Samsung tv not playing media

[10801080]

hi guys,

New to the forums so let me now if i posted in the wrong place.

I have a ua70ku6000 samsung tv and a Freenas machine with a plex server, i can get the plex app on the tv to detect media in my home library and it displays thumbnails. But when i click to play the file, it just displays the loading symbol and eventually brings me back to the home library.

Everything was going great until i couldn't play the media on the server and help would be much appreciated!

P.s i have tried multiple different files types such as .mkv .avi and .mp4 and no bueno

Thanks

 

[melloa]

You will need to provide a little bit more information for people here be able to pin-point the issue and try to help and/or direct you to Plex.

FreeNAS build/version
Plex installation type (jail, plugin, VM, etc)

 

[pirateghost]

I've found the built in apps on TVs to be unreliable, buggy, and lag far behind real releases.

The best option I've found is either a Chromecast or a pi running rasplex

 

[10801080]

Here are the corrent specs/ versions.

FreeNAS build version: FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201509022158
FreeNAS plexmediaserver plugin version: 1.2.7.2987
Samsung TV software version: 1142
Plex app version: 3.0.6 (2.10.8)

I have posted on the plex forums however no one seems to want to view the thread

 

[BBarker]

Is your Ethernet connection to the Samsung wireless or wired? Almost sounds like it is timing out.

Will your NAS play media on other devices?

I would have to agree that your TV Plex app may be buggy and you may want to consider using it's DLNA feature instead.

 

[10801080]

TV is connected via Ethernet cable.

Yeah i can play media perfectly on my LG TV using the PLAYZ app, however i cant get one for the Samsung.

I had another go at playing around with some settings, i turned off direct play and reduced the max h.264 level to 4.2 instead of 5.1 ( i dont really know what these settings do) and played a movie. The actually started playing however it was extremely slow and was buffering for 30 seconds at a time.

 

[melloa]

Yeah i can play media perfectly on my LG TV using the PLAYZ app

If you can play from your other TV, I'd go with another option as mentioned by @pirateghost. I do prefer to use HTPCs connected to my AV Receivers to keep my finger on the software I'm using, updates, new things out there, etc.

 

[BBarker]

Buffering could be a slow connection or software on the tv can't handle the amount of data being sent. Did you confirm you have a good wired connection and that the tv hasn't switched to wireless instead? I have never streamed movie files to my tvs but always through an A/V receiver and never had an issue.

Also, you may want to try installing KODI on your tv as a media app. Great support and will eliminate the software as an issue.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

i turned off direct play and reduced the max h.264 level to 4.2 instead of 5.1 ( i dont really know what these settings do) and played a movie. The actually started playing however it was extremely slow and was buffering for 30 seconds at a time

It's possible the format your TV wants to play requires transcoding and your FreeNAS can't transcode fast enough.
HINT: if you were to post your full FreeNAS system specs, we might be able to eliminate this possibility.

P.S. the h.264 levels determine what specs the playback device needs to have to be able to play the stream, e.g. how many frames it can buffer in RAM.

 

[mattbbpl]

I've found the built in apps on TVs to be unreliable, buggy, and lag far behind real releases.

The best option I've found is either a Chromecast or a pi running rasplex

I can't throw my support behind this enough. Many times people will call up Amazon/Google/whatever because these apps just stop working, and the company will simply send them a Fire Stick/Chromecast/whatever in response.

Bottom line: It's best to separate your screen from your (regularly updating) software and put it onto something more flexible (or at least more cheaply swapped).

 

[10801080]

Ok guys so i had a scan around my wired connections from the router to the tv since i thought the slow buffering speeds were due to a bottleneck in the network somewhere.

Now i was using a switch between the router and the TV that seemed to be relatively old and did not do gigabit speeds. So i swapped it out a vuola, perfect streaming.

My only other questions is the the image supplied on the tv seems to be of a SLIGHTLY lower quality than if i were to just play it off a hard disk, nothing too noticeable but enough to catch my eye. Does the freeNAS machine always transcode media no matter what?

 

[BBarker]

Ok guys so i had a scan around my wired connections from the router to the tv since i thought the slow buffering speeds were due to a bottleneck in the network somewhere.

Now i was using a switch between the router and the TV that seemed to be relatively old and did not do gigabit speeds. So i swapped it out a vuola, perfect streaming.

My only other questions is the the image supplied on the tv seems to be of a SLIGHTLY lower quality than if i were to just play it off a hard disk, nothing too noticeable but enough to catch my eye. Does the FreeNAS machine always transcode media no matter what?

Did you turn direct play back on?
What about setting the bitrate back to default 5.1?

I'm only suggesting this since you mentioned you had changed these settings.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[pirateghost]

Ok guys so i had a scan around my wired connections from the router to the tv since i thought the slow buffering speeds were due to a bottleneck in the network somewhere.

Now i was using a switch between the router and the TV that seemed to be relatively old and did not do gigabit speeds. So i swapped it out a vuola, perfect streaming.

My only other questions is the the image supplied on the tv seems to be of a SLIGHTLY lower quality than if i were to just play it off a hard disk, nothing too noticeable but enough to catch my eye. Does the FreeNAS machine always transcode media no matter what?

It will only transcode if the client (the TV) is requesting it be transcoded.

 

[pschatz100]

TV is connected via Ethernet cable. Yeah i can play media perfectly on my LG TV using the PLAYZ app, however i cant get one for the Samsung.

I had another go at playing around with some settings, i turned off direct play and reduced the max h.264 level to 4.2 instead of 5.1 ( i dont really know what these settings do) and played a movie. The actually started playing however it was extremely slow and was buffering for 30 seconds at a time.

It's possible the format your TV wants to play requires transcoding and your FreeNAS can't transcode fast enough.
HINT: if you were to post your full FreeNAS system specs, we might be able to eliminate this possibility.

P.S. the h.264 levels determine what specs the playback device needs to have to be able to play the stream, e.g. how many frames it can buffer in RAM.

If the Plex app on your TV appears to connect to the server and shows the thumbnails correctly, then I don't think it is likely to be a network problem. The problem may be related to the settings you are using to encode your videos. For maximum compatibility with playback devices, you should not encode with an H.264 level greater than 4.1. Try re-encoding something at H.264 4.1 and see if it works better. You will not see any difference in the quality of the videos using the higher H.264 levels, anyway. I am assuming that your other encoding specs are reasonable.

I have two Samsung TV's that play Plex videos just fine. While I like the Plex client on Roku better, the Samsung one is OK.