Why do we need Transcoding at the Server Level vs the Client just playing the files?

General Discussions
1

It seems like a lot of work is put into Plex Server being able to transcode media for clients that aren’t powerful enough to play the files but I’m wondering if work could be put into the Clients to enable them to do the heavy lifting.

For example, Infuse (A competing product) has updated it’s iOS apps to play H265 files without transcoding. So whether on my iPad or my AppleTV, I just load the file and it plays.

Now, I’m not knocking Plex because I love the Server side interface and am even a Plex Cloud customer, but in waiting for Plex to enable direct playback of H265 files on my AppleTV (something that should have been corrected a long time ago), it got me wondering why the Plex AppleTV app wasn’t previously more powerful? The AppleTV 4 has a lot of power and even before Apple released the newest device, it seems that there was never a reason that the ios apps couldn’t have been written to take advantage of the processor, right?

2

There is a difference between clients that technically could play the files but haven’t been enabled to, and clients that physically cannot play the files. Trying to play h265 files on an underpowered device that does not have CPU support for the codec, will cause it to overheat and probably crash. Obviously from a media server’s point of view - the safest option is to convert anything that might cause a problem and then work backwards in to finding out if it really will cause a problem, and only enable direct playing the file if you know it will absolutely work.

3

I have the Infuse player on an iPad 10.5 Pro. It is not a competing product. It is a ‘thick client’ which happens to run on a very capable piece of hardware (the A10 CPU). PMS assumes a minimally capable or 'thin client" as stated above such as “HTML TV”, “Roku 3”, or generic Web Browser.