One 4K SDR transcode: 12,000 PassMark score.One 1080p transcode: 2,000 PassMark score.One 720p transcode: 1,500 PassMark score.As Plex’s support page notes, a single transcoded stream requires a CPU with the following minimum scores from benchmark program PassMark (PassMark scores measure CPU performance and higher scores are better):

Transcoding will rarely be a problem when you’re accessing Plex at home.īut the biggest challenge with transcoding is the CPU horsepower it’ll require from your Plex server. For instance, Plex will have to transcode a video if you’re remotely playing a 4K video on a 720p smartphone. Once you've got everything set up, your NVIDIA Shield will act as a Plex Media Server and let you stream content from your library to other streaming boxes, computers, or mobile devices that have the Plex app installed.In the most layman of layman’s terms, transcoding refers to when Plex has to convert a video to play on a new streaming device. Plex has a solid guide for setting up a media server on the NVIDIA Shield TV (opens in new tab), which explains how to transfer files over to your Shield's internal storage and then how to set up the Media Server.īecause the new NVIDIA Shield TV Pro only has 16GB of storage, you might want to invest in an external drive that can add up to 5TB of storage space, or make use of the microSD card slot to transfer over your media collection.

Setting up a Plex media server requires you to set up a Plex account and then go through the setup process in the Plex app. Simply put, Plex is one of the most powerful and beautifully-designed media players you can use, and the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro has offered great support for Plex users including pre-installed Plex Media Server software. That's still plenty for more casual use cases, but if you've got a massive media collection that you want instant access to in your home theatre setup - as well as across your other streaming devices - you really ought to set up your NVIDIA Shield as a Plex Media Server. The older Pro model offered 500GB of internal storage but here you only get 16GB.

The only downgrade for the Shield TV Pro (2019) comes in the storage department.

Plex server nvidia shield pro