nvidia Shield - Tips & tricks [Read post #1]

xckjoo · 02-05-2019 01:44PM

Blazer wrote: »

Open the plex app on your device and look for quality settings.
Set it to original which means it will not do any transcoding. I set internet to 2mb or so even though I have about 10meg upload. But my nas struggles to decode.
On your plex media server ensure its set to the same.

I'm curious as to how that improves streaming? The transcoding is done server side and should result in a smaller streaming file size, which should be faster to stream. Are your server and client on the same network? There should be no internet access needed for local network play so upload speed shouldn't factor in. TBH this was part of the reason I moved to Emby. I couldn't tell if Plex was streaming through my local network or through their servers and back. Not doubting your findings by the way. Just trying to muddle through what Plex is up to.

rustledjimmies · 02-05-2019 01:50PM

There is no transcoding in this setup. Client and server are acting more like an FTP server/client. PMS serves the file as-is on disk, client plays it - no transcoding. My setup works this way on LAN, bandwidth's not an issue.

The high horse brigade · 02-05-2019 02:06PM

Transcoding uses serious processor power on the server to convert the media file on the fly and high IO rates on the storge and memory which can end up with glitching, stuttering or the audio being out of sync, even on your local network. You should always try to direct play as it uses next to no resources on the server.

xckjoo · 02-05-2019 02:16PM

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Transcoding uses serious processor power on the server to convert the media file on the fly and high IO rates on the storge and memory which can end up with glitching, stuttering or the audio being out of sync, even on your local network. You should always try to direct play as it uses next to no resources on the server.

But I don't think it'll cause buffering issues, which is what most people are experiencing. With transcoding the bottle neck should be on the server, while with direct streaming it should be on the network.

Sorry lads, just trying to figure out what Plex is up to behind the scenes. The engineer in me is annoyed by it

The high horse brigade · 02-05-2019 02:25PM

xckjoo wrote: »

But I don't think it'll cause buffering issues, which is what most people are experiencing. With transcoding the bottle neck should be on the server, while with direct streaming it should be on the network.

Yes it can. In fact a server transcoding to one user can cause buffering for anyone streaming at the same time. If you want the best experience for all users make sure they're ALL direct playing at all times.

I have a Hetzner dedi server running Emby I share out so I'm talking from lots of experience on this

xckjoo · 02-05-2019 03:41PM

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Yes it can. In fact a server transcoding to one user can cause buffering for anyone streaming at the same time. If you want the best experience for all users make sure they're ALL direct playing at all times.

I have a Hetzner dedi server running Emby I share out so I'm talking from lots of experience on this

Ah. I was thinking of it from a single client situation and would consider network buffering and transcoding issues as different. If your server is tied up transcoding for one client I can see how it would cause issues for all streaming. Transcoding is going to add one hell of an overhead.

Anyway, it's semantics at this stage. I'm finding Emby much easier to configure and is running like a champ so I should just forget about my Plex issues.

Irish Gunner · 02-05-2019 04:18PM

rustledjimmies wrote: »

I don't have an answer but have observed odd behaviour with similar setup (samsung tv, virgin box on HDMI 1, shield on HDMI 2. CEC on). I can wake/sleep the Shield with Samsung Remote and even operate the Shield with that remote. But, this is the strange part, the above only works if the VM box is powered on! So there's some dependency there on the HDMI ports somehow.

Still trying to figure it out. Denon are saying its a Harmony / Shield issue and Shield Chat have told me to do the below which seems like overkill and I dont want to remove everything and set it up again esp harmony. Its not interfering with the tv but just seems to take longer for TV to come on

Also make sure the Shield is directly connected to TV's 'HDMI ARC' port if available on TV.

For testing purpose also disconnect the harmony remote from the Shield, along with this if in case you have any external devices like, SD card, Flash drive, external hard drive, bluetooth keyboard / mouse dongles connected to the shield, try removing the same and now test if the Shield TV works fine?

Blazer · 02-05-2019 04:27PM

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Yes it can. In fact a server transcoding to one user can cause buffering for anyone streaming at the same time. If you want the best experience for all users make sure they're ALL direct playing at all times.

I have a Hetzner dedi server running Emby I share out so I'm talking from lots of experience on this

I used to encounter it as I have a synology has with dual core x86 processor.
However it’s only rated for transcoding using the native video station and not plex.
Transcoding absolutely kills the cpu in a nas.
I used to get constant buffering and your network is too slow etc on even wired gigabit as the cpu on the nas was maxed out just from transcoding and couldn’t do it fast enough.
The shield if you’re running plex server on it has a far more powerful cpu and can transcode 4 x 1080p streams simultaneously or so they say.

