Not sure how long this has been the case, but it used to be that if you had a 4K and 1080p version of a movie, and a client has indicated they want a lower-bitrate version, Plex would always transcode the 4K version instead of using the available 1080p version.
Just doing some testing this morning and it appears that this issue has now been resolved (at least on iOS). All my testing is showing that Plex is correctly selecting the lower-bitrate version, either when the client has requested a lower version, or server settings in Remote Access.
Note that this doesn’t seem to be the case for Plex Web, so assuming it is probably only related to the New Experience clients.
Still a huge win for me as I can share my combined library instead of having to separate it out due to transcoding.
It also seems to work correctly with the Fire TV client (not the New Experience version)…on my (crappy) Hisense Fire TV, it’s still transcoding (probably because of some odd issue with version of Fire TV on there), but at least it’s starting with the 1080p version as source and not the 4K version.
So must have been a server-side change.
Strange, it does absolutely work for me in Plex Web and it always has.
Plex will also transcode further down from the 1080p version (e.g. to 720p) instead from the 4K version, if requested.
It’s working the same also on Android TV/Fire TV or Android (old app version, I don’t use the new experience app).
Actually I stand corrected - it is working properly in Plex Web. When I was testing I was changing settings in one tab and playing in another. Appears those settings are cached and don’t get picked up right away lol.
I know previously (at least when using iOS), it always wanted to go back to 4K to transcode from - maybe it was just an iOS issue. In any case, glad to have it resolved.
