Yep, the problem is not all clients have the ability to adjust on the fly yet. The Roku doesn’t have the option. The Android client does but that app is already so unreliable and riddled with bugs it doesn’t matter if it worked or not.
Why not default all clients to a server global setting which is defaulted to 4Mbps which Plex loves so much then let the server admin have control over it? If anything they can blame the server admin and keep everyone else happy, whats so hard those settings are already there just need to link and turn on.
1 Like
@elan As a Christmas present, can you please change the default settings to a sane value? We all have been very good.Promised. Ask Santa.
It has been 2.5 years now, there are no updates or ETAs on a solution, for all we know it’s dead.
I am sure the absurdity that your video player can’t play full hd videos in (soon) 2022 out of the box is not lost on you.
6 Likes
It’s really sad that the people in charge don’t inform us anymore. No new status for months. No info how it will work and whether we admins maybe finally get some more possibilities to make it easier for our users.
Sad that all responsible persons hide obviously. But it concerns not only this feature request but actually all. I am active in some and have voted but feedback is rarely or never received, although it was said that the communication will be improved. Unfortunately, we notice nothing of this.
5 Likes
Merry Christmas everyone…. I hope Santa brings us maximum default settings.
3 Likes
For the love of god just let the admins control the default for their own server! It shouldn’t be up to an external user how much of my hardware resources they use!
3 Likes
I actually understand why Plex isn’t implementing the feature where server admins can determine the default client-side quality because it would require a lot of changes to the codebase and for such a ‘minor’ issue, it would probably take too many man-hours to implement.
What Plex could implement instead, is to change the global default quality to maximum quality. Changing the global default quality would be by far the easiest solution and I think everybody would be happy. Especially when you consider that admins can limit remote streaming bitrates on their end, meaning we can set the upper bitrate limit if we wish (there should be no client-side upper limit by default).
Of course, if the connection is slow or the device doesn’t support the media file, then Plex could auto-adjust the quality based on this. But clients shouldn’t be forced to watch all media at 720p by default, regardless of their connection/bandwidth and hardware capabilities.
The bottom line is that new users are shied away by poor quality content. As a cinephile, it makes my heart ache when I see my users stream at 720p or 480p, even though they have 100Mbps+ connections and high-end 4K TVs. I always try to get my hands on the best quality content I can, but it doesn’t matter because my users don’t know they can change the quality (the playback settings icon looks very non-descript and buried among 10 other icons, so it’s not easy to find). I’ve also found that most of my users aren’t the kind of people who go digging through settings to get the best possible quality. They expect Netflix-level convenience - i.e. hit play and start watching.
Please, Plex, change the global default quality to maximum. It shouldn’t change anything on the user’s end because their stream bitrate gets lowered automatically if their connection can’t handle it and admins can limit the maximum bitrate on their end. In my opinion, this is the best of both worlds and easy to implement.
9 Likes
Please default this.
I’ve already entered my max upload speed and remote stream bitrate limit, all my (three) external users have way higher download speeds. My parents will never understand they have to adjust the quality settings on ALL their new clients and then sort my libraries in a logical way so their homescreen makes sense.
I’m happy to do it for them, when I’m allowed to visit their country.
This is what holds me back on inviting new people to PleX, I don’t want to have them write them a whole letter just to use it properly.
4 Likes
2022 - Will this new year bring us the dearly desired changes we crave?
Or will we need to wait for 2023???
3 Likes
I soo much want this…
I think anybody with plex who has parents/friends/etc on their server would love this feature, as they always get into issues with this…
4 Likes
I think 2023 will be the year 
fingers crossed.
1 Like
Fully agreed. Most users don’t understand that quality by default is limited. If they cannot stream the higher qualities, they will get buffering, which most users definitely will understand.
For me as a server admin this is super frustrating, because I notice my server keeps transcoding even though in practice it should be rarely needed.
2 Likes
ffs lets GO on this already…
1 Like
This is something that needs to happen. Yesterday.
Here we are in 2022 still hoping this will become a feature…
1 Like
Will this ever be resolved??
1 Like
If it was impacting Plex servers, causing bandwidth issues that reflected on the bottom line, it would have been resolved two years ago.
As it is, it just annoys Plex customers so priority drops a bit. 
1 Like
It has been said already but just to add some noise: please plex team give us as admins the ability to set a server default (e.g. Max oder auto).
I love Plex and it has a lot of great things to offer than the alternatives.
However, 720p is just so low quality and the average user does not have the know-how or patience to change this setting.
The truth is, this one limitation makes Plex unusable/useless for a lot of users. Quality is everything.
I therefore would also love to see a new update for this default setting, allowing admins to set this or at the very least set the default to 1080p.
I am running Jellyfin for the users I know who just want to click on a video and not have to worry about any of this.
3 Likes
