Server Version#: 1.41.0.8930
Player Version#: 8.39 (9244)
As the title says, if I enable “Automatically Adjust Quality” in the iOS app, the Plex Media Server delivers transcoded media to the app, and won’t allow me to use Direct Play if I disable video stream transcoding from the server side.
Once I turn off the auto-adjust quality option in the app, all compatible media now plays as “Direct Play” with no issues.
Clearly something is broken with “Automatically Adjust Quality” as I am not the first or only person to report problems with this setting.
I’m too lazy to look for it, same as you. But what do you mean “killing image quality”? You do know what “Automatically Adjust Quality” does, don’t you? It lowers the quality if you have a bad connection, lol.
In the Apple apps, Automatically Adjust Quality should always transcode media.
Essentially the PMS server is dynamically adjusting the quality of each segment that is streamed as an HLS stream based on the connection speed between client and server.
This is not exactly the case for every platform but this is how it works for our Apple apps.
Craig, is the current recommendation still to leave this feature turned off? I do recall that there was something in the works to replace it, but haven’t heard anything on that front lately.
I travel quite a bit with highly variable hotel wifi, and this feature (or something like it) would be very helpful.
This feature can be useful and work well in some scenarios. You should expect transcoding with Apple though.
The best case is always to direct play or select the exact quality you know can be played.
Though that is not always possible of course. Especially with variable networks like hotel wifi or cellular.
All to say, I recommend to continue to use it if it is working for you but keep expectations reasonable because it is a complex feature.
