Default All Clients to Max Internet Streaming

Feature Suggestions
143

I 100% agree with that.

OP described multiple negatives of transcoding, described a scenario with unnecessary transcoding, and asked for a server-side control that would keep unwanted transcoding from happening.

I voted for this request and don’t suggest that disabling transcoding is a cure. That addresses one symptom but has side effects. An ideal solution will address more of the broader topic.

I disagree with @Anderstn’s statement. The original post, on its face, asked for a way to disable unnecessary transcoding. It wasn’t about “image quality that is equivalent to the source”.

The thread has expanded to be a discussion of defaults, who should set defaults, and where. Other threads have been directed to this one, and OP expanded the topic too. It’s all good stuff. I hope that the promised revamp gives server operators more control.

And just like everybody else, I have a million suggestions for how to “fix” Plex. :slight_smile:

I don’t think the default bandwidths in the Plex clients make sense, and I echo @Anderstn’s take about them being low. I think a default of Max would be better in 2020. But I also don’t think that using bandwidth as the primary trigger for transcoding is ideal, and overriding client bandwidth from the server would just be weird.

I would personally love to see an entitlement scheme, similar to the permissions for libraries and movie ratings. Grant users access to media by bit rate and color bit depth. A “transcoding” entitlement, as well as a “transcode HDR->SDR” entitlement.

I would also love to see a server preference for transcoding behavior. The option to “Prefer quality (transcode down)” or “Prefer direct (best existing file)”, even if “direct” is a ■■■■-quality file.

And when the server refuses to transcode, I’d rather the client be told “There isn’t enough available bandwidth” or “The server declined to transcode this file for you” instead of the current “Server is a potato” message.

1 Like
144

OP here.

My realistic hope is for a feature where the server can set the default streaming bandwidth for a client. If not that, then at least making the default max

My dream is for the server to be able to change the setting for the client (e.g. one of my users complains that video isn’t playing, and I can adjust their streaming settings through the server).

@elan I know you guys like to keep things close to the chest, but any chance you can share the direction you’re heading in with this, so we can provide feedback before the feature is completed and released?

5 Likes
145

Yes, this is a great idea! I like this a lot.

146

I agree that changing the client default to max would remove 80% of my daily pain.

I think of my Home users as “my users”. It would be AMAZING if device settings were stored in the cloud, and if the Home admin could edit defaults, user, and device settings for Home users.

I’m also Friends with other people. When I use somebody else’s server, it’s fine if they don’t offer transcoding or if they require a minimum bandwidth. But it would be utterly unacceptable for them to silently override my client settings and exceed a bandwidth limit I’ve set.

I hope Plex won’t allow a server to override a Friend’s device settings, because Friends don’t control each other like that.

Improved errors & try-again prompts could help both Friends and Home users. “Direct playback required for this media. Additional bandwidth may be used. Attempt playback? N/Y/A”. (This might be complex - subtitles, etc.)

IMO something like that would be the best of all worlds. Sharing with Friends, control for “my” users. I think that would fit into the Plex model of Servers/Users/Homes/Friends, too.

While I’d also love more granular user-level permissions for media processing & transcoding, that might be tangential to this request. I’ll go look to see if there’s already another/better suggestion.

That x1000!

147

This is a really good idea. Clients default to max and you can still set the cap as the server Owner so you know remote users are maximizing what’s being made available before crushing the cpu.

I’m curious why this approach wouldn’t of been taken Out if the gate as it seems (on surface) that there’s no real downside. Without a doubt clients using More bandwidth when available brings a much smoother, quicker viewing experience.

Maybe there’s a variable I’m not seeing.

148

I’ve been using plex for I don’t know how many years now and this is still an issue.

Why can’t I have my clients be forced to direct play? If they can’t I should be able to choose what I allow to be transcoded.

Example, 4K HDR is pointless to transcode. Why can’t There be a setting where I disable transcoding for that particular directory?

