Even though I do not understand the full scope of this, nor the roadblocks…
Have you tried telling them all we really want is for your engineers to just… Toggle the setting? From 2mbps 720p to ‘original quality’
Really, this would suffice as a solution for most of us, I am almost 100% sure this is something I could even come do myself within an hour of looking for your (hopefully) neatly organized configuration settings.
Alternatively, just add the same quality options in a server tab and if client = looking on server x, set server default quality. This should in most programming languages be no more than 50 lines of code, or yet again a simple copy/paste of the right code in the right place.
I happen to be one of the few people who prefers external users to transcode. Although I’m on a “gigabit” plan, I only have 35mbps of upload bandwidth to play with. I have transcodes offloaded to a 1050 Ti, so not much is consumed in the way of resourced.
I, however, would love to increase the default from 4mbps/720p to something like 8 or 10mbps/1080p.
I think the ultimate end-goal is for Plex to dynamically adjust transcoding quality the same way YouTube or Netflix does. Start out small and if the client sees it’s able to grab a higher bitrate, dynamically adjust mid-stream, of course up to whatever limit the server owner configures.
I bought a Mega Million ticket today. If I win I’m gonna make an Elon Musk move, buy Plex and toggle this switch myself haha
It’s time to bring Plex to 2022!
Transcoding is the exact opposite of bandwidth usage, its literally for people who are on slow internet that can’t direct stream so the Plex server has to dumb down and translate the higher quality movie to something lesser quality that uses less bandwidth so the end user can view it. This transcoding process causes a MAJOR impact on CPU usage on the server dishing out the movie, this is what we are complaining about on this thread. If we got our way Plex Admins would set streaming to MAX default which uses WAY more bandwidth and WAY less taxing on a Plex server’s CPU. That’s the point of this thread, in 2022, most people have excellent bandwidth including “gigabit internet” so yes the default should be MAX or at least MUCH higher than 2Mbps.
It doesn’t necessarily use more bandwidth at all. Most of my library is x265 and sometimes the transcoding uses x264 which I’ve seen cause an 80x increase in bandwidth in some cases.
Can you at least bump the default up to 20 mbit or so?
It’s much easier for users to adjust downwards because they notice issues (i.e. buffering), but upwards is not always so visible. Especially less tech savvy people - e.g. my entire family-in-law just thinks that the quality on Plex is by defition lower than on TV.
I just wanted to say that you and your team have my support. I imagine it can’t be easy to juggle so many issues at once with your somewhat limited resources. It’s been a beautiful journey so far and hopefully we’ll have decades more to look forward to. Felt like something positive needed to be said every once in a while in these shark-y waters, arr…
Yep, I actually switched to fios from Xfinity for this reason, fios has much better upload speeds.
but for people in your situation its a VERY easy fix for you. just go into settings, remote access then set the stream limit at whatever suits you like 8mbs. which is why its such a poor excuse to say that some people have data limits or slow internet to justify not bumping the default up to maximum\original. It is very easy to limit streams bandwidth on the server side without having to rely on users to constantly change settings.
@cwestemeyer I agree with eyegraber it doesnt always use more bandwidth. a good portion of my library is also x265 1080p at around 2-3mbs with the current default it actually forces a transcode to SD or 720 x264 @2 or 4mbs and is incredibly annoying forcing extra bandwidth plus extra work on cpu all while producing worse quality video. but yes you are correct in everything else
I can sign this 100% and is what I have been saying for years and have written several times. Unfortunately, Plex doesn’t care at all, they are just lucky that no one else has come up with a software solution that works similarly. Neither Emby nor Jellyfin are able to do this at the moment.
That you ignore the server admins for years is just a shame, but as I said as long as no competition brings something really good you don’t have to worry and the people stay anyway
Even if this issue doesn’t bother you directly, Plex servers are like crypto miners that don’t produce any crypto. Instead Plex servers produce lesser quality video that sometimes actually transcode to a higher bandwidth than they started.
There are old repurposed 6-core Xeon servers software transcoding video for no reason, all over the world.
I like to imagine they keep a pile of coal burning somewhere at Plex headquarters. Let’s crank those carbon-footprint numbers, Plex!
If this was aimed at me, I was referring specifically to the linked op-ed and not questioning the validity of this feature request. It (the op-ed) was off-topic, and so was my response.
Directed at the OP/topic, not you.
My post was mostly was in jest, but this has been a policy of Plex’s that I never agreed with in the first place. All those years ago I assumed we’d have another solution by now and I never imagined I’d still be sending picture collages with Plex settings to family members in 2022. I keep one for Android and one for Roku and I have to remake them when Plex does a UI rework.
At least hardware transcoding is lightening the load on hardware that supports it and Plex has done a lot on that front.
Plex putting spoilers in the posters for shows, with no option other than trying to play the show without looking at the poster. That “feature” and this one were always my top 2 bugs, from the beginning. I have the Tautulli scripts for each issue, it was hard to get working.
When Google had to choose what to send, how to build their library, the decision from Engineering was, “no sir, I will not be transcoding that video 2M times a month. I will transcode it once and be done with it.”
So they saved a dozen copies of every video at lower and lower resolutions.
Now if I had remote users I would
make a 720p at the default bitrate of every video I offer
One problem is not all clients default to the same bitrate for 720p. Some are 2mbps, some are 4mbps. Some may even be 3mbps.
I started encoding secondary copies at 720p 4mbps, only to see some clients transcoding the 1080p version down to 720p 2mbps.
Most of us can’t afford the space to house four different copies.
The next issue is users with cheap/older clients that don’t support HEVC. If those users start fiddling with settings and selecting max remote quality, it’s going to take my 4mbps HEVC copy and transcode it to 20mbps x264.
I certainly don’t want that happening.
watermark