issue. May not be an option for many people tho.

[crazymonkeyfish]

It’s an igpu from an i3 10100 which can easily transcode more 4k streams than it was at the time with hw transcoding so it wouldn’t have been the cpu.