The latest version of Plex forces transcoding when playing over the home intranet Wi-Fi, resulting in buffering. In the original version, when playing locally, selecting the original bitrate allows for direct streaming without transcoding, and the video plays smoothly. Please confirm whether this is a problem with my settings or a feature issue in the new version update. In addition, the new version has removed music and photos, and the photo library is no longer available. Is there an alternative app?
Transcoding behavior shouldn’t have changed significantly: that is, if playback quality is set to original and the media is compatible, Plex should stream it as-is (no transcoding). If the media isn’t compatible (e.g. bitrate exceeding capacity, unsupported codec for the client), Plex will attempt to transcode in order to produce a compatible version.
Plex have announced they’re going to re-add support for those library types, though there’s no ETA.
There’s two standalone apps focusing on those media types. I don’t have personal experience with the Plex Photos app, but I can absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend to give Plexamp a try — it should give you a much better experience for music.
Yes, I completely understand what you mean. Because I found that last year, Plex was able to play 4K high-definition videos on various platforms such as Apple TV and iOS without the need for transcoding. But after the update this year, the same video clearly underwent transcoding during playback. It was also observed on the plex server that the video being played was being transcoded, making it almost impossible to play smoothly. At present, on my Apple TV, video playback can only be done by mounting the plex server through Infuse, and there is no need for transcoding in the background for direct playback. So I’m very confused, what happened here? Is it an anomaly that occurred during the official update of Plex, or has the official directly disabled certain features?
What are you sending audio output to? I know there’s an issue with HomePods where it will always transcode if using those for audio output.
Yes， the problem is with the HomePods if you have it，the same item is played directly without the HomePods and with the TV’s soundspeaker.
It’s frustrated.
Thank you for your reply. My current usage scenarios include the following: 1 apple tv, The audio output is Yamaha Echo Wall, 2. Apple iPad, the audio output is just itself. 3. ipad, The audio output also comes from itself. I don’t have a HomePods device. Today, I retested the plex player on all devices and found that both Apple TV and iPad showed all video transcoding phenomena, but the iPhone version of plex player did not show transcoding and played smoothly. This is a good phenomenon, maybe I can find version differences or settings differences. What I can confirm is that the latest Plex version number is currently on the iPhone.
