I’m streaming content from a friend’s plex server.
All the video sources are 1080p. My TV can handle that.
Suddenly I changed last week the quality of the native 1080p, to a lower settings. From that point is every serie and movie at that same resolution while the source is 1080p.
Now whatever I changed in the settings, it streams a lower quality such as 240p while the source is 1080p, it’s says also in white letters in the menu box of the serie of movie.
Have you verified with your friend their remote access setup is working ok (e.g. no fallback to an indirect / relayed connection that comes with a limited bandwidth) or if they’re actively limiting the remote stream bandwidth?
As a side note: the need to transcode isn’t primarily determined by a specific video resolution. A more common limitation is the video/audio/subtitle format and their combination.
It really does sounds like your friend’s server’s “Remote Access” isn’t properly set up. If their firewall/router hasn’t had the proper ports forwarded, then in order to access the server Plex (the company) acts as a relay between you and the server. However, they don’t have infinite bandwidth to do this, so they limit streams to ~2 Mbps or less. This is a hard cap, which may mean the only streaming options you have are all really low resolution.
I know you said it’s working, but double check with your friend that their “Remote Access” in their settings is showing a green checkmark.
A way to tell if this is the case, is to check the server dashboard when you are streaming. If your friend can look, see if the orange (!) mark shows up, like in the center of this example image:
