How to disable transcoding?

I tell my friends to only use direct play because I don’t have the CPU power to transcode. Yet they constantly ■■■■ it up. How do I disable it so that it’s impossible for them to fail?

To be clear I mean video transcoding where you change the quality. Not the kind of transcoding where it has to change video/audio format to be able to play the file, that kind of transcoding is not only required, but also not very CPU demanding, so I don’t have a problem with that.

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What CPU do you have?

Plex only transcodes when it needs too. Adding a older GPU in the media PC that you are using will help with the transcode.

there’s no server-side setting.
this is up to the client’s capabilities and settings:

  1. they need to have direct stream / play activated
  2. their client must be able to process your media / video codecs without transcoding

the only thing you can directly influence is setting Settings > Server > Transcoder > Transcoder Quality to prefer faster encoding.

Plex does not only transcode when it needs to, it transcodes if the user does not manually set the quality setting to maximum. I’ve told them to do this, but it doesn’t help. If you give the user the option, they will screw it up, intentionally or not. That’s why I want to take away that option.

But as I said in the OP, I don’t want to disable transcoding in situations where plex needs to do it. Just in every situation where direct play is available.

Also I don’t have space for a graphics card, and I don’t want to put one in anyway. More transcoding power is not what I am looking for.

If this isn’t an option, maybe it should be? I’d even pay for Plex Pass if it gave me this option (preferably on a user by user basis).

As a temporary fix I went in and set transcoding to ultra fast and restricted it to 1 stream. I also opened a stream in transcode and paused it. Hopefully it can stay paused indefinitely, preventing anyone from transcoding. Problem with this solution is that if plex needs to transcode something, well they’re out of luck, no playback for them. I also need to keep a tab in my browser open and dedicated to this, which is annoying and uses memory.

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Update: Well, that didn’t work very well. Chromecast and Phones pretty much have to transcode everything, while computers don’t. So in other words, if I want to share my libraries, I’m fucked I guess.

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@Litego said:
Update: Well, that didn’t work very well. Chromecast and Phones pretty much have to transcode everything, while computers don’t. So in other words, if I want to share my libraries, I’m ■■■■■■ I guess.

Correction:
If you want to share your libraries with idiots - you’re ****ed

Get smarter friends/family - or have better training sessions.

B)

Seriously (as if that wasn’t serious enough) you may have to ‘customize’ some content for some remote clients. It’s either that or buy more horsepower for your server so it can do the heavy lifting. Your options are limited.

ALL my stuff Direct Plays on everything, apart from the odd audio transcode on a phone or something. Audio transcodes are easy for any piece of crap server. Just make sure the video Direct Plays and you’re golden (probably).

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as JuiceWSA stated, either you get a stronger server that can transcode, or start optimizing your media so it direct plays.

Check out this guide by @cayars

@Kraevin said:
Check out this guide by @cayars
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/931888/#Comment_931888

That’s helpful info from @cayars
There’s also a Handbrake Guide in my signature…
and
The Optimize Feature in Plex can also be used…

Note:
Doing anything above on a low power server is going to take a while, but the good news is once it’s done and Direct Play is achieved the server won’t bog down and buffer. The Optimizing/Encoding takes as long as it takes - but it doesn’t have to do it on the fly.

It doesn’t matter what format the video is in, PLEX transcodes. There are no players, even on a phone that need to have the video format changed before sending it to the device.

So you rage out on what processor he has and yea always good to burn 100watts plus running a processor for extra transcoding when it is a total waste because the player can do the job.

No there is no reason for transcoding anything let alone everything.

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Just a +1 (my Google fu finds zero solutions). There are many good reasons NOT to want a server to transcode - it should not be so difficult to do. Yes, we could switch to Kodi but many people might prefer Plex interface but just want to NOT have to have a transcoding capable server.

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One thing I love about my Shield is having Kodi there when Plex blows chunks like it often does. Gbit Ethernet between devices and it still wants to transcode my 4K stuff which plays flawlessly between the NAS and Shield in Kodi.

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+1 on this topic. I want to disable video transcoding (burning subtitle is ok) for specific friends. My server is powerful enough to transcode a few streams simultaneously, but I’d rather it doesn’t as the fan makes quite a loud noise.

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Just rename “C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\PlexTranscoder.exe” to something else it Plex Server will NEVER do transcoding anymore.

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+1 who wants to control it on the server level.
I just want to disable transcode for specific friends. Like I want only enable transcode on local/family network for family members and to 1 friend outside the local network.

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+1 to this feature

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+1

As said before, only transcode when it’s really necessary would be great. Why make this change on every single device, when you can set it for all at once?

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+1

I keep saying to my friends and family members to set the quality to maximum to prevent transcode but sometime they forgot and there is nothing I can do.

I can’t blame them, they don’t even know what transcoding is and you know « it works on Netflix and YouTube »

that would be great to at least be able to choose the default setting for every clients on the server side because I think the actual default one force transcode in the majority of the use cases

Thank you, Plex is still awesome though !

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You both guys (@JuiceWSA @Kraevin) are off the track. Totally.
If a server admin wants to turn off transcoding (or even better, specifically tune it as he desires), he should be able to. I should be able to!
Why should I have to buy some hardware or transcode upfront so they can play it seemlessly…

This is totally absurd! A-b-s-u-r-d!

“Hey doctor, my knee hurts.”
“Well, get a new pair of pants and some new shoes. Might not help your pain, but you will have new shoes!”

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I’m the owner of cheap NAS server cuz I only wanna share my movies with family or close friends. Transcoding isn’t acceptable - it takes 100% of my NAS cpu. I had to configure a special plex account where everything is playing in original form but still - someone can change it.

I see that its possible to rename transcoder executable file but I’m not a fan of such solutions. As mentioned - would be nice to have this option as kind of checkbox somewhere.

Otherwise - the Plex server version for almost all NAS devices doesn’t make any sense imho.

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Plus 1 on this.
I have a proliant gen 8 which works well but sometimes with some specific content, one single streaming is making my CPU at 100%… I would like the option of disabling transcoding. I am considering DS Video (synology) just because of this.

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