# Deny transcoding for friends **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Suggestions\ **Created:** [July 4, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113 "2014-07-04T14:02:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fetto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9f8e36/32.png) [@Fetto](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Fetto)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/1 "2014-07-04T14:02:54Z")
Feature request: Sorry for spellingproblems/bad English, it is not my native language.     Wouldn’t it be nice to have a checkbox that said that friends only could stream/sync if it could do so without transcoding?   -I have Internetspeed enough to share with my friends, but my NAS (where PLEX is located) is too weak to not suffer seriously when transcoding.   (From a usability standpoint it would probably be good to bundle this feature with a filter that hides all objects that can’t play directly for that user)       Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![acous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/74df32/32.png) [@acous](https://forums.plex.tv/u/acous)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/2 "2014-07-06T19:01:09Z")
Personally I'd be happy to sacrifice drive space for pre-transcoded files. If i could save the transcodes in a couple of bitrates and serve them without draining the cpu on my server it would be awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Jammy\_B](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/jammy_b/32/7699_2.png) [@Jammy\_B](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Jammy_B)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/3 "2014-07-06T20:44:24Z")
> Personally I'd be happy to sacrifice drive space for pre-transcoded files. If i could save the transcodes in a couple of bitrates and serve them without draining the cpu on my server it would be awesome. Think that's heading into the realms of netflix/etc etc? ---
**Author:** ![acous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/74df32/32.png) [@acous](https://forums.plex.tv/u/acous)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/4 "2014-07-06T20:50:44Z")
> Think that's heading into the realms of netflix/etc etc? hmm, dunno, maybe :) I wouldn't be serving tens of people... it's just that I don't have a very powerful server and I'd like to be able to stream to 3 or 4 web/mobile clients ---
**Author:** ![jkiel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/jkiel/32/4301_2.png) [@jkiel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/jkiel)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 7:55am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/5 "2014-07-07T07:55:01Z")
> Personally I'd be happy to sacrifice drive space for pre-transcoded files. If i could save the transcodes in a couple of bitrates and serve them without draining the cpu on my server it would be awesome. You can already have multiple, "pre transcoded", files for any given title, but you have to create them using other means (not Plex), like Handbrake, or a custom script using FFMPEG.  Plex will try to automatically decide which version to use based on the client's request, and then fallback to transcoding if it can't find a match. ---
**Author:** ![Fetto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9f8e36/32.png) [@Fetto](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Fetto)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/6 "2014-07-07T08:32:30Z")
But, anyway... I still think that it would be nice if we could limit connected friends so that they only can stream and synk without transcoding. I think that an option to have Plex save multiple versions of the same movie is something that does not negate my idea. It could make the need less frequent if we does as aconus wishes and saves a bunch of files per film, but the problem of my installation not being able to transcode in real time is still real. ---
**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 11:13pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/7 "2021-05-31T23:13:06Z")
2021 clean-up: duplicate > [@disable transcoding (per user setting)](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-per-user-setting/86588): > > Hi,   I would love to have a feature that would allow me to disable transcoding on a per-user base. I share my media amongst some users but I have to ask them to only directplay (using the plex theatre app on PC/MAC) because otherwise after 4 concurrent sessions my CPU starts to give up ...   thanks for considering !   edd--     ---
**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2021, 12:46am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/deny-transcoding-for-friends/70113/8 "2021-06-10T00:46:34Z")