Hi guys! I'm quite new here and I'm not sure if this has already been asked for:
- It would be great to be able to set a maximum bitrate per remote user. For example: I have a 10mbit upload speed limit, and if 3 users are connected and 1 user selects 8mbps as a quality, then there wouldn't be much bandwidth left for the other 2 users.
- Or: Set your upload speed somewhere in PMS, and PMS will automatically switch users to a lower bitrate when new users are connecting. For example: When only one user is connected, it may be streaming at the quality closest to my maximum upload speed, which would be 8 or 10mbps. But when another user connects. Both will be switched to (max) 4mbps.
This should only apply to remote users. So users in the local network are always able to select their desired bitrate.
There should also be a few more things included like checking the real connection speed between server and clients and a setting for the maximum number of simultaneously connected clients.
Setting the speed maximum individually for different users would also be interesting.
What you are suggesting is exactly what I'm looking for. My upstream is the same as yours (10Mbps) and my girlfriend was complaining of buffer/lag issues. I thought it was my CPU being pushed to the limit but it turned out Plex on the Roku had a default of 8Mbps set (or maybe someone changed it). Needless to say, my brother wasn't too happy when she was streaming.
I'd like to set a maximum bitrate of 3-4 Mbps/client if possible, but I really like your idea of PMS being able to adjust the maximum bitrate on-the-fly depending on the amount of clients connected.
There is another forum thread requesting feature to attack the other side of this problem, concurrent users. Please take a look at that thread too and see if you agree that it needs to be added as a feature of the plex server.
I think they both need to be added in. As I posted over there, Here is the types of restrictions that should be able to be set on the server:
We definitely need a way to have some control over what our remote shares can do to our bandwidth/cpu’s, especially when the people using them aren’t savvy enough to have any idea how to manage quality settings on their client themselves.
It’s, frankly, a bit ridiculous to me that quality, and thus the amount of bandwidth needed for a stream is dictated by the client and server-side limitations can’t be set or enforced. It would be made better if clients were at least intelligent about dynamically requesting reasonable bitrates based on what they can get from the source machine instead of being configured (in most cases I’ve seen) to either direct play or direct stream, or some other high quality setting by default on the remote and/or internet quality settings.
Most of my library is made up of uncompressed Blu-Ray rips in MKV format, and my measly 7Mbps up is not nearly enough for even one stream at that quality, which is why I have a beefy dedicated server that can handle many transcoded streams at once. But that’s all for naught when users either choose to request high quality and then get terrible buffering, making content unwatchable, or have no idea how to control that in the first place and default settings are far too optimistic.
Please add this functionality soon! Once this is implemented, most people’s basic sharing needs should be met. (Mostly) happy Plex user of 2+ years! Thanks and keep up the great work.
PS: This person covered everything that would make me a happy camper.
There is another forum thread requesting feature to attack the other side of this problem, concurrent users. Please take a look at that thread too and see if you agree that it needs to be added as a feature of the plex server.
I think they both need to be added in. As I posted over there, Here is the types of restrictions that should be able to be set on the server:
