Setting transcodeing time very high

Plex Media Server
1

I had problems streaming video to my chromecast, the video kept buffering for long periods of time quite frequently.

I solved this by changing the transcodeing duration from 60s to 10800 (3h)
The theory is that 3h is longer than almost all content so the whole thing will transcode before playback starts.

It now works fine and takes up to 10 seconds to start playback.

Is what i have done doing what i expect internally (ie transcodeing everything before starting playback) and is it good practice?

2

Not quite. When transcoding, PMS stores the transcoded content before it is sent to the client. That setting tells how much the transcoder saves. If you have a slow computer so the transcoder is barely keeping up, then raising that setting will allow PMS to store more so there is less reliance on needing to keep up in real time.

This is a good fix if the issue is the transcoder keeping up. Although 3Hr is overkill. 5-10 minutes should be enough.