Let me start by saying this is not a request for Adaptive Bitrate / DASH / HSL / etc. I recognize that while interesting, that technology does not currently align with Plex's current transcoding/streaming architecture...
What I am asking about is this: In my scenario I'm lucky to have significant upstream bandwidth at home (20+Mbps), however when I travel I find the hotels and places I stay have widely varying internet speeds (from 1Mbps - 15Mbps down typically). Even when I am not travelling, when I want to watch Plex from my mobile devices over 3G/4G/LTE the data rate can vary drastically from one location to the next.
Today as far as I can tell, I need to pick a Remote Video Quality setting in the client to dictate at what rate the video is streamed to me. The Plex FAQ states you should set this typically based on your home upstream rate, but in my case that usually results in heavy buffering. As a high-def addict, I always want to get the highest quality option I can, but it is a hassle to do a speed test, guess at a setting, see if it buffers, then adjust up or down.
Would it be possible to add an option to the "Remote video setting" called "Auto" which causes the Plex to perform a speedtest between the client and the server (ideally prior to playing back a stream, but possibly just at boot of the client would be sufficient), then automatically choose a bitrate option that is best suited for the current network speed.
if possible, it would be awesome if this option and the speedtest was managed by the server, so that all clients could benefit without additional work. But even if client-side work is required, I hope you will still consider it. Even though it won't account for changing network conditions, having an intelligently-set starting point would be a major, major improvement in my opinion.
Thanks again for all your hard work on Plex. It is far and away my favorite media service - I am a proud lifetime PlexPass member.
For me, distinguishing between locations (home, hotel) already would be a great plus. At home I can easily achieve 8MBps 1080 streams without buffering, in a hotel is dramatically less. It would be great not having to tweak it each time, and just have it automatically adjust to the bitrate that is achievable.
As I mentioned in a different post, the ability to set an upper limit on total upload and single client upload bandwidth would be ideal in the server settings as well. I would love to use Auto for speed without always saturating my upload at home due to other users and services I may be running.
A stream test option would be an excellent feature.
Agreed, this would be a nice feature. I would like to see this added with the option to override the auto setting. In some instances it may be necessary to override the auto setting to overcome a wi-fi connection with intermittent speed issues. Or in some cases, ISP's provide connections with burst capabilities; these could cause false or innacurate results.
Still waiting for PLEX to rollout an update with this feature. I’ve got 10Mb/up and sharing between families and friends. I can set the server’s remote quality to say 1.5Mbps but it does absolutely nothing to the ones streaming off my server. What ever default settings they have it at (usually ORIGINAL) is the quality/speed that it’ll transfer at and as soon as 3 or more people start steaming it starts lagging them. UPVOTE for this feature to become available!
+1 I was thinking of something like this as well. It be nice to get my users who have adequate bandwidth to auto direct stream. It would be cool if plex could analyse both server and client bandwidth as well as processor throughput. Thus enhancing the user experience.
Agreed, it would be nice if Plex clients included a bit of intelligence in their bandwidth handling, rather than the current state that apparently presumes that the bandwidth available to both client and server is fixed and rarely needs to be managed.
Before Plex added remote streaming, I streamed my library using Orb, which handled bandwidth brilliantly - remote clients would seamlessly measure bandwidth to the server and get an appropriate bitrate stream. This was critical before LTE was widely deployed, but it’s no less important now and it’s an aspect of Orb that I still miss to this day.
