It would be nice that when sharing libraries with family who aren’t tech savvy nor local, to allow them the option for a built-in speedtest to quickly determine their download/upload bandwidth capabilities to then auto-adjust player settings to what they need.
For example, I have upload bandwidth of roughly 25-30Mb/s but the playback quality set to a maximum of 8Mb/s playback. However, my parents who do not live close (therefore making troubleshooting difficult) sometimes have buffering issues. Their basic Xfinity play I think is 20Mb/s download, but the aging equipment is often 10Mb/s at best. They also have a couple other devices on the network which takes up bandwidth too so they still have buffering issues.
If there was a speedtest ability that maybe lowered their particular playback quality to a set standard, that might help with their issues. Yes, I know they can manually adjust settings but easier said than done. OR, if that poses to be too difficult to implement, maybe from the server side I can set bandwidth restrictions per user so that I can force down their playback qualities specifically without affecting my own or siblings, either. And yes, I understand there’s a feature to automatically adjust quality, but that shows a beta feature and I would prefer not to have a buggier player/server feature… though may try it anyway.
This, of course, is all reliant on the ability to have a powerful enough server to handle added transcoding abilities, but with 24 cores and 48GB RAM I think I’m ok in this example.
Yep, I’m aware of the existing feature. I was thinking more about the diagnostic aspects of the linked feature suggestion which, to my knowledge, do not exist. Specifically, it suggests providing a manual test of latency, jitter, and bandwidth for troubleshooting purposes. It’s a bit different than what the OP suggested, but it still may be of value.
I agree more diagnostics would be helpful. I have been happily using Plex for many years. When I first heard of it, I found I could easily put the app on my Samsung DVD player and install the server part on my Windows 7 computer. I found it easy to setup and use. Since then I see the Samsung app losing functionality. I now also have 2 Roku’s and a WD My Cloud Home (I got this specifically from the Plex supported list). The Roku’s originally used to work with Plex, but then haven’t for quite a while. I finally got the Roku Express to work today (it buffered more than played) by changing the setting to Allow MPEG2. I don’t know why it anyone would not want to allow it. I understand it gets more complex when Plex works with so many different types of servers and clients. But what started for me to be a simple install and run, now becomes hours of research to figure out how to configure it. It takes time to search the forums and many articles just for using it with a Roku. More & better diagnostics could help out. I still don’t know why Plex works on my Samsung DVD player, Android phone, Amazon tablet, Plex for Windows, and the Roku Express, but not on Plex Web and my Roku 2.
Default auto quality would be nice… Where I live basically everyone has decent download speeds. The biggest issue i have with giving my friends & Family a good user experience is the very low default bitrate on all players. I currently want to provide and I have set the server up to provide up to 20Mbit/s for external users, someday when 1Gbit/s upload becomes available to me i want to give my friends unlimited bitrates. Right now it defaults to 2Mbit/s SD quality on the players and that’s not a good user experience.
Unless I physically set it up for them myself they tend to forget/get confused and they don’t set the quality setting to maximum. Especially if they chose to use multiple devices. Today I had to explain one user that he had to set the quality again, for the third time now. He likes plex, this was the third device he connected. He’s been watching at low bitrates/resolution on the newest device for almost two weeks without me realizing it. It’s getting frustrating and I’m starting to feel obligated to monitor the streams after connecting a new user to check up on them.
I would very much like it to be more of a plug and play experience.
This is how it should be:
create account and give me account name.
install app
login
enjoy!
Right now it’s a struggle to get the quality settings right and it takes a lot of monitoring and aftercare to maybe, if i’m lucky, eventually give them a good experience.
With people being used to Netflix, this can be very offputting to the less tech savvy users. It’s severely hurting the opinions some of them have about plex!
