Mobile Sync - server not transcoding/respecting quality settings

[blaze0041]

Server Version#: 1.20.4.3517
Player Version#: Android mobile 8.8.1.21332 (0798457a) / iOS 7.9

I have a number of video files that are BD rips:
Video: 1080i, H.264 Level 4.1 Profile High, Bit Depth 8, Bit rate: 32638 kbps
Audio: PCM Stereo (pcm_s24le) or FLAC

If I try to use Mobile Sync and set to try to sync to a lower quality, for example 8Mbps 1080p, I would normally expect the transcoder to kick and convert to the lower quality.
Instead what I’ve noticed in the last few server versions it decides to do a copy instead, which I would think is unusual behaviour. I would normally expect copy to kick in only when original quality is selected and the device is definitely is able to play back the file without transcoding.

Transcoding does occur for if the source file is H.265/HEVC.

This is problematic because of the amount of time it takes to sync a 20 to 50GB video file to device, and most mobile devices having a limited amount of storage to work with.

Issue occurs in both cases:

• Sync via Plex web
• Sync from within mobile app

Have observed this behaviour and an iPhone and Android phone, so this seems to be server related.

<SessionReport version="2" startTime="0" startTimestamp="Oct 31, 2020 13:08:14.068" transcode="4c6bfbf8-fb2c-4185-b2c8-7533f71f4675">
<User id="0" title="" />
<Player address="0.0.0.0" device="" machineIdentifier="" model="" platform="" platformVersion="" product="" remotePublicAddress="0.0.0.0" state="" title="" vendor="" version="" local="0" relayed="0" secure="0" userID="0" />
<Variants>
<Variant id="0539be61-a789-45f8-bf22-422dc68d5ff4" context="static" sourceVideoCodec="h264" sourceAudioCodec="flac" videoDecision="copy" audioDecision="copy" protocol="http" container="mkv" videoCodec="*" audioCodec="flac" audioChannels="2" transcodeHwRequested="1" transcodeHwFullPipeline="0">
<Media id="184002" videoProfile="high" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="flac" bitrate="32638" container="mkv" duration="6594048" height="1080" videoCodec="*" videoFrameRate="NTSC" videoResolution="1080p" width="1920" selected="1">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" hasThumbnail="1" id="184512" indexes="sd" videoProfile="high" bitrate="32638" container="mkv" duration="6594048" height="1080" width="1920" decision="transcode" selected="1">
<Stream bitrate="32638" codec="*" displayTitle="1080i (H.264)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080i (H.264)" frameRate="29.969999999999999" height="1080" id="217837" language="English" languageCode="eng" streamType="1" width="1920" decision="copy" location="direct" />
<Stream bitrateMode="cbr" channels="2" codec="flac" default="1" displayTitle="&#26085;&#26412;&#35486; (FLAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Stereo (&#26085;&#26412;&#35486; FLAC)" id="217838" language="&#26085;&#26412;&#35486;" languageCode="jpn" selected="1" streamType="2" decision="copy" location="direct" />
</Part>
</Media>
</Variant>
</Variants>
<SegmentList />
<PlaybackReports />
<StateReports />
<StateReports />
</SessionReport>

[EquinoxEarth]

I am actually having the exact same issue, and it happens on every device connected to my Plex server! I can get a file to convert properly if I Optimize it to a certain profile (for example 4Mbps 720p) and it’ll run at say 15x (HW Transcoding) but if I try to mobile sync a movie or TV show at 4Mbps 720p to one of my devices it just does a 200x quick convert and syncs the original file anyways (inspecting the file info shows original bitrate and resolution)