Hello,
I’d like to know why is Plex streaming my high quality FLAC files in 128 Kbps? I definitely have enough bandwidth for direct play.
The connection is mobile phone over VPN to my home network.
It also does say “Direct Play” under the file.
There must be some kind of transcoding, however not sure why??
I can easy confirm this: if I play with any other tool but Plex, the outgoing bandwidth corresponds to the file size. If I play with Plex, the file size is WAY smaller, for instance, 3 minute file goes down to 4MB, from original size being 15MB.
Which client is this about?
Most clients should have an option that tells Plex how to deal with music playback with a remote/mobile connection (audio quality)… if that’s set to play in original/maximum quality and the client can deal with your FLAC files, this should be working.
iPhone 12 Pro. It doesn’t make a single difference between setting 128, 320 or original.
If I play via browser in the local network, it shows 2 Mbps. I’d like that when playing via Plex App on the iPhone.
The regular Plex app for iOS or Plexamp?
If you are using a VPN into your server, you can be almost certain that the client is considered as “remote” by the server. So the bandwidth limitations for remote connections are applied.
With Plexamp there is the additional wrinkle of the integrated “pre-buffer”. Tracks which were buffered while being “remote” are most likely in OPUS format. Even if you move back to your home network, playing these tracks will just use the buffered versions. Until the pre-buffer has been flushed by other tracks.
Regular Plex app.
I am connecting the iPhone via OpenVPN into my network, iPhone has the privat IP in that case and it’s a full tunnel (everything routed via VPN). So honestly, this shouldn’t be even considered “remote” or at least there should be an ability to omit the remote setting.
And: there are no limitations afaik set. Only if there are some Plex-internally.
And if there are, those should be possible to deactivate.
Come on, we are in 21st century with mobile connections able to play hundreds of Mbit/s, 5G and what not. Limiting a software to 128 Kbps is just way way way too old.
The software is not limited. But its default settings are taking the often expensive mobile data plans into account.
Go into the settings of the Plex app on your phone and inspect the quality/bitrate preferences.
Yes it is. I have just connected it into WLAN, turned off VPN, and I am still getting 128 kbps rate from the app, while the browser is playing at the bitrate of the file.
And the Plex App doesn’t have many settings, apart from Quality for music, which is set to original and use lower quality with mobile connection, which is unchecked.
So sorry, the App apparently either has a bug or there is something else wrong.
And about mobile plans: expensive? I am paying 50€ per month and have 250mbit unlimited download. I don’t know what you are on about.
So there really should be a setting for omitting any kind of limitation.
Also sounds to me like there is a quality setting in play. Please reproduce then provide the ios log. Can you also provide the xml info for the track you use to reproduce?
