Help with transcoding with plex?

[Enquiries]

Hi,
I have a couple of questions about transcoding, plex and nas, sorry if im bothering.

1. How does the plex pass transcoding works? If I want my nas to be able to transcode on the go with my tv. Since I watch I lot of shows with subtitles i pretty much always have to do transcoding. Do i need this feature or does software transcoding works as well? (Example with ds218 or ds218+)

2. I just got the ds218 and I think I made the wrong choice. I don’t have the plex pass so I don’t know if it’s why its not working, but the server can’t even handle 720p transcoding on the go. Its always buffering and lagging on my tv. My question is : do I need a intel cpu to do any of transcoding on the go (regardless of plex pass)?
If yes would the ds218+ be a better choice and do you think that upgrading ram will make a difference. (Im also planning on running surveillance cameras, ftp, torrent station and for sure plex server) not necessarily at the same time

Thanks a lot

Antoine

[ed]

Yes, Plex subtitles do require transcoding. DS218 is a very weak NAS. Transcoding 720p would be the best it can do, but only in certain video formats. It is very limited. DS218+ or DS718+ would do a much better job. Their Celeron CPU also features a better Graphics chip to do the job.More RAM would not improve things directly, but it surely will benefit from 4-8GB RAM.I hope this helps.