Save Transcoded Versions Locally On Mobile Clients
I know this topic has been discussed at length in other section of the forums. I also know that DEVS have indicated it is coming, but that they want a few other pieces of the puzzle to come together before implementing the feature. I just thought it would be a good idea to get a topic going here, so that PlexPass users could provide their two cents.
What I would love to see is the ability to "Save" transcoded versions of video and audio files to my mobile clients for offline viewing. It would be incredible to be able to save an episode of my favorite show for viewing on my morning commute or on long plane rides.
Please upvote by using the “+” button below the first post, not by 2-character replies It makes it much easier for us to check a requested feature’s popularity.
Note that the application KLEXi iOS (application unusable since it has never been updated: a Plex Client for iPhone and iPad) has integrated this feature.
So I think it is at iOS apps need this feature to be added.
I commute on the train daily for almost 2 hours, that’s a lot of time and I like to fit in a few shows or a movie if I can. Problem is most people have the same idea or are busily browsing the net and saturating the pipes… my pipes!!!
So as more people pile into the train it becomes impossible to stream. I try to pre-load a move on my iPhone via iTunes but it is so annoying having to convert it to the right format and I may not even be at a computer that can sync my iPhone without having to wipe it completely and sync with it from scratch (I hate that Apple does this)
Needless to say, I’d love it if this feature came out.
Really glad that this thread is gaining some traction!
For my remote music needs I use Subsonic (which has the ability to transcode audio) with the iOS app, iSUB (which can cache the transcoded files to local phone memory). I have a large FLAC library, and being able to browse my library on the phone and transcode them on-the-fly has become an absolutely incredible feature! It actually feels like my audio is open and free. I am no longer hampered by filetypes/codes/etc/itunes restrictions
I CANNOT WAIT TO HAVE THIS CAPABILITY WITH MY VIDEO FILES!
This and connection management / monitoring are my two biggies, with distributed transcoding and user communication tools (mailing, chatting, etc) behind. Would love to see this become reality.
Probably my no. 1 on the wishlist. Would like to see this for the mobile clients (iOS for me) and PMC (on Windows in my case), so both my iPad and my laptop could have access to high quality content on the go as I could cash content when on a good connection to PMS. Watch status should be cashed as well and synced when reconnecting to PMS. Would also really love if clients had an option to automatically cash the items on my deck, for example newly added content as well as the next X unwatched episodes of TV programs that I am following.
This is the feature that would most revolutionize my everyday Plex experience. The vast majority of my Plex use right now is with the Mac client hooked up to a projector, and it’s wonderful. But, with the exception of the queue (which I rarely use), the experience is basically the same as it was years ago. I appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into maintaining the mac server and client and adding new features behind the scenes, but I use Plex in the same basic way I always have.
The iOS app had the potential to change all that. I was really excited, because there are tons of times throughout the day when I would like to watch something on my phone or iPad. But, in practice, the networks just aren’t there yet. I’ve got great upload speed and fast transcoding at my house, but most of the time I try to watch something using the iOS client, even over LTE or a remote wifi network, video looks blocky and/or craps out entirely. The only time I can ever get a good connection is within my own home wifi network, when I would generally rather just stream the video to the larger screen on my laptop. So the iOS client goes largely unused.
I would love to have a way to cache certain episodes for offline access, so that I could watch something stored directly on my phone or iPad, but it would update the server with my current viewing position and watched/unwatched status. Honestly, I would use this everyday.
Having used this on KLEXi, I can see why the devs would be hesitant…
First off, you are looking at 100% cpu utilization on the server when someone presses the button
Then, there is the time to transfer the file, which can feel like it does when you go to do a ‘quick sync’ before you walk out the door and iTunes reminds you that you have not backed up in a while…
As far as I know, Plex doesn’t even have the back-end coding to know when it’s saturating your connection: that would have to be added…
When we multiply this by myPlex sharing, it starts to get really iffy.
Do you really want your friend essentially choosing to download your whole library when you just want to watch a new episode of something?
There is definitely value in this, but there are a lot of things to consider in order to do it right and not implement a feature that has people screaming in frustration.
I totally agree. I never meant to suggest that implementing this feature would be easy and, you are right, it is important that it be really thought out and well developed.
That said, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. Any way to access media offline from within Plex would be better than what we have now. And, like I said, trying to stream media over 3G/LTE generally already leaves me “screaming in frustration.”
To address the CPU concern, the server could do some sort of preprocessing (i.e., transcoding, remuxing, whatever was needed) during idle time so that all that would be required for the sync is a download (sort of like how you can set EyeTV to keep the original recording but also create a compressed version for mobile device streaming). Obviously, you would be trading hard disk space for on-the-fly CPU demand, but hard drives are cheap. And this could even be a per-show setting (e.g., even at full resolution, I’d be much more likely to watch a sitcom on my iOS device than, say, a cinematic HBO-style drama, so I might hand pick a couple of shows that I would like to be preprocessed).
Anyway, again, I get that this would be hard. And maybe our LTE networks will soon be so awesome (and our data plans so cheap) that this will all be irrelevant. But, until that happens, I would really, really love this feature.
It makes it much easier for us to check a requested feature’s popularity.
