Poor streaming quality due to incorrect bandwidth estimation

Plex Media Server
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1

Server Version#:4.76.1
Player Version#:9.4.0.33297

Hi all,

when streaming remotely on an android device, the picture quality is greatly reduced by transcoding (720x576 to 400x300), even though I have specified Maximum Quality (or Original quality) on the Plex Web inerface and on the Plex client (Android).

Under “Playback info” on the client device, I can see that the stream is transcoded. Under “Transcode reason” it says “Not enough bandwidth for direct play of this item. Required bandwidth is 5985 kbps and only 1000 kbps is available.” However, a bandwidth test shows an available bandwidth of over 30’000 kbps.

For some reason, the client is not measuring the actual bandwidth correctly and thus is transcoding the stream. Since I am streaming on a mobile device while travelling, I think that a some point in the past, the 5G signal was of poor quality and fell below the required bandwidth to stream the original quality. Since that point in time, the actual bandwidth was never measured again by the client and it is now thinking that the bandwidth is insufficient and transcoding all streams.

Anyone has a way to solve that issue ? I spent a great amount of time looking through every possible setting on the server and client side but I couldn’t not find a solution.

Thanks in advance !

David

2

It means that your server is not directly reachable from outside your home network. Thus it is falling back to a Relay connection, which is bandwidth-restricted to 1mbps (without Plex Pass).

3

Hi,

thank you so much for the quick reply !

I will check my connection parameters to make sure my server is fully accessible from outside my home network and get back to you.

Cheers,

David

4

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