I’ve just installed the latest Plex Pass version and looking for a little insight, or “insider knowledge”.
Version: 1.18.5.2260
What exactly does the “Enable Relay” option do, what are any advantages or disadvantages to enabling/disabling this?
I assume that this means your server will or won’t be discoverable via relay.plex.tv (or whatever the URL is), but I’m also seeing that the relay is bandwidth limited ( which makes sense). But I’m curious on what the exact details of this are. What sort of bandwidth is available through the relay? I’ve got a gigabit fiber connection, so is the relay limiting me?
If I’m using the relay, I assume by default all other servers are as well. So if I’m looking to utilize the full potential of my own personal server and bandwidth, should I disable the relay?
I also noticed the option to disable video transcoding… what prompted the decision to open this up? I can’t for the life of me think of a reason why someone would NOT want the option to have their video transcoded if the client requires it.
Don’t get me wrong… I want FULL control over my server, even the nity gritty tiny stuff, so the more options opened up to me, the better. I’m mostly just curious as to why? As well as what other features are in the works of being opened up to us server admins in the future?
Basically… the “Relay” is what’s being used when you’re accessing your remote server using an “indirect connection”. One of the most common scenarios for this to happen is an incomplete or only partially working setup of remote access (therefore no direct connection to the remote server).
As the relayed/indirect connection is limited to 1 Mbit/s (2 Mbit/s for Plex Pass users), you’ll have a significantly impacted video quality – hence many users want to disable it.
As for disabling transcoding:
There’s actually a number of users who have complained that their friends’ misconfigured clients result in overloading their server by demanding transcoded videos (even where direct play might have worked). The actual requests are mostly about controlling the playback quality of your friends’ clients… which will become tricky if a user has shares from multiple friends aiming for different target qualities…
I originally saw the patch notes when I clicked on the “What’s new?” button beside where it shows your current version and the “Check for update” button.
