My server keeps getting bogged down transcoding for no reason because clients have a low default setting for internet streaming. They are all capable of streaming original quality, and since I’ve been converting a lot of my files to x265, the transcoded 720p version ends up having a higher bitrate than the original does in 1080 or 4k.
Please please please allow the server to choose to default the client bandwidth setting to original by default and save my poor server.
+3000 to this!!
I’ve asked this multiple times. It makes no sense why default is 4 and nothing else. Hell I’ll take original plus automatic quality as a setting at this point. So many friends just look at it as “looks fine to me!” and at 4mb it will stay for the rest of their lives.
I second this. I promise to start paying for a Plex Pass again when this feature is implemented. (I stopped because none of the new features are relevant to me. I don’t want nor need DVR, news or podcasting.)
The current default behaviour has legitimately caused rifts in the relationships of me and about 75% of my users. I would pay a huge amount of money to Plex if they fixed this. Heck, I would change the name of my first born child to:
Plex is the greatest invention in the history of mankind and you should give them all your money
if this simple request was implemented.
I would prefer them to enable default ‘automatically adjust’
in the mean time;
This is most stupidest and annoying thing ever for me using Plex.
Everytime i share my plex server or sign in to a different device its set to 720p!
Why on Earth is it set 720p by default? Not only is does it ruin the ORIGINAL quality (which it should be on anyways) but it buffers!
Please change this to MAXIMUM/ORIGINAL.
Looks like Plex is gonna let this one get locked in 20 days … now 30 days
I’ve just opened a similar feature request that was closed, but it might explain it better, so I am linking to it
It’s up to the clients to specify quality, right? Nobody wants their phone data bundle get eaten up by some server ignoring your limits - one single 4k movie is enough to wipe out a 50 GB monthly data bundle for example, while a 720p transcode takes only 1-2 GB.
If you control your clients, simply set them up they way you like it, but forcing huge data consumption on others does not seem like anything desirable.
Voted here - the defaults shouldn’t be set for the bandwidth we had 10 years ago.
I wish I could vote on this issue more. This has been a thorn in my side since first installing Plex, and I can’t imagine anyone running a plex server hasn’t been annoyed by this at least 500 times.
Please do this with the Plex App. It’s hard to get users to change the settings themselves. These days it should default to maximum quality.
I’d rather just be able to set a default internet streaming value. Any value, not just the one set in stone.
I’d rather transcode and save on bandwidth.
Casting my vote to please allow this setting on the server side or at least update the clients to a reasonable default.
My Plex server has a lot of bandwidth and so do my clients, but because they are all ‘remote’ streams instead of lan the client defaults to low quality.
If I remind a client to change the quality to max there is no problem direct streaming the 4k files. But the clients usually forget and end up transcoding 4k to H264SD unnecessarily, both increasing server load and lowering the viewing experience. Really frustrating that this seems to be the default whenever a user starts streaming from a new device that hasn’t had the settings changed yet.
Thank you 
Please, I just cannot asume the 720-2mbit default cannot be changed on a per server basis.
Plex team is there any chance of this getting fixed? I really love the Plex ecosystem but today after having yet another client default to 1080p->240p transcode for absolutely no reason other than being a new client which hasn’t had the settings forced yet I’m frustrated and started looking at alternative software.
No hate at all to the Plex team, just would really love this issue to get some attention.
I’m a new user and it’s honestly my biggest issue with plex. The default should always be original/maximum anything else doesn’t make any sense to me. If that can’t happen at least let us set the default quality of our server.
perhaps a more elegant solution for all…
in this manner, the server admin can set a preferred client remote quality mode, the remote quality settings will refer the server for default remote quality.
while also the client owner is able to be override to set a specific cap or quality mode.
