Nope. It’s not one or the other people are arguing for. We’re not saying take this away from them and give it to us. We’re saying let us set the default and the user can make any changes as needed (just like they can now). There is zero good reason not to do this other than it doesn’t align with Plex’s goals for how they see their product being utilized in the future. Certainly their right (as is ours to voice our concerns).
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With 4k becoming more popular and 8k TVs starting to be released, the 720p default setting is extremely antiquated. YouTube videos don’t even list 720p as HD anymore, check it out! Speeds are much better now than they were when this default was initially set up. Back then I’m sure it made a lot of sense, but not anymore.
This is the one hiccup that always causes frustration every time i share my libraries with a new user. Both the clients and the server already have their own controls to manage bandwidth. I shouldn’t have to walk each user through this every time i set them up. I should only need to help them turn it down if their internet service isn’t good enough.
This would probably only take a Dev a few minutes to adjust in the next set of client updates! 
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Lol that is not true and you probably extrapolate your own situation to the rest of the world. I have gigabit Internet myself, but still here in Germany the average speed is 38 mbit according to the last link. So a lot of people would not be able to play my blu-ray remuxes then…
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That’s mobile, they actually list broadband at 91 mbit.
In the android app(and probably the iphone app as well), there’s a setting that limits cellular data to 0.7 Mbps, 320p. I personally think that’s still a little low, but that’s not the point of this thread. We want our broadband connected devices to play from remote sources in their original format by default. 
Thats right. The average broadband speed in germany is 91 mbps, only earning the nation the 33rd spot on speedtests chart, but still making the plex default bitrates look ridicilous. 91 mbps is not only enough to play all blu-ray remuxes, with a little cache, its enough for all uhd remuxes aswell.
Its time for a change
It is not. In reality it is much closer to 38 mbit from official numbers.
I realize Germany is pretty much a third world country when it comes to broadband, and that their infrastructure is among the worst in Europe.
Even so, I believe speedtests numbers are fairly accurate.
You are spot on with your analysis to the state of Germany’s internet. Still, ooklas numbers are a bit misleading imho since I bet this tool is more used by techies with fast Internet than by people with 16 mbit dsl.
In cities the situation is actually not that bad, the more rural areas are the ones that lower the statistics in terms of available speed.
Let the Germans manually change their Plex settings then. The rest of us has moved on to higher speeds long ago.
If you look at international comparisons like this https://ceoworld.biz/2020/02/21/revealed-countries-with-the-fastest-internet-speeds-2020/ you see that most countries lie in the range of 30-40 mbit in their average download speed. It is not only Germany.
Edit: hard to get up to date numbers…
Please dont use crazy sources who dont break down their data. «Internet speeds» include everything. Lets exclude wireless technologies for a meaningful debate.
Or even better. Lets break it down to Plex users. Server owners allready reports their speed in PMS.
Then Im sure you will find that the current 3 mbps default is low. Even for Kongo, Yemen and Germany.
I think the discussion about average bitrates around the world is a distraction from the problem.
The point is that the server administrator should have control over the default setting. If one of their users can’t handle a more modern bitrate then they can lower it themselves. The onus shouldn’t be on the server administrator.
Personally, I invest a lot of time in my server, and it’s very discouraging to constantly chase users around to get them to change their settings. All of my users are close family, and I’m still unable to keep up with it. Like others have mentioned, some clients reset themselves back to default.
@elan you once told me that core functionality wouldn’t suffer due to Plex’s new direction. This has been a heavily requested feature for years. At the very least, can we get some sort of official word from Plex on this?
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Yea I agree with this. I kept chasing users myself. Initially I kicked of about 15 users of the server to alleviate the problem. With only 8 users left, I still found this to be a hassle. The only remedy now is turning the transcoder of entirely. Which is what I have done and actually works very well - except for over cellular.
I don’t even think giving the server admin control over a client’s settings is necessary. Just change the default remote video quality setting to be original/max and the problem will be solved. Anyone who needs to reduce their bandwidth can do so.
A good compromise could be storing video settings with a users account info on plex.tv and once set on any device, it works on every device thereafter. Setting this once and forgetting about it would be great. Not having to change this setting every time the client updates would go a long way to making this more tolerable.
How about a dialog when the client is connecting to the remote server asking about the Internet speed of the user?
Plex should know when the connection is remotely and then trigger this dialog. The user then would not need to dig into the settings to change the speed (and maybe not know the difference between local and remote connection).
Just defaulting to max would probably be sufficient. At the very least, it should be easiest for the devs. You would be surpriced how eager people will be to learn to navigate the settings when the streaming stops working. When I turned transcoding off, all my remaining Plex users turned into wizards. They are teaching me things now.
Do you know any streaming services that are better than plex? I’m currently looking for a replacement seeing as how plex doesn’t want to listen to the people that actually run servers.
I’ve looked through quite a few threads looking for some sort of response from staff. I found that staff have pointed other similar threads in the direction of this one. But I have yet to see any sort of actual staff response to this.
Has anyone else found a staff response relevant to this request?
I as well as many others would love to hear from staff regarding this. Is this a pipe dream that will never happen, or is this a possibility?
Idk if it is better, I havent tried it. But Emby will let you turn of transcoding on a per user basis, which obviously will prevent users who keeps transcoding for no good reason from doing so. Thats a feature I would want aswell.
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If you ask me personally, I’d love to see a little speed test thing where a new client tests to see what the best setting to start with is (and you could trigger it when running into problems to “optimize” the connection).
Simply setting the quality to max will cause more problems than it fixes, in my humble opinion.
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