Hey guys,
I was just wondering if there was a way to manually select a different resolution/bitrate combo than the ones offered by default. My ISP’s upload speed is about 5mbps (no choice to go higher i’m afraid…), so when I watch something remotely, 1080p 8Mbps buffers way too often, and unfortunately the next option down from there is only 720p 4mbps. This is a pretty huge drop in quality when watching it on an Apple TV as you can imagine.
Is there any way I can select my own bitrate/resolution combo? E.g. 1080p 4/4.5Mbps
Right now i’m using Handbrake, but that takes a pretty long time to compress and I’d much prefer Plex automatically creating that optimised version when a new episode/movie is added or through on-the-fly transcoding when I play it back on my remote Apple TV.
Thanks!
No, you can’t change the bitrate/resolution settings. I doubt you would notice the difference between 720p/4Mbps and 1080p/4Mbps. 720p is fewer pixels, but there is more data per pixel so the overall image would actually look better at 720p. You’ll see less banding and better color saturations.
Thanks for your reply!
I think it might be the compression that Handbrake uses or the upscaling on my Roku 4K TV, but the few videos i’ve converted to 1080p 4.2Mbps look noticeably better than the 720p 4Mbps option on Plex. Someone had once mentioned being able to modify this in one of the .plists, but I have no idea where to even start :neutral:
Plex uses very few options when optimizing video. It’s not the best options. It’s a compromise between speed and quality. If you have the time, using Handbrake or the PlexTranscoder, which is a modified version FFMPEG, and manually setting your parameters would produce better results. I personally use 2-pass encoding, but that’s not possible with Plex via the UI.