The high horse brigade · 02-05-2019 04:32PM

Blazer wrote: »

I used to encounter it as I have a synology has with dual core x86 processor.
However it’s only rated for transcoding using the native video station and not plex.
Transcoding absolutely kills the cpu in a nas.
I used to get constant buffering and your network is too slow etc on even wired gigabit as the cpu on the nas was maxed out just from transcoding and couldn’t do it fast enough.
The shield if you’re running plex server on it has a far more powerful cpu and can transcode 4 x 1080p streams simultaneously or so they say.

Yeah the Shield has hardware transcoding in Plex offloading the FFMPEG processes to the very efficient GPU. You can still run into IO issues. I'm not sure how well it will cope with Emby transcodes though.

chewed · 03-05-2019 08:04AM

Currently testing out Emby. Quick question, does the app differentiate between movies and TV Shows? I have both Media folders on the server pointing to my media hard drives. On these drives I have everything bundled into various folders. On Plex, it knew the difference and was able to sort according to the type. It's not working for me on Plex and everything (inc. TV shows) is appearing in the Movies folder.

The high horse brigade · 03-05-2019 08:14AM

chewed wrote: »

Currently testing out Emby. Quick question, does the app differentiate between movies and TV Shows? I have both Media folders on the server pointing to my media hard drives. On these drives I have everything bundled into various folders. On Plex, it knew the difference and was able to sort according to the type. It's not working for me on Plex and everything (inc. TV shows) is appearing in the Movies folder.

No. You need to separate movies and shows, you should be doing this for Emby, Plex or Kodi
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Movie-naming
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/TV-naming

chewed · 03-05-2019 08:27AM

The high horse brigade wrote: »

No. You need to separate movies and shows, you should be doing this for Emby, Plex or Kodi
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Movie-naming
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/TV-naming

OK cheers! I don't have to do this for Plex though. It can tell whether it's a movie or TV show and sort accordingly.

The high horse brigade · 03-05-2019 08:50AM

chewed wrote: »

OK cheers! I don't have to do this for Plex though. It can tell whether it's a movie or TV show and sort accordingly.

Yes maybe it does by it will miss some. It's not the way it's supposed to be organised. They all have exact naming conventions and media folder layouts.
https://www.techjunkie.com/name-tv-shows-movies-plex/

You really should put some time into sorting them before you setup. There is no excuse for this, there are plenty of organiser softwares and pvrs like Sonarr and Radarr that do this automatically.

chewed · 03-05-2019 02:39PM

Really liking Emby so far. Much better than Plex IMO

razor12345 · 07-05-2019 08:21PM

Hi

Can anyone point me to getting started with retro gaming on the shield, complete noob here so any help pms appreciate

Cheers

MiskyBoyy · 07-05-2019 08:26PM

razor12345 wrote: »

Hi

Can anyone point me to getting started with retro gaming on the shield, complete noob here so any help pms appreciate

Cheers

I just set it up a few days ago myself. Not sure what others are using but I installed Retro Arch from the Play Store on the Shield. [mod snip]

This video should cover most of it:

Skippy along · 08-05-2019 04:27PM

Have the Shield 12 months... only found out last night I can pair my PS4 controller to it happy days

rustledjimmies · 09-05-2019 09:15PM

Irish Gunner wrote: »

Still trying to figure it out. Denon are saying its a Harmony / Shield issue and Shield Chat have told me to do the below which seems like overkill and I dont want to remove everything and set it up again esp harmony. Its not interfering with the tv but just seems to take longer for TV to come on

Also make sure the Shield is directly connected to TV's 'HDMI ARC' port if available on TV.

My Samsung TV has auto-updated its firmware in the last week and seems to have fixed my issues with Shield and CEC (I replied to your earlier post about your Samsung TV problem). Maybe check your problem again - manually update your TV firmware if you have to.

studdlymurphy · 09-05-2019 10:15PM

My remote got damaged and isnt working at all now. Any recommendations on a good replacement? Not an original as they are about 100 pound. It's the newest version shield 2017.
Thanks

stimpson · 09-05-2019 10:40PM

studdlymurphy wrote: »

My remote got damaged and isnt working at all now. Any recommendations on a good replacement? Not an original as they are about 100 pound. It's the newest version shield 2017.
Thanks

https://m.banggood.com/Q5-Bluetooth-2_4GHz-WIFI-Voice-Remote-Control-Air-Mouse-With-USB-Receiver-For-Smart-TV-Android-Box-PC-p-1301925.html?utm_design=13&utm_source=emarsys&utm_medium=Reviewinvitenew&utm_campaign=trigger-emarsys&utm_content=Yoshiki&sc_src=email_3372567&sc_eh=95d5716ba4887e621&sc_llid=580595&sc_lid=133333212&sc_uid=7LL3I9V5LG

Get the Bluetooth one. There is a video about setting it up with the Shield here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H97K5RsjERI

The trick is to switch off Bluetooth LE Privacy and reboot the shield.

