Plex does a good job of transcoding on the fly when for example you have an older video in AVI format.
Plex will transcode that to mp4 to play it on your device.
My suggestion is for there to be an option to save that mp4 and have the PMS replace the existing AVI file in your library.
This way the next time someone watches that video it is already in a format plex can play without transcoding it again
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Thinking about this a bit more, I guess a possible work around for this is to use Plex SYNC and then move that synced file back to your plex media folder to replace that existing AVI.
I'm going to vote for this with a Caveat attached...
There should be some sort of Caching system with a storage limit set to cache transcoded files based on Format (probably requires some naming convention in the transcoder write file routine to determine format contained) that can expire old cache when a storage limit is reached.
This would be a boon to those who run Plex off a NAS and make streaming to multiple devices at the same time better in cases where one of the devices already has a compatible transcode saved in the cache.
But make no mistake without a size limitation of that cache folder you could quickly find your NAS or Drive filled up with 10 versions of the same movie you may never watch again!
If it is made to work similar to the way a Browser Cache works and deletes old files when space is needed it would be a great innovation and feature to have.
This might be naive of me, but is there currently a known codec combo that works on all of the Plex clients (Roku, Android, Win Phone, Chromecast, etc)? I am actually running all of these platforms myself, but transcoding is working so well I haven't worried about it.
If that's the case, just transcode to that format by default then save it with an option to remove the source file, perhaps after a set period of time in case one wants to revert.
This might be naive of me, but is there currently a known codec combo that works on all of the Plex clients (Roku, Android, Win Phone, Chromecast, etc)? I am actually running all of these platforms myself, but transcoding is working so well I haven't worried about it.
If that's the case, just transcode to that format by default then save it with an option to remove the source file, perhaps after a set period of time in case one wants to revert.
You could do that but then your reducing the quality of your entire library to whatever your worst device displays.
Transcoding is the best way to go especially since it can tailor the quality to whatever is supported as it's highest resolution but because many people are running Plex on low power machines (like an NAS or a very old Computer) if there as a way to avoid excessive transcoding it would help those folks.
