Not enough bandwidth due to incorrect reporting of kbps of file

Plex Players Mobile Devices
,
1

Server Version#: 1.32.0.6973
Player Version#: 9.21.1.1169

I have movies that will transcode fine but will not direct play on my android phone with the message of “not enough bandwidth, 1516 required, 1500 available.”

here’s how playback info reports it

List item

platform / movie.mp4

ffprobe 758 kbps
plex on firestick 758 kbps
plex on vizio 758 kbps
plex on roku 758 kbps
plex on chrome 758 kbps

plex on android 1516 kbps

for some reason my phone app thinks that the movie’s bitrate is twice as much as it actually is, both server and phone are up to date, and latest update did not help.

Is this a bug or do I have something wrong in the settings?

2

These all are only telling you the average bitrate across the whole playtime of the file. A very simplistic calculation which is done by taking the file’s size and dividing it by its running time.
Since video files have pretty much always a variable bitrate, this doesn’t tell you how much bandwidth an uninterrupted streaming of the file will actually require. As the file can have momentous peaks in its bitrate which exceed the average bitrate. (sometimes up to 5x)
Plex is performing an in-depth bitrate analysis and determines the actually required bandwith for streaming the file.
It does also take into account the size of the network buffer of your client when calculating the required bandwidth.

3

Well this is not an apples-to-oranges comparison here. I mean would understand your answer (partially) if I were comparing Plex to Emby or Jellyfin (which btw doesn’t have this issue).

But this is a Plex-to-Plex comparison. I would assume that the “in-depth bitrate analysis” happens in all of the “Plex” apps across all platforms.

Keep in mind I’m not asking about “required bandwidth” … I get that when the criteria calls for transcoding then that’s what it will do.

I’m asking why is the “in-depth bitrate analysis” producing the same 758kbps result on 4 platforms and not the 5th. So either 4 are correct and 1 is wrong or 4 are wrong and 1 is correct … which one is it ,… can’t have it both ways

so far your answer is … “magic”.

4

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.