The high horse brigade · 19-05-2019 11:25AM

Nvidia have made a site where you sign up to the test Shield firmware update to fix any Emby/Plex high bitrate issues people have been having since firmware 7.2 https://surveys.nvidia.com/index.jsp?pi=ba7320153df027d1e7ff8991eb3a8173

The high horse brigade · 19-05-2019 12:57PM

Mr.S wrote: »

Thank christ for that.

You could always get it by pm'ing your serial number to the mod sniper on the Geforce forum. I got signed up to it weeks ago. I posted about it here before. Mine has been working flawless for a few weeks, it was a very annoying issue.

Basq · 19-05-2019 02:13PM

After I put in serial:

Thank you for taking the time to respond. Please be aware some connectivity issues with your audio/video//networking may be resolved by updating the firmware of your HDTV, audio receiver or router to the latest version. Certain bugs may be difficult to troubleshoot without diagnostic logs from your device. If you would like to submit logs from your SHIELD with your feedback, please do so by choosing Settings from your SHIELD Android TV home screen -> on the following page scroll right and choose About -> select "Send feedback to NVIDIA". Include your email address in the description so that we may be able to match it to the feedback you submitted. If the bug you are reporting seldemly occurs, you may need to wait until the issue reappears before submitting the logs. Otherwise the diagnostic logs may not include the necessary

Sooooo.. do I get the update or what?

The high horse brigade · 19-05-2019 02:33PM

Basq wrote: »

After I put in serial:

Sooooo.. do I get the update or what?

Yes, you can search after a reboot to see if it's available if not it will arrive in a few hours.

Basq · 19-05-2019 02:37PM

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Yes, you can search after a reboot to see if it's available if not it will arrive in a few hours.

Thanks. Yeah, reboot didn't work so will try again in a few hours

cronos · 19-05-2019 02:41PM

Anyone's game controler randomly keep going to the left without being touched?

The high horse brigade · 19-05-2019 02:46PM

cronos wrote: »

Anyone's game controler randomly keep going to the left without being touched?

I get this and have to pull out the analogue stick every so often, grab it and gently pull it straight out until it clicks

The high horse brigade · 19-05-2019 03:01PM

Mr.S wrote: »

Extremely! I thought it was my connection for a long time.

Yeah the mad thing is it's not affecting everyone

McMurphy · 19-05-2019 08:17PM

stimpson wrote: »

https://m.banggood.com/Q5-Bluetooth-2_4GHz-WIFI-Voice-Remote-Control-Air-Mouse-With-USB-Receiver-For-Smart-TV-Android-Box-PC-p-1301925.html?utm_design=13&utm_source=emarsys&utm_medium=Reviewinvitenew&utm_campaign=trigger-emarsys&utm_content=Yoshiki&sc_src=email_3372567&sc_eh=95d5716ba4887e621&sc_llid=580595&sc_lid=133333212&sc_uid=7LL3I9V5LG

Get the Bluetooth one. There is a video about setting it up with the Shield here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H97K5RsjERI

The trick is to switch off Bluetooth LE Privacy and reboot the shield.

I got one of these and my heart was broke with it constantly disconnecting itself from the shield, requiring a repair everytime.

Good little remote to be fair , and maybe I just got unlucky with mine.

54and56 · 20-05-2019 03:42PM

Would someone mind telling me how you point the Shield Plex Server app at a locally connected NAS and how to select which content folders to make available to Plex and which ones to keep private?

Apologies if this is a silly question but I just don't see where that option is within the Plex Server settings menu on the Shield.

FYI I'm running Plex Server V1.14.1.5488, Storage Location is Internal (system), I have a 128GB SanDisk USB drive installed as device storage and I have the NAS mounted as storage on the Shield with both the NAS and the Shield connected directly to my router via Ethernet cables.

nvidia Shield - Tips & tricks [Read post #1]

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