I’m not aware of Plex falling back to the TEMP folder. I’ll have to check that.
I use 1.13.8… if it matters…
I have a use case where disabling transcoding would be beneficial. For high resolution Blu-Ray rips, I store 2 versions in Plex - one at high quality, high bitrate for local streaming - and a smaller one at 480p 1.5Mb for remote streaming and viewing on small screen devices - both of these are encoded so they are cable of being Direct Played or Direct Streamed on all the devices in use (assuming bandwidth is available). I’d like remote users who don’t have the bandwidth for the full version to automatically be given the lower quality version. I know they can manually select this by choosing Play Version - however most users don’t do this - the end result being a lot of transcoding, eating my CPU. If I could disable transcoding - then Plex would hopefully fallback to simply sending the lower quality version when bandwidth was limited.
Hi, I’m new to Plex but I must admit I find it very annoying when I try to play a movie from my NAS on a device and you get the message “This server is not powerful enough to convert video”. I’ve read a lot of the above. Some I understand some not, but it seems for whatever reason the Transcoder can’t be disabled and the solution is to reencode your media. But I don’t know what format to encode it to? How about the Plex message being a bit more meaningful and saying “Your device only supports media type XYZ, and the media you are trying to play is type ABC, so to play on this device it needs to be reencoded”
That’s a very interesting idea!!
Let the owners of the hardware decide!
The point is the Plex Server admins providing their own media footage should have the choice to allow it or not. And if they chose to prevent non-supporting players, THEN THAT’S THEIR CHOICE!
Plex devs can’t force server admins to transcode - people will just to and find an alternative solution.
Its not the players who should be in control of the media format and use of the hardware the server runs on, its the frickin server admins since THEY PROVIDE THE MEDIA/HARDWARE AND PAY FOR IT!
Plex devs have this the wrong way around…they need to revisit their main stakeholder requirements (aka Plex Server admins) and give control to the admins by having this as a option to disable/enable Transcoding (Default = On (ticked)) - and NO, Direct Play does NOT disable server side transcoding thats controlled by the Plex Server Admins. That’s a Player Side feature…ffs its simple.
…ffs if you don’t like the software you can always write your own…they own it so they make the rules. It is simple.
Plex made a decision to try to provide the best experience to the client, at the expense of the CPU of the server. Plex server admins legally (in the US) should be ones playing the media. If you are a US-based “Plex server admin” but serve to clients outside of yourselves (family, small gatherings, non-commercial settings, etc.), then you are probably already running afoul of both the law and the intentions Plex had for use of their software (commercial use is prohibited by ToS in the software).
I am not saying I agree completely with the law, but Plex should (will?) not assist “Plex server admins” in monetizing Plex servers in that way. They put themselves in legal jeopardy in that use case.
ToS… What a joke. Imagine if car manufacturers had the same type of terms. No modifying, no giving out, no transferring, no commercial use, not responsible for any mechanical/electrical faults, nor responsible for any damages cause by said faults.
That analogy is no where close to the same thing…and you know that. However, I suspect as cars are becoming more dependent on commodity hardware/software, you may well start to see ToS similar to what you listed on cars. Commercial use vehicles may cost more, already modifying your car’s infotainment system is prohibited and may void your warranty, and modifications to the car’s computer can also void warranties. Just because someone doesn’t read the terms of the warranty in detail doesn’t mean it isn’t in there.
But if you think selling access to your PMS server hosting private-use licensed media is not illegal (in the US), then you are wrong under the current laws. Taking a Disney movie to a school for movie night is also not legal in the US. Argue against the laws all day, but arguing legality under current laws is pointless.
Oh, yes. I know. I’m gonna laugh at any car manufacturer that tries to pull such Tos on damages or injuries.
Just imagine agreeing to a ToS for boarding a plane. We(the airline) nor Boeing will be held liable for any damages that may occur with the computer system and/or electronic system. We might still have those 737 MAX in the air!
The issue here is what people find extreme. Anything that doesn’t cause bodily harm is for the most part, acceptable.
And most digital ToS want their cake and eat it to. They hold you responsible(and accountable) under the ToS but waive all their responsibility to you. Again, the term extreme. That’s the key factor.
And don’t think I’m trying to bash just Plex(that’s actually against the ToS).
5. USER CONTENT & ACCEPTABLE USE.
You agree that by using the Plex Solution you will not upload, post, display, or transmit any of the following:
- anything which may damage, lessen, or harm the goodwill or reputation of Plex and its services;
Also..
21.LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
- IN CONNECTION THEREWITH, YOU SPECIFICALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT PLEX SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF YOUR USE (OR DELAY IN USE) OF OR FAILURE TO STORE ANY DATA OR CONTENT MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE PLEX SOLUTION AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY USE OF ANY USER CONTENT BY OTHERS, INCLUDING YOUR AUTHORIZED USERS
But again, what is extreme?
We hold almost all hardware manufacturers(including the embedded software) to a legal standard but almost none for software itself.
True that but it is also illegal to sell access to your own(you, the creator) media under the same ToS.
I can buy a Ford today and start charging my friends $50 a ride tomorrow. Sure, I may need to let my insurance company know what I’m doing but not Ford Motors.
I feel this thread, or at least our few posts may be flagged as off topic so.. guess not much more we can add without the beat-down from the MOD’s.
