Hello. I’m wondering why my server is transcoding a file to a remote location, that shouldn’t need transcoding. My friend is sharing my libraries, and he is streaming the files in through an Apple TV (non 4k), to a Dennon receiver with a 5.1 audio system. He has a Samsung Smart TV, less that year old. I’m sorry I don’t have all of his exact model details, but I do know that he should at least be able to stream a movie at higher than 3mbs, and get at least 1080p.
At first he had his internet streaming setting set to super low, and he was having stuttering issues, along with an eventual, “the server is not powerful enough” message. I told him to set everything to maximum, and that my server should then detect what the highest quality allowable for him to stream would be. Yet after changing his setting he’s still only gettin 720p and transcoded audio. The files are playing fine now, but why isn’t he able to stream at a higher quality?
Am I wrong in this assessment? Is there a setting on my end, or on his end, thats keeping him at a forced trancdode level and 720p?
This is ALL dependent on his ‘Remote Quality’ setting.
Typically he’d set that at 80% of your upload bandwidth - or his download bandwidth.
The ONLY Server option you have is to limit an individual stream - so make sure you aren’t:
Server/Settings/Remote Access
Give it 80% of your total upload bandwidth at the server
and make sure you aren’t limiting an individual stream, or limit it higher than whatever it is now.
Also, if he has an option in his app to ‘Adjust Automatically’, or ‘Auto Quality’, for now you want that off, but it may help you once you figure out what’s going on.
So my upload speed is only 9mbs. I have it set to 7mbs. Thats seems crazy low. Am I wrong? I had the limit set to "original (no limit), but changed it down to limit to 20mbs so that it’s at least registering 1080p.
Does this mean that he can only stream up to 7 MBS from me? It makes sense mathematically, but it just seems low.
Anywho, it looks to me like you’re going to be transcoding. Now that’s not awful, but, it’s gonna happen.
Now, you need to have your buddy set the Remote Quality to no more than about 80% of that 9Mbps. He also wants to turn on ‘Auto Quality’ or ‘Adjust Automatically’. What that does is adjust the stream to fit the conditions. It will start at the best it can do and adjust up or down as required.
I have 50Mbps upload.
I have the hard limit set at 40Mbps - 'cause I want something to happen before cabbage starts falling off the truck.
Most of my material is under 5Mbps - I Know cause I created most of it - but I have an individual stream limited at 12Mbps, cause a few friends might show up at the same time - and I don’t know what everything looks like and they might find that 20Mbps file I have in some nook or cranny.
I have a friend with some really crappy internet - and he’s on the 720@2Mbps ‘Auto Quality’ plan 'cause we never know what’s gonna happen at his house. I’ve seen his streams go down to 350Kbps - and that’s pretty much when I quit watching, but he reports ‘Looks funny, but keeps playing’ and that’s what matters.
What is 80% 0f 80% or just set your upload speed to the actual upload speed. From the support pages that no one reads. Tip! : The Plex Media Server is smart enough to prevent saturating the bandwidth value specified here. It will only use 80% of this for streams both to ensure that normal network requests can be completed and because streams have variable bitrates and will naturally go up and down somewhat.
TIP: Plex Media Server isn’t smart enough to know the difference in:
After Life
and
Water Life
I don’t want my upload saturated. I set it to 80% - that should mean since Plex can’t read - my upload won’t be saturated. (My ISP, absolutely, positively will throttle my download bandwidth - all 1000Mbps of it - to 300 baud - if I pack the upload full - I DON’T want that to happen).
So heres the update on this issue. I called my ISP and upgraded my upload speeds to 20mbs. For a few days my friend was streaming everything fine. usually around 12bms. For some reason now, he’s back to between 3-4mbs or less. Sometimes even 1mbs.For example. He was just streaming “Hook” which is a 14mbs bitrate file. I have 20mbs upload speed. He should be able to stream this movie fine, but its transcoding him down to SD at 1mbs. I don’t know what else to do. I have my settings to allow original, and I’ve even tried limiting my remote steam to 15mbs, but it didn’t change anthing. My friend has his settings set the same as previously mention in this thread.
Any idea why he’s still getting such low streaming quality?
He should turn off Adjust Automatically.
He should set his Remote Quality to 20Mbps, for now.
You should not limit any streams, for now.
A 14Mbps file - can easily peak much higher than 20Mbps. Easily.
Plex will calculate these peaks and if necessary transcode a version that will fit into the available bandwidth.
If your friend buffers - enable Adjust Automatically.
That’s about all you can do.
There’s a throughput issue somewhere.
Internet
Local Network - yours or his.
WiFi throughput - yours or his.
