We have a tablet with a real bad wifi and after a while it starts to judder as the buffer becomes empty (and the “network to slow” message appears). Because of that we reduce to enable transcoding to reduce the quality manually. But this is uncomfortable.
I like to see a feature in Plex which solves this issue by automatically transcoding the movie after the buffer became empty while direct play.
That’s called “Adjust quality automatically” and exists already.
On Android you can find it under Settings - Quality
Ok, enabled. But does not work. I addes some aluminium foil ^^ to simulate a bad wifi signal and it starts juddering every 5-10 seconds, but it does not start to reduce the quality.
P.S. wouldn’t it be nice to add a hint regarding this setting to the network bandwith error message?
EDIT: Ok, the current feature is useless for my situation:
The Plex apps only select auto quality in situations where a video already needs to be converted (transcoded) for playback. It does not interfere with playing videos at their original quality (sometimes called Direct Play or Direct Stream).
If I need to enable transcoding, then I do not need the automatic adjustment as 20 mbit/s works.
I want to have a feature that automatically enables transcoding if the buffer becomes empty while direct play.
If you know this device is prone to bad wifi reception, consider picking a manual quality setting under Settings - Quality - Home network streaming
A tablet doesn’t need full HD quality anyway with its relatively small screen.
Ok, this solves my issue, but is still uncomfortable. I never would have found this setting without posting my feature request and my wife completely dislikes Plex at the moment. For her the only thing thats important is: Does it work? No. I’ll use Netflix ^^
