I currently have my PMS set up with streaming brain to limit the transcode to 4mbps per stream. I’ve tried to create optimized versions of certain videos so they don’t have to transcode when being played remotely, but I haven’t had much luck. I’ve created custom optimized files for universal tv, universal mobile, iOS, and Android at 1.5mbps, 2mbps, 3mbps, 4mbps, and 8mbps. Unfortunately when playing the video remotely it doesn’t direct play the optimized file.
Ideally, I would like an option for optimize that would let me select “streaming brain” as the option and then any sub categories if necessary, like mobile focus or for tv focus.
Transcoding, among other things, depends on the client and the connection speed!
I have all my media converted or copied/remuxed as x264 MP4 and some ( maybe 10%) transcode to some clients.
My clients (local and remote) are Chrome browsers, roku, 3, roku4, Roku sticks, android devices, chromecast , apple tv4, shield, xbox and samsung smart tv’s.
So! from my experience (with my I7 server) transcoding WILL happen some of the time depending on connection and the clients hardware.
Limiting transcoding (depending on your cpu how limiting) makes for more consistent streaming but it’s unlikely to be totally eliminated.
I understand that transcoding has to take place from time to time. My thought is more along the lines of, I set up the streaming brain to set remote viewing at 4mbps. Every time a user watches the same film, it’s going to transcode it to the 4mbps streaming brain setting. I’d like to create an optimized version of the streaming brain setting of 4mbps. Then every time a remote user watches the film it direct played the streaming brain optimized version and my CPU doesn’t need to transcode.
The streaming brain 4mbps appears to be different from the optimized 4mbps. Probably because of the way the streaming brain analyzes each video now and understands where the peaks and valleys are in bitrate for each video.
I think you brain is worrying too much about the streaming brain
Keep us upto date on how things are going but you are making it harder than it should be!
The whole purpose of optimized versions is for the Video to be direct played if you don’t have a powerful machine to do real time transcoding. From what I’ve found, if you enable the streaming brain feature it will never direct play a file remotely and will always do some form of transcoding. It would just be nice to have an optimized version option specifically for streaming brain. Whatever that setting may be.
If it’s not greater than the bit rate, or the dimensions of the file being sent the result is an instant transcode regardless of it’s previous ‘optimization’.
The streaming brain disables app settings if it is set above the streaming brain bitrate specified on the server.
The app is set to 4mbps. I also have set it at 8mbps and 20mbps. It still transcodes the optimized version which has a lower bitrate than the app setting. I will also specific the app to play the optimized version and not the original
Toward the bottom you’ll see this:
Note: If the deep analysis for a file hasn’t yet been performed, your Plex Media Server will assume a [2 x average bitrate] value if it’s needed for streaming limitation calculations.
So it could be the streaming brain doesn’t take into consideration files that Plex has produced with a fixed bitrate cutoff (optimized files). Thus if the optimized file hasn’t been deep through deep analysis it could be taking that 4Mb bitrate file and considering it an 8Mb file for the streaming brain functions. Of course it doesn’t pass the test and doesn’t get used.
