“The server is not powerful enough to convert video”. Really?
It’s a video I transcoded using Handbrake, Plex info shows media bitrate: 12050 kbps, video bitrate 11165 kbps. CPU utilization in administration console looks about 35%. I would expect at least 50% utilization in order to be CPU-bound on a dual core server.
Any chance there’s something I can configure to alleviate this?
Hello,
Please contact WD Support Team https://westerndigital.secure.force.com/ind/?lang=en_US and provide the PR4100 and Plex Logs so that we can also get Plex support involved. It would also be helpful if you could provide a screen shot of the video details in question from Plex.
Just a quick update. I contacted WD support and provided a Plex Media Server log after I rebooted and recreated the behavior using two different Roku devices. They are looking into it.
If I play directly from the PR4100 public share using VLC, the video plays fine. Also if I play the same file off my old Plex server through the same Roku devices, the video plays fine.
you are mixing things together… althought the server isnt able to convert, the client could be. vlc doesnt rely on the server but plex does.
even i can play movies with vlc from my nas (dl2100), but cant use plex because the plex use the nas to convert vids.
You missed my point, which is that the video itself is not the issue because it plays fine through two other means: VLC and another PLEX server. Also, I believe I have adequately ruled out the issue being the Roku client software. Additionally, multiple playback methods proves the network is not the issue.
This leaves either the PLEX Media Server software or the PR4100 as the cause. Can this issue be fixed through PLEX server configuration or a new version of PLEX? I can fix it by returning the PR4100, but the PR4100 is small, quiet and very wife-friendly – a sharp contrast to my old media server.
Returning a PR4100 is not “solving” your issue. A PR4100 is the newest state of the art NAS from WD. My DL2100 serves up media plenty fast to be played by a WDTV and anything else that can play the media. Plex is not the best way to get the job done. I rarely use it. And, a Roku is not my choice of player of my videos. Even a FireTV stick running Kodi does a better job than the Roku.
exactly what i said.
plex needs two components: plex server and plex app. when you have plex server installed on your PR4100, plex uses the power or PR4100.
when you have vlc installed on your device, vlc doesnt use the power of PR4100 but the power of your device to where the vlc has been installed (tablet/computer/tvbox…).
two differend ways to play content from my DL2100:
A) if i use plex in my nas (plex server) and apple tv4 (plex client), i get a message “the server (=DL2100) isnt powerful enough to convert…”
B) if i use vlc (and again DL2100 and atv4), i have no problem to play the same vid.
the video here isnt the problem either but the cpu of my nas which isnt powerful enough to convert and hence i cant use plex unless i convert vids before using them with plex software or let plex to convert them before streaming.
there are options for quality when streaming with plex server/app, and you can try to reduce them. if i set them lower, i can stream those vids but the quality is awful. so i dont use plex in my nas, but apps installed in clients.
@vellix
This is interesting and useful info and convinces me even further that Plex is not what it’s cracked up to be. I have no desire to have Plex convert my ISO and MKV files (write new files to store) when I can easily serve the originals up from my DL2100 to my WDTV and watch on TV. Additionally, I have already converted (with Handbrake) many of my DVD and BD discs to m4v/mp4 files for watching on tablets (iPad and Kindles) and some BD discs to MKV (for TV) and m4v files for watching on tablets. In all cases, the quality is great, and even those m4v files look really good on a smaller (<50") screen played by anything; including Plex. Since my TV has a 54" screen, picture quality is less than watching the original files on the WDTV. Even Kodi on a FireTV stick does a great job with the ISO and MKV files and could be a replacement for the WDTV if it happens to ever bite the dust.
Plex, phooey.
I do wonder why the DL2100 and other higher end NAS devices haven’t the guts to transcode ISO and MKV files for Plex; especially if additional RAM memory (which I have added) is present in the NAS. Any idea why?
i personaly refuse to convert my vids to support one format (e.g. atv/ios) and rather use apps that can handle them all. (future proof)
i dont understand why plex has been built on that way that the plex isnt utilizing the client but relies on the server. Especially when they know that nowadays people have more and more nases or similar products which havent ment for streaming and media servers.
