Take a look at the Plex media info of various movies in your collection. It will tell you the average bandwidth of this file.
But the average bandwidth is often very misleading. The actual bandwidth which is required to stream a file, can be 2x to 5x the average bitrate.
You can see these if you look at the Plex media info XML.
Look for the XML property requiredBandwidths="...
It will contain several numbers which are the bandwidths required (in kbps), depending on the size of the network buffers of the Plex client. The first numbers are for the smallest buffer sizes. You can bet that Smart TVs belong into this category.
Here is an example:
<Media id="1328314" duration="5649898" bitrate="4493" width="1920" height="1040" aspectRatio="1.85" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="dca" videoCodec="h264" videoResolution="1080" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" audioProfile="dts" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="1331036" key="/library/parts/1331036/1695810531/file.mkv" duration="5649898" file="J:\Animation4\Pompo the Cinéphile (2021)\Pompo the Cinéphile (2021).mkv" size="3161520055" audioProfile="dts" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="6" indexes="sd" requiredBandwidths="21010,15562,8313,8095,8095,8095,8095,8095" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="2373116" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="2495" language="Japanisch" languageTag="ja" languageCode="jpn" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1040" codedWidth="1920" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1040" level="40" profile="high" refFrames="4" requiredBandwidths="18984,13537,6486,6486,6486,6486,6486,6486" scanType="progressive" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (H.264)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080p (H.264)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373117" streamType="2" default="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="221" language="Deutsch" languageTag="de" languageCode="deu" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" requiredBandwidths="222,222,222,222,222,222,222,222" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="Deutsch (AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Deutsch (AAC Stereo)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373118" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="aac" index="2" channels="2" bitrate="221" language="Japanisch" languageTag="ja" languageCode="jpn" audioChannelLayout="stereo" original="1" profile="lc" requiredBandwidths="222,222,222,222,222,222,222,222" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="Japanisch (AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Japanisch (AAC Stereo)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373119" streamType="2" codec="dca" index="3" channels="6" bitrate="1509" language="Japanisch" languageTag="ja" languageCode="jpn" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" bitDepth="24" original="1" profile="dts" requiredBandwidths="1508,1508,1508,1508,1508,1508,1508,1508" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="Japanisch (DTS 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="Japanisch (DTS 5.1)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373120" streamType="3" forced="1" codec="srt" index="4" bitrate="0" language="Deutsch" languageTag="de" languageCode="deu" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" displayTitle="Deutsch Erzwungen (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="Deutsch Erzwungen (SRT)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373121" streamType="3" forced="1" codec="pgs" index="5" bitrate="3" language="Deutsch" languageTag="de" languageCode="deu" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="65,65,65,65,65,65,65,65" displayTitle="Deutsch Erzwungen (PGS)" extendedDisplayTitle="Deutsch Erzwungen (PGS)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373122" streamType="3" selected="1" codec="srt" index="6" bitrate="0" language="Deutsch" languageTag="de" languageCode="deu" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" displayTitle="Deutsch (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="Deutsch (SRT)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373123" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="7" bitrate="43" language="Deutsch" languageTag="de" languageCode="deu" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="57,57,57,57,57,57,57,57" displayTitle="Deutsch (PGS)" extendedDisplayTitle="Deutsch (PGS)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="2373124" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="8" bitrate="0" language="Englisch" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" requiredBandwidths="1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" displayTitle="Englisch (SRT)" extendedDisplayTitle="Englisch (SRT)"> </Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
As you can see, there are bandwidth numbers for the whole file (important when playback mode “Direct Play” is used)
as well as for each video, audio, and subtitle stream separately. These come into play if the server is only picking some streams and is remuxing or transcoding (playback modes “Direct Stream” or “Transcoding”).
