Hi @ all,
I noticed that when I am direct-playing a file (e.g. 1080p) the buffer only fills up one or two seconds ahead. Although my network is fast enoug to buffer up minutes ahead. How to fix that? I’d like to have a little more buffer than just 2 seconds in case something happens on my network.
I already tried different transcoder settings, but nothings seems to change the buffer behaviour 
Any help is highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Let us all understand!
Plex is working well and u want to play with it so it will work well if something goes wrong with your network?
Really?
May I suggest you just sit back and enjoy.
You know the saying?
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
No, you got me wrong. Plex is all but buffering cleverly. Plex will only buffer 2 seconds. And when there is a high load on the network for 3 seconds (another user logging in or my ISP having a short outtime) and it can’t deliver the movies current bitrate, the movie will stop. that is why clever buffering uses the available bandwidth to fill a buffer (usually the user can define the length in seconds or megabytes). so that there is plenty of room for a little bandwidth downtime and still time to recover.
that’s at least how buffering works for netflix, youtube and so on. (YT for example fills a “health buffer of 30s” which is mostly enough for network inconstancies).
what I would like to know: where can I define the buffer lengths for plex to make it use my bandwidth in a more reasonable matter because 2s is really not something I’d consider a reasonable “buffer”.
Ok so it is not working correctly.
Pretty sure that option is not an option.
Things like bitrate, format and server power are your friends!
ok, thanks for your reply. server power and bandwidth are not a problem. such a shame that the reasources available are not used. I would be more than glad to have a 10sec buffer instead if those 2 seconds ahead it does now. even youtube can do it 
I have to agree, I feel like when I have the occasional freeze issue it’s because (maybe in part is the better thing to say) that buffer just isn’t large enough. It’s throttling back when it could still be loading in more buffer (judging by the network activity as I play videos).
It is obvious that buffering (which is the core function of a streaming app) is … well, how do I put it politely… not very advanced. would be great to be able to adjust the buffer, but it would be even better (not to say perfect!) when plex would be smart enough to use the available bandwidth to fill a buffer that is big enough to not be disturbed by a few downtimes in bandwidth.
I mean… even effing YouTube can do it (25s buffer ahead)… Why can’t plex?
