aut0maticdan
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2010
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I don't use Home Sharing + Plex, but rather Home Sharing adjacent to Plex (as an alternative). Home sharing is flawless in music playback after the initial two minute library load.
Plex, on the other hand, loads my library instantly but seems to get choppy/inconsistent playing to iOS devices after some time. Has been working great on my appleTV for about a year, but that down-samples high resolution to 16/48 via its digital out. I had better luck streaming audio via Plex to Plex Media Player on my laptop over LTE at my dentist's office yesterday than I do with my iPhone or iPad connected to my wifi sitting on my couch. BTW... my problems aren't strictly with high res, 16/44 is just the same. Video files are also playing fine on my AppleTV through Plex as well at a much higher bitrate than any audio I listen to. I feel like the issues are specific to the iOS client. Plex has always treated them as 2nd-class citizens (by their own admission). There are loads of similar complaints on their message boards. I get the sense that Plex is doing too many things at once and they keep introducing bugs.
For now, I'll take a 2 minute slow load followed by flawless playback (Home Sharing) over a quick load and not even being able to make it through an album or two without a hiccup or having to close the app and reopen it (Plex). Overall, home sharing is the better experience for music, anyway, I just wish it didn't take so long to load. It has been a problem for 3 years now, so Apple is not going to fix it. Plex doesn't have smart playlists, has a very basic navigation/organization experience and isn't integrated with iTunes which I like to use at my desk. However, Plex is amazing in its quick sourcing of meta data and playback from anywhere on the planet. I'll keep using both until one get's it just right for me. I'd ditch iTunes in a second if Plex ever gets working consistently for music. It has already taken over my video library needs.
I've gone over all of the configs with a fine-toothed comb. It is a 6-core mac pro, cat-5, with nothing particularly eventful going on, but really, direct-playing doesn't use much CPU. I may try running a separate copy of Plex server on a linux instance just to see if there is any difference. I'm also somewhat suspicious of my Airport Extreme, but that's mostly because I'm out of other avenues.
I'm happy that it is working well for you. What do you run your server on? Mind checking the server version? I am on 1.3.3.3148 and am a PlexPass subscriber.
Plex, on the other hand, loads my library instantly but seems to get choppy/inconsistent playing to iOS devices after some time. Has been working great on my appleTV for about a year, but that down-samples high resolution to 16/48 via its digital out. I had better luck streaming audio via Plex to Plex Media Player on my laptop over LTE at my dentist's office yesterday than I do with my iPhone or iPad connected to my wifi sitting on my couch. BTW... my problems aren't strictly with high res, 16/44 is just the same. Video files are also playing fine on my AppleTV through Plex as well at a much higher bitrate than any audio I listen to. I feel like the issues are specific to the iOS client. Plex has always treated them as 2nd-class citizens (by their own admission). There are loads of similar complaints on their message boards. I get the sense that Plex is doing too many things at once and they keep introducing bugs.
For now, I'll take a 2 minute slow load followed by flawless playback (Home Sharing) over a quick load and not even being able to make it through an album or two without a hiccup or having to close the app and reopen it (Plex). Overall, home sharing is the better experience for music, anyway, I just wish it didn't take so long to load. It has been a problem for 3 years now, so Apple is not going to fix it. Plex doesn't have smart playlists, has a very basic navigation/organization experience and isn't integrated with iTunes which I like to use at my desk. However, Plex is amazing in its quick sourcing of meta data and playback from anywhere on the planet. I'll keep using both until one get's it just right for me. I'd ditch iTunes in a second if Plex ever gets working consistently for music. It has already taken over my video library needs.
I've gone over all of the configs with a fine-toothed comb. It is a 6-core mac pro, cat-5, with nothing particularly eventful going on, but really, direct-playing doesn't use much CPU. I may try running a separate copy of Plex server on a linux instance just to see if there is any difference. I'm also somewhat suspicious of my Airport Extreme, but that's mostly because I'm out of other avenues.
I'm happy that it is working well for you. What do you run your server on? Mind checking the server version? I am on 1.3.3.3148 and am a PlexPass subscriber.
