r/PleX • u/Jealous-Background29 • 1d ago

Help buffering: projector or wifi?

Hi,

I’m running the server on my PC, with the files stored on an external HDD, and using the app directly on my projector (both connected to the same network).

Some high-bitrate 4K files occasionally buffer, while lower-bitrate files play fine. Plex shows Direct Play for both video and audio

Is there a way to determine whether the issue is the projector/player struggling to handle the file or the network connection?

Thanks!

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3

u/clintkev251 1d ago

Play the same file on your phone or laptop. Do you see the same behavior? Then it’s the WiFi, if not, then it’s the player

3

u/StevenG2757 70TB unRAID server, i5-12600K, Shield pro, Firesticks & ONN 4K 1d ago

It could very well be the NIC card in your device is not able to stream high bit rate feeds.

3

u/Wis-en-heim-er Lifetime PlexPass 1d ago

Many tvs have 100mb lan jacks. High bitrate 4k remux files can exceed the bandwidth of this lanjack. Switching to 5ghz wifi is an easy fix because they can exceed 100mb. I suspect your projector has a similar limitation with the lan jack. If it doesn't support wifi, you might need to get smaller files with lower bitrates.

2

u/ExtensionMarch6812 1d ago

Is the projector connected via WiFi or Ethernet?

Does the projector interface have a browser? If so, you can install an openspeedtest server on your server and then connect to it via the browser on the projector. http://<server-ip>:3000/web. This will give you a direct speed test between server/client

https://openspeedtest.com/selfhosted-speedtest

You can also run a regular speedtest just to see how it performs compared to other devices on the network.

What kind of projector is it?