Why is a random user causing my poor server to transcode a 4K movie to default 720p? In what world does that make sense for it to default?

At the very least for remote streaming, the user should have a pop up that says “this movie will play at maximum quality unless otherwise changed” or something along those lines.

Or transcoding is not allowed for this movie if so chosen.

1 Like
149

Completely agree! Plex defaulting to transcoding a format it butches in the process is ridicilous.

150

Really looking forward to this. It’s such a shame that Plex often gets a bad reputation among non-technical users due to this.
In the days of 32" TVs and 10 Mbit internet speeds it might have been acceptable, but with today’s bandwidth and TV pricing, the rate of brand damage is increasing exponentially.

The cringe of seeing your friends and family watch 4K content converted to low-quality 720p on their shiny new 4K TVs is one thing, but all the electricity wasted on needless transcoding is even worse.
In my early years of using Plex I would visit each family member to set their Plex quality settings every time they got a new device or its settings got reset, but after realizing that it was going to be an almost full-time job, I gave up…

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151

I think this is a bit to complicated. Hence why I suggest just setting a maximum upload bandwith on the server side. Then if X numbers of people are transcoding they will share said bandwith. It’s sort of dumb and if one person is streaming for 4k and the other is streaming 1080p it might be unfair in terms of image quality, but it should be easy to implement. If they want to take things one step further start weighting quality based on source content. A 20 mbps stream is not needed for a file with an initial bitrate of 4 mbps even if the client can’t support the format. Similarly if a client says it only want’s 4 mbps streams then provide that and share the excess bandwith left over among all other users currently connected to the server.

Increasing bandwidth for a converted file is almost always pointless. The one exception would be converting a highly efficient codec to a less efficient one. Like say going from H265 to H264. Even then the actual increase needed is almost mathematically predictable based on the bitrate of the source file. The server should never allow clients to stream content with very low resolutions or bitrate in a high bitrate; high resolution stream as the transcode process can’t add detail that’s not there. PS: I am aware that you can sort of recover details when processing your own video, but this usually always requires filters and or some advanced multi pass encoding that’s not suitable for real time transcoding.

152

I find myself slowly moving away from Plex for these shortcomings. Paid streemingservices are getting better fast, so I have allready dropped Plex for TV content but I still use it for movies. But the lack of control and the poor handeling of HDR content has had me kick almost all my users. Most dont even care.

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153

My uncle got a new TV, 4k connected on 500mbit fibre. He transcodes everything to 720p per default. Now I have to drive there to edit the settings, or do you think coaching a senior over the phone through settings is gonna work? Come on Plex. What are you doing, why is changing a default setting taking so long.
It is over a year now.

THIS IS BEYOND RIDICULOUS

9 Likes
154

I’m constantly reminding users to fix their settings whenever they revert to defaults. This is happening on a weekly basis. This should have been fixed a LONG time ago.

@elan You said that this was low hanging fruit and wouldn’t take a year to provide a resolution. Do you have an ETA yet? Can you explain how you guys are approaching this issue? I feel like your user base deserves better communication. This should have been taken care of a LONG time ago.

At this point I am looking to upgrade from an 8 Core 16 Thread CPU to a 16 Core 32 Thread CPU simply because Plex has the most stupid defaults that I have ever seen for media playback. It blows my mind that you guys can push out all these updates for crap we don’t want nor need over critical issues like this.

Don’t even get me started about not having local auth and Plex auth servers going down every month or two… I can’t wait for Jellyfin to catch up.

2 Likes
155

why are your users reverting to defaults on a weekly basis? Is this a client bug? if so, which client?

not a specific one, but i know we’ve done a first round of testing on it, so it’s close.

7 Likes
156

I’m not sure if browser cache has anything to do with it; because it was my understanding that for the web client these settings are now account wide.

I do however know that with both Roku and Apple TV these settings sometimes randomly revert. I’ve just assumed that certain updates reset these settings.

