Been using Plex since I've made the jump from a WDTV Live to the ATV 4, and I've been loving it. Never had any problems with buffering or otherwise. A couple of days ago, a friend complained about a first-time encounter with a file that was buffering so bad it was unwatchable. He has an identical set-up except for the fact he's using an old Mac mini as the server while I'm on my '09 iMac.
I downloaded the same file (noticing it was a 1080p HEVC encode) and tried it out. After the usual 4-5 seconds of initial buffering, the file played normally..not buffering once. So the iMac did it's job. To my horror though, glancing at the Activity Monitor, I see the processor running at a constant 130-150% with an Energy Impact of a scary 888!
Later I get the idea of trying out MrMC (the interface of which I can't bare) just to see how it will fare. The file didn't even buffer for the initial 4 seconds...played seamlessly while my iMac was sitting there happily idle.
Naturally, the question posed itself. Didn't I just pass this hugely taxing transcode job from the iMac to the ATV 4's processor? So which is better? Which processor should one decide to tax with such difficult files?
The ATV 4's lack of any means for peeking into it's inner workings certainly doesn't help.
Any thoughts!