i’m a developer.
i work at vimeo
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I found the following post in the Feature Suggestions section that I think would improve this, please vote:
And a comment in that thread for the approach they could take:
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agreed
Please Plex let us force certain users to use “Original” quality setting in their Plex app!
Everyone transcodes by default and I have to call them and bug them to set the quality to Original because my Xenon processor cannot transcode many streams at once.
Once I finally call and nag my friends they cannot believe the quality difference and then are set for “Original Quality”/“Direct Play” and my CPU can handle 10 times more clients without transcoding.
I actually had 2 friends stop streaming from me and uninstall the Plex app because they said it was too much of a hassle to set the quality and in this OCD and ADD world we live people expect everything to work out of the box with no hassle or they uninstall the app after 2 minutes of tinkering.
I am only serving videos at 720p 4mbps-8mpbs so everyone can “Direct Play” from me but I cannot force them to and most end up transcoding…
Please Dev’s avoid all the Plex frustration out there…your our only hope…
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Wow! Been a while since I checked in on this thread that I started back in 2017. I am super happy that more users has found the thread and that Im not alone… But here we are in 2020 and nothing has really changed…
I got fed up a year back and my “solution” consisted of a rack server with dual CPUs and while it can now cope with 8-10 1080p transcodes going on at the same time, its not cheap to run.
So yeah, big thanks to Plex for forcing us users with high bitrate content and/or many end users to either invest and run expensive equipment or hiring someone full time to chase down said users.
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Their loss not yours… Too much work to get free content? Jesus… Have fun with Netflix then (yes their networking features are awesome).
What happens now if a 5 Mbit user, that has set quality to maximum, starts an 80 Mbit UHD BluRay Remux? It will be buffering like mad, right? So this shouldn’t be the standard setting imho.
Dunno if this has been said yet (probably?):
Best would be if Plex would detect the bandwidth of the client user at one point (install of app, startup of app?) and then adjusts that setting accordingly.
Dunno if this feasible from a dev point of view, but this would guarantee that as much is direct played as possible, while the client gets the best experience.
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as is so often the case - when users start applying logic:
That makes way too much sense to ever be realized in the Plexiverse.
I don’t think they haven’t thought about something like this yet, but the question is how difficult it is to implement and how much do you gain with it?
The default setting of 4(?) Mbit is rather low but guarantees that clients are not buffered to death, I can see the logic behind this.
And I agree on the responsibility of the server owners:
If I share with people I either have to a) educate them how to make their settings, b) set it myself at their end or c) get a a rig that is beefy enough to transcode as many streams as it might have to. You cannot set-up PMS on Raspberry Pi and serve to 20 people praying that none of them will be transcoding…
Btw: As people often claim that the grass is greener on the other side, how does the direct competition handle this issue? (and I don’t mean Netflix).
I agree, setting that cap on the player helps force a transcode when needed, otherwise it will buffer like crazy. It won’t start transcoding if you tell it to stream at max quality. Though, some of the players (maybe even all of them now?) have a single toggle in the main settings to Automatically Adjust Quality.
This would allow Plex to direct play most stuff if possible, or dynamically transcode when necessary.
Only some as it seems:
But it should also be the default setting according to the statement in the article ("After the preview period, auto quality will be enabled by default in the apps and become available to all users.")
Dunno if it left “preview” state yet.
I serve to two people using the (crappy) PS4 client. So no love for them 
But I told them to set their quality accordingly. They obeyed because at the end of the day: they get something FOR FREE from me.
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Still in Beta
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I still think Plex makes money when the transcoder is running.
Somehow.
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this has to be the case.
but seriously, is permission to transcode for individual users even in the works?
and what’s with the ‘server not powerful enough’ messages when you disable transcoding?
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You all have some good points and reason to be frustrated with Plex. I have posted before that a lot of my users and yours are not tech savvy. I think the admin person should have complete control over the users quality settings and setup as well, so you can completely set their screens up the way they want it. Like someone suggested have a wizard where they uncheck what they don’t want.
Let’s face it, the new UI is not the greatest, not that easy for most users to remove content they don’t want or add hubs, my users don’t want any of the extras. I’ve always have had the impression it is what Plex wants not the users. I’ve seen requested features on the forums for ages that a lot of people have asked for and never been implemented.
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i love plex and will continue to use it, but i get the feeling requests aren’t taken seriously. it’s a more polished app than emby/jellyfin, so i’ve never fully switched to either of those, but https://veso.tv will definitely eventually be a middle ground between the polished plex and buggy/alpha kind of thing emby/jellyfin have going on.
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Unfortunately it can’t be a Swiss army knife to all things with a processor and internet access, but a Jack of all trades. Filling in the spaces with some sort relative software. If it were not for the forums strengths, I believe Plex and alike would be next to unusable. I believe Plex listen but it’s hands are tied in a manner of uniformity across it extraordinary array of supported devices. Thinking about it how does Microsoft and Google achieve it is beyond me.
this has to be one of the most requested features people want. plex just refuses to listen to their customers for some reason.
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Sure, they have to pay royalties for every mbps they allow as default.
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Having a server admin override a user’s global setting for all servers is not optimal, as some users might use different server’s. Perhaps this is why Plex has not seen it fit to allow such a trivial and much needed option for server admins.
A solution would be to allow users to select a default quality for each server they have access to, and to have server admin’s set a default value or even enforce a minimum value.
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I agree, this needs to be fixed so that the highest possible quality can be automated. I see 720p 24/7 killing the host. I would rather it auto adjust and actually work to run in auto as it should. Upload speed is 45Mbps.
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