How to test DLNA/Server hosting performance?
Im current using an external HD and an old laptop as a plex server connected to the network via ethernet. My receiver options are, my LG smart TV, with dlna support, also, it supports PLEX. I also have an apple TV with plex + airplay and other options. These are both Wi-Fi connected. I also have old phones laying around unused. Pixel, S7, iPhones, etc that I wouldn't mind getting use out of. Is there a way to test the speed of serving up and trandcoding a file to I can see which device will perform the best?
Posted Jun 28, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC
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Mobile phones don't make good media servers. Plex app will be a richer experience than DLNA browser. Out of all the devices you listed, Plex on the laptop is probably the best, but a real NAS would be better. Most DNLA servers use ffmpeg for transcoding under-the-hood, so the best media server will be whatever has the most compute power. Bonus points for having a recent version of Intel Quick Sync Video. I suggest you check out r/PleX
Thanks. I'm trying to find a good metric for figuring out which device has the best power for this. That's why I was asking about benchmarking
Passmark score is a good general purpose benchmark. A better benchmark would be to transcode some media with ffmpeg and compare the fps metrics. phoronix posts some x264 benchmarks from time-to-time, but they won't give you the full picture of what some hardware can do if ffmpeg is using a hardware-accelerated codec like h264_vaapi or h264_qsv. It would be best to try with a variety of files. If you are not comfortable with ffmpeg CLI, I suggest using Plex and watching the transcode speed (shown as some number x, eg. 1.0x or 2.6x) on the dashboard. When using hardware-accelerated transcoding, you also need to take into account the hardware generation, because the generation affects output quality and stability, not just speed.