I am looking at coming back to Plex after a long time away. I like the idea of watching on any of my devices and having a single interface that tracks where I am in a series, etc. I am struggling to get the client/server talking correctly before transcoding.
For example. I have a share on my network with video files. I access these files currently through SMB and use Kodi on an Android TV box. They are not transcoded and play at full quality, no lag, etc. Now, on the same Android TV box I installed Plex. It access the files through Plex server running on the same server that is sharing out SMB (all the same network connections, hardware, etc.). However, even when picking “original” quality in the video settings of the player, Plex insists on transcoding the video file. This eats CPU on the server and lowers the quality of the video.
What can I do to better ensure transcoding does not happen unless actually necessary?
I hate to bump my own question, but perhaps there is some way on the server to designate specific clients to never transcode? I want to keep transcoding on for my phone and for when I am away. However, all the local in house players can play with out transcoding. Any ideas?
Clients do not transcode the server does and sends the transcoded file to the player. To find out why it might be transcoding please give details of the file you were playing. The server log during playback should indicate why it determined it should.
Kodi uses it’s own software decoders. Plex uses default device player generally. On Android TV that is exoplayer and the decoders on the device available to it.
to be clear Original means original quality not original file. Make sure you have Direct Play and Direct Stream enabled in settings and have your subtitle burn in settings set to whatever appropriate
during playback you can also bring up the settings menu and check off the info overlay which will attempt to say why it was transcoded.
Thank you for the response. I apologize that my second comment did imply clients were transcoding. I understand only the server transcodes files and it is the server CPU load I wanted to lower. Actually your post triggered a thought for me, that was to select the “Use Android Media player” option. That solved it for me. I had tried forcing Direct Play earlier, but it would just hang. Now that I selected that Direct Play is forced and to use the Android Media player my files are playing directly with nearly no CPU use on the server. Thanks for the discussion.
