Possible to automatically select best optimized version?

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Hey there…
currently I have some movies in 2160p and 1080p Versions in my Plex. In all of my used clients I can now “Play Version…” to select the version I like to play. But when I don’t select the “Play Version…” option, Plex always picks the 2160p version, even if the client isn’t capable of that resolution. So the server tries to live transcode the 2160p to 1080p and fails miserably. This is really annoying.

Currently I don’t really see the point of the Optimize feature.
Is there a way to force the 1080p version if the client is not capable of showing 2160p?

Thanks in advance

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I was surprised to find that Plex Roku still prefers to transcode a version of higher quality than the Local Quality cap instead of choosing to direct play the optimized version below the cap. I can only believe this was a design oversight and will be corrected.

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@MKapela23 said:
I was surprised to find that Plex Roku still prefers to transcode a version of higher quality than the Local Quality cap instead of choosing to direct play the optimized version below the cap. I can only believe this was a design oversight and will be corrected.

I find the Roku pretty reliable in choosing the correct version. Hardly ever see it fail. There are some qualifiers though, for the Roku to choose the best version to play…

  • The audio and video has to be in a codec that the TV can use (Some TV’s can’t play DTS or AC3, for example)
  • I believe the Roku also uses the resolution of the video (480p, 720p, 1080p, ,etc) determined by Plex, not simply the bitrate in the quality settings. For example, if you have chosen 720p @ 4Mbps, a 1280p video below that bitrate will still transcode because the resolution is too high.

In all cases if the Roku and/or the Plex server decide a transcode session is necessary, the" best" version seems to be chosen as the source to use. Depending on your server and its capabilities, that can be either a good thing or a bad thing. :slight_smile:

To ensure direct play whenever possible (especially for remote users) I always encode the video in h264, and include an AAC stereo track as the first audio track, and if a surround track is available, add that in as the second audio track. I don’t use the Plex optimize feature, but I often make my own “optimized” version with other software. The Roku always seems to automatically select the best version based on the quality settings for both local and remote users, and also selects the best audio track the TV is able to use.

I don’t know how many clients work as well as the Roku does in choosing the best version, or if they are even capable of automatically choosing. If they can’t automatically choose a version that can be direct played, it should be on the top of the “to-do” list, because it does make the optimized versions almost useless.

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