Originally Posted by
richard
Not sure about transcoding power. I got the non-play version.
I have mp4 files that I want to be able to view. Why do those have to be transcoded?
Honestly, I'm not an expert on transcoding, but I believe it's necessary when the device can't play the media format directly, due to either it's type (.mp4, .mkv, .avi, etc.) or the available bandwidth or the available caching space on the device. I do know that transcoding puts a major load on the CPU. My NAS is 5 years old, so I have a debian (linux) server running Plex, connected to NAS via samba that does it for me.
Much of the Plex content within my house is direct played, but when I stream over the internet, or store data locally on my ipad, it usually has to be transcoded.