Nonetheless, digital ToS’s are very one-sided.
since a few weeks i got a Raspberry pi3 b+ and thought plex media Server would be a good idear but because of the transcoding reason i wont be able to use PMS anymore. yesterday i tryed to Play a file in my Network had so many Problems with Video not buffering. Also i Needit to be able to Play outside of my Network and than Comes the transcoding Problem. CPU of the PI goes to 100% transcoding Speed is at 0.x rate so ist unplayable over the Internet and i cant optimize the Videos for specific devides it will take ages. To optimize a 110 min movie i Need over 2hours to optimize.
so i guess there is no other choice than going back to stream with m3u file lists
People, myself included, have been asking for this “feature” for quite some time now. Every time it comes up the response is the same…most people don’t have the upstream, the clients set the default quality, its needed for max compatibility, blah blah blah…
All we are asking for here is the OPTION, nobody is asking to change the core functionality. If the client cannot direct play, OK transcode, if the bandwidth is too low, OK transcode. But to have people watching 1080p 10+mbit content at 720p 2mbit on a Roku with a 100+ mbit network connection (which can direct play pretty much anything I throw at it) is ridiculous.
My point is, Plex should DEFAULT client software to attempt direct play/stream first, and if that fails, fallback to transcoding to whatever format the client supports. Defaulting remote quality to 2Mbps 720p is absolutely ridiculous.
This has forced me to use JBOPS and Tautulli to kill any stream that does not match a predefined list of criteria and display a message to the user that transcoding is not allowed. This has been enough to get most (not all) my users to figure out they need to change their default remote quality settings to original or maximum.
Not the most elegant solution, but it will have to do since I do not ever see Plex implementing this feature request.
That is exactly what Plex does. The 2Mbps default is just that, the default after installing the app. The app has no idea what type of connection the user may have so it uses a conservative setting just in case the user is on a metered connection. A user can change that at any time.
Maybe have some kind of first run wizard for probably the 90% of users that have no idea about that setting and are just going to keep it at the default? I’m all for options (especially when it comes to the administering of a server and the server admin having the options), so I don’t see any reason why Plex can’t give the admin the option to disable the transcoder if that’s what they want (make it an advanced option defaulted to having the transcoder on obviously).
I also don’t quite understand why there can’t be a default quality setting that the admin can set on their server (but allow it to be overridden by the client for various reasons) plus having a per server setting on the client side (maybe they have multiple servers shared with them and server A they can do original quality but server B they need to watch at a lesser quality because of bandwidth constraints on server B’s side, whatever).
All of this really comes down to the server admin having control over their server (which, honestly, sometimes Plex seems to not care about, look how long it took them to finally put an option in to be able to kill a stream that was paused for X amount of times). Just because Plex doesn’t seem to agree with the server admin wanting to disable the transcoder, doesn’t mean that the server admin doesn’t have a good reason for doing it. A server admin disabling the transcoder on their system does not effect other server admins or Plex (aside from programming that functionality in of course) as it should be something that the server admin has to knowingly implement.
The big thing is it seems with a lot of things with Plex, the end user has more say in their experience than the server admin themselves.
Just my $0.02.
-Shark2k
How much you got now?
$-0.02 I’m in debt now 
-Shark2k
Don’t feel bad. I’ve given too many cents here… I’m hundreds in the hole now…
the logic that most users don’t understand the settings of their own media files so it’s better not to add that option for those that do is really confusing.
my originally setup for Popcorn Hour & xBox w/ audio systems, my media had AC3 2.0 (192) AC3 5.1 (448) DTS 5.1 - both 720p & 1080p
Originally Plex would choose the one I had my player set to play with no issues. As the software developed it didn’t like that setup and wanted the first track to be AAC 2.0… why ? I have no freaking idea, I own zero equipment that would play AAC, zero.
I’ve redone my library 2wice to eliminate trans-coding. The current setup for remote.720p with AC3 2.0 (192) or AC3 5.1 (448), for local 1080p with AC3 5.1 (640) & DTS 5.1. That simple and not complicated. If the 720p file is the only file everything direct plays with no issues.
if both versions exist then it always wants to trans-code the 1080p file for remote users to 720p & use AAC audio, which i try to avoid at all cost.
I’m using a dual Xeon server so it can handle the processing but 1) it isn’t necessary, AC3 plays on everything I own 2) I can see the difference in my electric bill.
If the argument is that the end user will have a bad experience if it can’t play the file… I could care less, they aren’t paying for anything on my end. What I care about is managing resources & cost on my side of things.
My major point is that the Plex-Pass owners are the ones investing in the company so why are their individual interests not being considered on this topic.
I appreciate the Plex employees who try to work with the status and explain the different sides of things but at the end of the day some users just want full control of managing their equipment and media.
{for those keeping track I’m down 47 cents}
Truth probbaly is that the original developer(s) have long since moved on to other things because the fact is that Plex is an extremely old piece of software. ( it’s over 10yrs old)
Back then software development wasnt as clean and fancy as how it has become. So it’s really likely that the codebase is a chaotic mess and the original Devs have moved on so Plex Inc would need to hire consultants to do any additional changes.
Digging down to core features and changing things in there could break stuff and end up being a costy affair to pay consultants for the amount of time it would take them to get it done right.
I still however absolutely do not like the fact that we dont get the option to disable it entirely.
But hey… Plex started out being a Mac OSX thing , the mindset is like Apple…
Closed software and limited amount of tweak-freedom for the users because they think we’e all stupid starbucks hipsters.
But at least a great deal of source code is on your computer so if you feel up to it you can modify to your heart’s content.