I don’t use these clients, so I only know what my users tell me. I have to keep an eye on the server very closely because at some point people always end up transcoding again.

This seems to be a common issue among those of us that are running plex for our household, close friends, and family. I am okay with transcoding when it is required, but I should not have to babysit my server to ensure settings are not being reset.

There is also a separate issue where in some cases clients are forcing a transcode to 720p despite the settings being set to maximum on that client. When one of my users showed me this, they couldn’t even set it to anything above 720p in the actual video player on a per movie basis. I have seen reports of this issue on the forums as well and there doesn’t seem to be an explanation nor a resolution.

Here is another thread that provides a screenshot of this issue in particular: Won't let me Play Original Quality - keeps changing to Convert ! HELP! My CPU isn't strong enough - #25 by QB8Young

This is very good news. My biggest complaint with Plex is these issues regarding clients forcing the server to transcode where it otherwise shouldn’t be required.

Plex auth is another issue entirely but completely off topic so I won’t get into that. I believe everyone is well aware that most of us technical users do not like being tied to a 3rd party service that doesn’t provide any kind of failover in the event of an outage.

157

i would consider that a bug, if the case.

agreed!

the most likely scenario for this would be that the client can’t play a remux for some reason (would be in server logs). just because settings are at maximum doesn’t mean it will always direct play.

i know i’ve said this a few times, but generally speaking, plex should keep working even if our cloud service has issues (because client and server keep cached data). if it doesn’t, that’s a bad bug on our side which we should fix. i know in the past we’ve had a number of those, and i know we’ve fixed a number of them. we actually have a staging server set up which can be put into various failure modes to make it easier for clients to test that scenario.

that being said, if there are issues, we’d love to hear details/get logs. reports of “my plex is broken” isn’t super helpful for us to get to the bottom of the actual problem :grimacing:

1 Like
158

That’s good to hear. I am also very anxiously awaiting a solution to this. I as well keep having to inform my users that, once again, their settings have changed and that they are transcoding the videos. It is very annyoing for both me and my users.

The quality setting keeps reverting for a lot of my users too. Not quite on a weekly basis, more like every couple of months on average, and it does not happen on all clients as far as I can tell. Two devices where this happend and where I am sure that the users definitely neither changed the setting nor reinstalled the app are a Samsung Smart TV and an XBOX One. My guess is that it must happen with some updates occasionally.

Edit: I just checked, and it even happend on my own personal XBOX One. I use this device only for local streaming, so I have not checked the settings in a long time. Still, I definitely did set the remoting streaming option to “Original” when I installed it, even though it does not matter for local streaming. Now though, the quality is set to “4 Mbps 720p”.
Installation date on this device was Juli 6th 2019, if that helps :smile: I have not touched the settings since then.

1 Like
159

I can confirm this.

2 Likes
160

Same. The quality setting reverts to 720p whenever my clients are updated

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161

Yeah the fact that every time someone from my family wants to stream from my server, I have to walk them through the whole raft of instruction in order for them to play a file at decent quality and not force a transcode on the server is ridiculous.
Either set an automatic quality toggle by default and the quality at maximum or just allow the server owner to set the quality for the clients.
Also can confirm that the quality resets for some unknown reasons, so I have to stalk the server like a hawk and keep harassing people.
Come on plex, this should’ve been resolved by now, this thread was started ages ago!

4 Likes
162

I’m glad that I’m not the only one with the settings reverting. Hopefully this will be resolved soon and all of this will be behind us. I had to walk my sister through this crap again last week…

I have to push my users to fix their settings so often that I imagine it’s starting to get really freakin’ annoying for them.

EDIT: An ETA and/or details on the solution to this problem would be amazing. I think what worries me most (besides how long this is taking to finally address :roll_eyes:) is that the solution to this problem was never shared with us. This tells me that Plex is not confident in whatever their technical implementation is to address this issue.

2 Likes