is it possible to set plex up to transcode videos only for remote conenctions, LAN is fine since I have a 1gb switch. I just want my friends and family to me able to watch videos on their slower connections. Is there a way to do this
You could set the remote limit bit rate to something low I suppose to force a transcode if that is what you mean.
For your local players make sure the quality for Home Streaming is set to maximum/original and maybe disable auto-quality adjustments. (it will still transcode locally if file is incompatible for some reason for the playback)
Im not seeing anywhere that I can set remote bit rate limit
wow how the hell did I miss that lol thanks. do you think 30mbps is a good number? if I understand this correctly if this will transcode the video if below that number correct?
If you do nothing - it’s very likely your remote clients will be set to 720p@4Mbps in their Remote Quality, 'cause that’s the default on most Plex client apps.
30 Mbps is a HUGE stream for internet viewing.
8 would be my choice.
If the video bit rate is higher than what is set then it will transcode it. In this example this is a video i know has a 13kbps bit rate but my remote limit is 8kbps. and this the message in android saying why it is transcoding.
I agree 30mb is really big and as he mentioned the default in clients is lower than that but of course your users can change that. but if you have really high bitrate bluray remuxes that might be fine
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Yo @BigWheel ?, doesn’t Plex sniff out the connection and transcode something that will fit in the available hole (for those with less than stellar internet)?
if you are just trying to not have remote users saturate your upload bandwidth then you can sett the “internet upload speed” to be lower than reality and as a whole no matter how many folks are streaming it will keep it under that in total ( if multiple folks streaming at same time) rather than per stream
you need to enter the “internet upload speed” for that. in which case the server will only use ~80% of that number to make sure it does not use the whole upload speed of your network
so if you enter 100 Mbps it will only use ~80Mbps total no matter what other things are set
Yea, but I mean like if I had 5Mbps download and tried to play a 10Mbps file remotely - wouldn’t Plex intervene and veto the original in favor of something that would fit?
Doesn’t it know the file I’m trying to play won’t work and help me out?
Yes if you have Auto-adjust quality enabled in the client it will change on the fly.
Well, it seems there’s a hot topic or two wherein folks don’t check the peaks, think a 20Mbps file is 20Mbps and Plex sees a big 50Mbps spike and transcodes for it.
Or is that only LOCAL?..lol
I’ll take your word for it.
If @fragmaster007 wants to hard limit at 8 and makes sure all the remote clients are at the default 720@4Mbps - he should be fine, I guess.
yeah the peaks vs average can be confusing. the server does a deep analysis over night to check for peaks.
There is some things being worked on to help improve live info one what is happening and give client users options on what they want to do if the server thinks it should transcode.
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ok after fixing a router issue I have set plex to disable transcoding and set upload limit for remote connections to 10mbps
Why?
That means Plex won’t transcode a stream for your remote viewers or anyone else for that matter.
The transcoder must be activated if you want it to transcode.
If your remote friends don’t have internet that’s at least 20Mbps - 10 doesn’t help 'em. What’s the slowest connection of the possible viewers? Set it to half of that.
I want LAN to not transcode and on remote connection to transcode at a certain point
Well, that’s not how to get it.
If your clients can’t Direct Play a file and you have transcoding turned off - you’re not watching anything, but the orange spinner. Plex can’t work that way.
You feed your local clients files that can be Direct Played - that’s how you get Direct Play.
For instance:
Let’s say you have a Roku 3 and you try to play an HEVC file. The Roku 3 won’t play that file. Turning off the transcoder won’t make it Direct Play - it just won’t play at all.
then how would I set it up to do what I want it to do then?
You can’t do what you want - if you want Plex to Direct Play every file you try to play. It all depends what you’re trying to play the file with and what the file is made of. If the thing won’t play it Plex MUST transcode it - or it simply won’t play.
