# Disable transcoding on specific library **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Suggestions\ **Created:** [April 10, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222 "2019-04-10T15:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mandrup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@mandrup](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mandrup)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/1 "2019-04-10T15:01:12Z")
Would be great if you could disable transcoding on certain libraries! For instance my server can’t handle x265, so would love to be able to disable transcoding for a specific library containing x265 so only direct play is allowed. Especially with 2160p being used a lot, it could be relevant for a lot ---
**Author:** ![NewPlaza](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/newplaza/32/128634_2.png) [@NewPlaza](https://forums.plex.tv/u/NewPlaza)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/2 "2019-04-10T15:14:49Z")
Interesting idea. Here’s a topic about disabling transcoding entirely. > [@Disable Plex Transcoder Totally](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-plex-transcoder-totally/110006): > > Hello, I came over around 50 of articles and forum posts ,but i cannot seem to find a way to completely disable Encoding/Transcoding on Plex Server Completely. Please Suggest me Something.that will Force Direct Play and won’t Transcode anyway. thanks ---
**Author:** ![mandrup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@mandrup](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mandrup)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 8:28am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/3 "2019-04-11T08:28:12Z")
Yea, but i only want it for specific libraries! Some files can be transcoded just fine by my server! 2160p is just way more cpu intensive than 1080p while x265 is way worse than x264. Thinking that 8K will come in the future also, it would be nice to make sure users dont burn down the server ---
**Author:** ![NewPlaza](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/newplaza/32/128634_2.png) [@NewPlaza](https://forums.plex.tv/u/NewPlaza)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 12:15pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/4 "2019-04-11T12:15:42Z")
It’s amazing you got no love for this request. I would of figured that some of the folks wanting to disable entirely would/or could start here.lol ---
**Author:** ![mandrup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@mandrup](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mandrup)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 1:20pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/5 "2019-04-11T13:20:28Z")
I also don’t get it… Some Non-techies also transcode by mistake, when it might be content they could play with direct play. For me it’s logical that the Server should be able to manage what the users can do, so the administrator of the server knows how much of the system ressources could be used. ---
**Author:** ![mandrup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@mandrup](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mandrup)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 1:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/6 "2019-06-01T13:02:00Z")
Still wish this feature was here… prefer not to transcode my 2160p files, but are ok with 1080p files. A feature like this would allow me to do so and with 8K also coming, it will just be a neverending issue ---
**Author:** ![ArnoldSmit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f04885/32.png) [@ArnoldSmit](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ArnoldSmit)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 8:41am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/7 "2020-05-19T08:41:27Z")
I’ve the same wish. I would like to disable transcoding for my 4K library specific. ---
**Author:** ![Oenn](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/oenn/32/151147_2.png) [@Oenn](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Oenn)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 3:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/8 "2020-05-19T15:46:10Z")
+1 !!! ---
**Author:** ![dmwilson220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d78d45/32.png) [@dmwilson220](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dmwilson220)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/9 "2020-06-05T16:11:40Z")
Yes! This or disable transcoding by user. I have issues with some less technical users in my family who transcode everything, even though they don’t need to. I’d turn it off entirely, but there is one library my wife uses that requires transcoding for certain videos to play. Some sort of deaper control over transcoding would be an amazing feature. ---
**Author:** ![RockStar](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rockstar/32/613_2.png) [@RockStar](https://forums.plex.tv/u/RockStar)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 6:04pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/10 "2020-06-05T18:04:02Z")
If I only had more votes. Being able to dissable transcoding for certain media would be useful. So long Plex doesnt support tonemapping, the software just seem buggy in its current state. ---
**Author:** ![Chopsueyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Chopsueyer](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Chopsueyer)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2020, 2:20am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/11 "2020-06-27T02:20:25Z")
Also looking for a way to do that… I don’t want my other users to try to transcode 4K when it will just burn my server’s CPU for not selecting the good Audio track or using PGS subs instead of SRT… ---
**Author:** ![Schmobber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/57b2e6/32.png) [@Schmobber](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Schmobber)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/12 "2020-08-09T17:56:59Z")
I have the same request. I have a separate library for 4k content which I do not want to be transcoded due to the lack of proper tone mapping. Many of my users do not pay attention to which library they choose and basically all of them have their quality settings at the default 720p, 2Mbps, which forces transcoding all the time… ---
**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/13 "2020-08-09T18:37:22Z")
If you’ve put 4K/HDR content into a different library, you can NOT share that library with other users. It’s not the same as the request, but it can be a useful tool. ---
**Author:** ![RockStar](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rockstar/32/613_2.png) [@RockStar](https://forums.plex.tv/u/RockStar)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 8:03pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/14 "2020-08-09T20:03:56Z")
Id prefer if Plex was just intelligent enought to not : - transcode media it butches in the process - transcode into larger files than the original ---
**Author:** ![Schmobber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/57b2e6/32.png) [@Schmobber](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Schmobber)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 1:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/15 "2020-08-10T13:46:45Z")
That is what I currently do but even those who regularly watch 4k content often choose the 4k library when they watch on a different device that doesn’t support 4k. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislav\_Anv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Stanislav\_Anv](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Stanislav_Anv)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 9:12pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/16 "2021-02-21T21:12:03Z")
any updates? ---
**Author:** ![mprachar](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/mprachar/32/332566_2.png) [@mprachar](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mprachar)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 9:31pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/17 "2021-02-28T21:31:40Z")
Yes! I came here looking for the same thing. With more of my family having 4K equipment, I’d love to share my 4K content, but they can’t be trusted to not accidentally transcode it and crush the server. Also - would need to selectively specify audio and video. almost everyone would have to transcode the audio stream, but may be able to play the 4K video natively. ---
**Author:** ![Puzzled](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecb155/32.png) [@Puzzled](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Puzzled)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/18 "2022-05-30T12:46:07Z")
Doesn’t help when you have users who have some devices that can direct play and others that can’t. Bumping this as with energy prices going up the ability to restrict cpu intensive transcoding on certain libraries would be very useful. ---
**Author:** ![perfectrhythm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@perfectrhythm](https://forums.plex.tv/u/perfectrhythm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 11:21pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/19 "2023-12-23T23:21:15Z")
Bumping and coming from the opposite perspective. This would also be helpful for force-transcoding a specific library. I have thousands of h264 music videos that buffer on Android/Android TV/Fire TV, but play fine on iOS. There is nothing remarkable (bitrate, refFrames, etc) about the files that can be filtered out via a client profile XML file- and profiles seem to be depreciated anyway. Having a way to force transcode the library would be an easy solution. I spent a lot of time trying to find a way to programmatically transcode these problematic videos, and nothing else. So far, just having a per-library setting seems to be the best option. Vote cast. ---
**Author:** ![pete\_spbbs\_com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/50afbb/32.png) [@pete\_spbbs\_com](https://forums.plex.tv/u/pete_spbbs_com)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/disable-transcoding-on-specific-library/398222/20 "2024-12-22T17:38:05Z")
I would like to be able to disable transcoding for a specific library. In my case for the library with AV1 files. Plex does not transcode (decode) them with my hardware which puts a huge strain on the CPU. My GPU is the Nvidia RTX 4500 ada generation. This card fully supports AV1, but plex does not seem to think so.