Even PR4100 seems to be too underpowered, if you get a message “cant convert” so what is the purpose for plex?
I RMA’ed the unit. WD sent me an EX4100 as a replacement. The EX4100 has an inferior processor. The EX4100 they sent did have (4) 8 TB drives, 32TB total so at least the drive capacity matched. But downgrading me is not acceptable.
Just for reference, here are dates:
If you RMA a PR4100, be sure to check the model number on the front; the two units are virtually identical.
The WD support reps are excellent. It is clear that they understand what is happening. I can only speculate as to what is going wrong. My guess is that there is either a problem with the RMA database settings for the PR4100 and an EX4100 is flagged as an appropriate replacement or the RMA department is returning products as fast as possible and not reading the notes. The first RMA status shows a PR4100 received and an EX4100 returned.
Ask to speak with a supervisor for gosh sakes!
I received my PR4100 today. On this last unit WD treated me to a no-charge advanced replacement without my asking. I was going to wait for them to come back in stock – I think the rep bumped me up to get a first available unit. I’m pretty happy to have my PR4100 again.
Once I get set up again I’ll check to see if my original issue is resolved. The unit says there’s a firmware update available.
Pixelgrease, I am having he same trouble with my PR4100. I can play most videos flawlessly but I have a few episodes that seem to pixelate and take away from the viewing experience. I can play the same video through my computer Plex server with no problem. I had the EX4100 and returned it for this problem. I am hoping that WD can figure out this problem with and update.
The model number is right there on the front of the unit…you didn’t see it when you took it out of the box?
OMG! There it is, right on the front! How could I have missed that???
Maybe… I didn’t know there was another product with an identical industrial design? Maybe it looks exactly like what I sent in for RMA?
When I got it, I verified the 8TB drives and put it in the corner. I totally did not read the “EX” in front of “4100” instead of “PR”… two tiny, but critical letters. The feeling was priceless when the tech support rep said, “No, that’s an EX 4100, not a PR 4100” and it finally registered; “that is a different model number” and it had been right in front of me all the time. Well, on the floor where I couldn’t read it easily.
What does it matter if I had read it correctly? I sent it back 4 times and it was escalated 3 times… would it have changed anything other than getting me started on the returns sooner?
I have exactly the same issue. I got the PR4100 a week now and been playing it for a while. When you play any files with 1-2 GB, it plays fine. Any larger files with higher bitrate seems to struggle. the weird thing is, it doesn’t happen all the time. But even when I play a 6GB mkv, at times it tells me the server is not powerful enough to convert video.
I’ve also noticed that transcoding quality is really bad; I can clearly see the artifacts/noise on the images.
I tried the same transcoding using my desktop server rather than the PR4100, quality if fantastic, no noise whatsoever.
Also, it took a while to buffer before the movie starts. For a while, I mean about 10-30 seconds.
I really do want to make this work cause I think the NAS itself is a great device, but I did purchase it for the purpose of running the PMS on it rather than on my PC server. As of now, I’m leaning towards returning the product. If anyone had these issues and was able to resolve them, please let me know.
(PR2100 / PR4100 Only!)
If your plex server comes up with the message “Server is not power full enough” it means you don’t have experimental encoding turned on without the hardware acceleration its definitely not powerful enough to encode the videos also note not all videos require transcoding which is why it might only happen sometimes or every time.
Another indication of this problem is if you see the cpu usage, the plex server is only able to run a transcode job on a single core so if you check the cores you will notice a single core hitting 97% while the others are idle often giving you a 25% or a little more in cpu usage as a hole.
The solution for this problem is very easy, Usually this is on by default but to manually turn on the hardware transcoding all you need to do is go to settings, click the show advanced button on the right side and then click on transcoder on the left side, there you will see a little box for Use experimental hardware acceleration, make sure you check that box, After doing all that you still don’t see the experimental check mark box in transcode with advanced on then it means your current version of plex is outdated, you will need to update.
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