I spent several weeks here awhile back to no avail, i have a family member who runs a plex server and is a pc guy and he couldnt help me, i contacted my Internet provide (i was told to get a static IP, i did that and that didnt help), ive changed settings, ive had a ton of advice but no one seems to have “the” answer. Why do my videos all transcode when family members watch them. I want them to see the same quality i upload.
I currently am using a plex pass. my videos are on an external hard drive (same as my family member has done for many years) I’ll include screenshots. Anyone who thinks they can put a finger on it please help. Very frustrated indeed…
Your family members plex clients (Firestick, AppleTV or TV Apps, etc) need to have remote/internet streaming set to max or original quality and Direct Play and Direct Stream to Allow/on. Settings are a little different on different platforms. This will give original quality when watching providing you have enough upload bandwidth and they have enough download bandwidth.
You shouldn’t need to change anything. As you have a Plex Pass, make sure you turn on Hardware transcoding - but hopefully your server will not need to transcode at all - this will help if it does.
I enclosed a pic of how im set up with the hardware transcoding, is it correct. I didnt have a plex pass before, was that a reason why it may have been transcoding. When we used to use my nephews plex, none of us ever changed any settings on our end btw. So if all my settings appear to be ok, then i have to make sure my friends and family have max/original quality and direct play/ stream on and you think that will do it? Thx for the info
It all looks fine. Just check the box ‘Use hardware acceleration when available’.
Plex pass only enable you to use hardware acceleration. It will still transcode, if needed, with or without Plex Pass, just with the check boxes it will use the GPU for transcoding instead of the CPU. You can still direct play/stream without the pass. Just make sure you’ve done what I’ve said in my first reply - setting clients to max/original quality etc
I think you’re missing something here. The server claims that remote access is not possible, so I suspect that all users are forced to use Plex’s relay system to get to the server. This uses Plex’s servers to forward the traffic, so to keep too many people from using up their internet, they restrict any video streams through it to ~2 Mbps. Unless you use extremely low quality 480p rips, this will pretty much guarantee a transcode by the server to that quality.
To verify, check the server dashboard when someone is streaming. You should see a yellow circle with a ! in it, and the word Indirect, like so:
Most likely the OP does not have port forwarding enabled. Go into your router (probably a router/modem combo), and do port forwarding for port 32400 to your server’s IP address, which is (checks screenshot)192.168.1.5. Port forwarding may seem a bit scary, but it’s eventually pretty simple if you enter the correct information in the correct fields. There are too many different router models for me to give step-by-step instructions for you, but if you google (router model) + port forward you may find someone that has created a tutorial for your device.
I don’t know who told you that you needed a static IP address for your internet. That shouldn’t be necessary here. If your IP ever changes, the Plex server automatically detects that and updates this IP record for anyone that wants to access it.
In the future, please try to be more descriptive in your question’s titles. Many users here who are capable of helping with this specific problem may have just skipped your post because they have no idea what you’re frustrated about.
@Divideby0 has it exactly right. Follow those instructions.
It says remote access isn’t working but in actuality it is I have a few people I share with, the problem is it transcodes so they see it at lesser quality
Look at @Divideby0’s post above. As remote access is not working, people can still connect but have reduced quality due to an indirect connection. Your original screenshot also says Not available outside your network in red. It should say Fully available outside your network in green. Look at my attached screen shot. You will need port forward as described by @Divideby0.
It used to work but then it would keep turning from red to green, I think my nephew set the specific port for that reason, I guess that wasn’t the solution
