i’ll play devil’s advocate here. almost all of the content on my PMS are 1080p bluray remux files that average 20-40GB in file size. even with modern 2020 hardware (~$3000) & symmetrical gigabit fiber on both end-points, it is completely hit & miss if a direct play will behave correctly without buffering on the remote end because plex does not play nice with files this large (4k is a lost cause entirely). for smaller files there’s never an issue (e.g., ~10GB or less). while this is disheartening, i gave up with this battle and told all users to try direct play first, but if there’s any buffering drop to 20mbps transcode and there’s never an issue at that point. i did have to invest in a p2000 gpu though to accommodate so many transcodes. if plex added the ability for a remote user to force a 1-2min buffer i believe this would never be an issue, but trying to immediately play a 40GB file on the fly with only a tiny buffer at a time just doesn’t work well.
I don’t see how that’s devil’s advocate. Your use case matches perfectly to what we want. Have them try on maximum (which should be the default) and if that doesn’t work, then they should try something lower.
Or just work on “auto” and set that as default 
That’s not what it’s telling you. It’s telling you that we generally hold our cards close to our chest.
This is kinda parallel to the “max internet streaming” feature discussion, but what server OS are you running your PMS on?
If you’re using Linux, consider testing the BBR TCP congestion control algorithm on the server. This can significantly improve bandwidth utilization on high BDP links.
Better internet streaming using multiple parallel connections (or threads) - #34 by Volts
Fair enough. I’m looking forward to the big reveal. You guys have a large following and a big enough lead on the competition that you can secure your userbase in the long term if your cards are played right. Believe it or not, I want you guys to succeed. There is just a lot more work to be done. I’ll try and stay optimistic.
Thanks!
And just to add to that, know that we’re feeling the pain ourselves from this one 
You know the old Hair Club for Men thing: “I’m also a client” …
20-40gb on 1080p? I’d hate to see your 4k files.
Thats pretty normal for remux.
My files are that size as well. Turning transcoding off entirely has worked well for me and the few users I have left on the server
I’ve gotten most of my users to turn on direct play thankfully. Luckily I haven’t had anyone’s setting revert to stock settings…yet. The most I transcode now is just the audio.
You know how you can end a client stream with a message? I would love to be able to customize one to say "Your server prefers users setting stream quality to Original. Please click “okay” to change your quality setting. If you have questions, contact your server admin. "
With an “okay” and “cancel” button. Hitting okay automatically changes it without needing to direct them through settings, and cancel disregards.
This way I could not only prompt people, but when I contact a friend for the tenth time saying “man you need to set your ps4 to original quality” I could then say “just hit ok on this prompt I’m sending you.”
It would be so, so much better and would still give the client final choice, which I think is important - if they genuinely need the stream at 2mbps because of bandwidth restrictions or data caps or the like I have no problem transcoding for them, but I don’t want to be doing it for ten people just because they forget or don’t know how to change the ridiculous default setting.
It feels like this setting default was set like ten years ago and was just never changed as average internet speeds increased. In another ten years every house will have gigabit and it’ll still be 2mbps.
Hands down my biggest issue with Plex. Nothing annoys me more than opening the dashboard to see my CPU getting destroyed because all my users are transcoding 1080>720 while my upload bandwidth is at about 5%.
Surely this can’t be a hard thing to fix??
< rant>
Everytime I look into this thread with no solution I get more and more infuriated with plex inc.
Fix it already, ffs. 1.5 years is more than enough time.
Using plex nowadays is like death by a thousand cuts.
I am starting to get really annoyed by this and so many other small issues that get ignored.
Like fix seeking already, fix resume from sleep/longer pause on macos etc. etc.
Instead we get a streaming service that no one has asked for and gives us super bad old movies.
We get an interface that is more and more confusing. We get news, we get podcasts…
All the manhours that went into that sigh
And all we want is to stream our damn f…ing movies and shows.
I am so pissed off.
I hope jellyfin catches up soon.
< /rant>
Yea there really is no excuse. You would think changing a default setting would be a pretty basic task. I can only imagine Plex has a bigger plan for this, like adding «direct play» into the auto setting, and that is what is making this take forever.
Don’t I know it, all though my server can handle it. Whyyy…save the planet, all that wasted electricity, going into heat for transcoding, then the AC kicks inn to cool the house down. ALL because of a god damn FUBAR default setting. SO I try to have everyone go in and change the default to “remote original” when I spot it, but god damn…it’s PER DEVICE!!! So next day, friend is streaming to a different TV, so here we go again…transcoding…again… FFS!
The only way I have found to work acceptable has been to turn transcoding off entirely. When Plex actually stops working, my users do change their settings.
The ones that remember how, that is. I do have some users I still have to walk through the settings in order to toggle max back on whenever their client stops working
Well, if it doesn’t work in this case, it means the device does not support direct play of the media in question (or allow direct play is disabled). If the device isn’t able to direct play, I still want the user to be able to transcode, usually that is lower end devices and transcoding to lower resolution is dirt cheap (at least on my server). BIG, issue is when 4k hx265 gets transcoded to 4k h264 lol. at one time the server was streaming a 300Mbit x264 4k stream since plex doesn’t even support x265 transcoding…
I’ve tried using Emby/Jellyfin for a while and sadly when it comes to features and stability plex still takes a first place. However they’re quickly catching up.
It’s annoying that something such as this hasn’t been fixed yet. Just set an auto feature to default and don’t transcode down from 4k when there is a 1080p file there too, not hard right?
And if you don’t want to do all that, give server owners more control over these options, as different people have different usage scenarios. Some might have more bandwidth and a lesser processor so they’d rather all streams direct played. Others have a beefy processor but crap connection so they’d rather keep a tighter look on their streams.
Just give people options and everyone will be happy(er).
The ones with issues have clients that supports direct play of all my files. The problem is caused by the clients, which every so often defaults to 3 mb 720p trying to play back files from my server that has transcoding turned off.
I dont need transcoding. My users doesnt need transcoding. But plex clients are causing issues with their settings constantly reverting to 720p.
Of course, I get your point, but supporting direct play doesn’t mean the device knows every codec in the world. There are many variations of audio and video codecs that will be unplayable on many devices, also container transcoding is often needed, which is very light load for the server. Anyway, If the default was original (preferrable for me), or auto (for bw limited users, not quota, actual bw), like many asks for that would be the best. If the device does not support a particular media file, plex can still transcode the stream, and the only case where it is actually really needed.
