I created optimized versions of several tv shows. I find that this version always plays at home. That wasn’t what I had wanted.
I made the optimized version at lower bitrates than the originals. I set the max bit rate low for remote playback to accomadate my upload speed. In other words I crreated the optimized versions to only play remotely, and I’d watch the larger original files at home (most of my viewing). I find that only the optimized lower quality file plays at home, even though my set playback bitrate would I’d think cause the original to play.
Is there a way to have the low bitrate files play remotely, and the originals to play at home, automatically? Thanks!
The automatic selection of a version is heavily dependent on the capabilities of the hardware involved. That is to say, the client tells the server what it can do, and the server chooses the version based on that info.
I suspect the client(s) in question are not natively capable of decoding tracks inside your file. Usually it’s an audio incompatibility (e.g., DTS), but it can be video format/resolution at play, too. Without knowing the client or specific media involved, it’s hard to offer any specific advice. The capabilities of different Plex clients vary widely.
Look at the media info for the versions, and compare the audio formats, and the video formats and resolutions. Manually select the higher-bitrate version for playback on a client. Look at your Plex Media Server logs to see how it handled the AV tracks (i.e., what did it need to transcode, and what did it stream directly to the AVR/TV).
I can select the higher resolution files and they play fine on the Roku at home. I just don’t see why I have to select the files manually through the Roku interface. I only added the optimized at a low bit rate files for remote play, but plex selects and plays those low res file for viewing on the Roku at home also. It’s at most a first world problem, but it seems to me, that Plex should automatically select the highest bit rate you indicate your home network can support, but apparently it doesn’t, and Plex picks the optimized versions always.
If 2 versions are close in bitrate, Plex gives a preference to the version that can be direct played versus needing to be transcoded. Optimized files are designed to be direct played so if there is a toss up between 2 versions, the optimized version will win.
If you are getting the optimized version and the bitrates are not even close, you’ll need to provide the server log showing this for us to look at.
