Bulk Optimize Media for Plex Direct Play

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
100
43
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Unfortunately I've been super busy all week so I haven't had a chance to really read over everyone's suggestions and/or test anything yet but I will certainly do so in the coming days.

@rubylaser has my intentions correctly illustrated. My goal is to reduce CPU load on a consistent basis and the only way to do that outside of educating all my family members/friends (not gonna happen) is to provide only content that will support direct playback on most/all Plex clients.
4Mbps is quite low though.. For 720p content.. Isnt 8Mbps an option? Or are some clients simply not capable of that downstream?
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
4Mbps is quite low though.. For 720p content.. Isnt 8Mbps an option? Or are some clients simply not capable of that downstream?
What matters is the default Plex client setting for remote playback as that is what's going to determine if my server is going to need to transcode down or not. From what I've seen, most if not all Plex clients have the remote streaming quality set to 4Mbps 720p by default. I plan to create this downcoded library and share it to my remote users while keeping all my original quality content for myself.
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
100
43
What matters is the default Plex client setting for remote playback as that is what's going to determine if my server is going to need to transcode down or not. From what I've seen, most if not all Plex clients have the remote streaming quality set to 4Mbps 720p by default. I plan to create this downcoded library and share it to my remote users while keeping all my original quality content for myself.
Ah, i checked my appletv4 app and yes indeed. Local play is 8Mbps.. Which seems Odd. But yet that is an idea if space is not an issue Then keeping a lower bitrate version is indeed an option.. But i do believe most people should be able to change that one setting :)
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
Ah, i checked my appletv4 app and yes indeed. Local play is 8Mbps.. Which seems Odd. But yet that is an idea if space is not an issue Then keeping a lower bitrate version is indeed an option.. But i do believe most people should be able to change that one setting :)
I've found that many of my remote access users either have low bandwidth or poor wireless setups that cause buffering issues when they try to raise the bitrate quality. For example, many use version 1 chromecasts which have serious bitrate limitations which causes buffering when streaming over 4Mbps in my own experience. Keeping it at 4Mbps quality helps to reduce to amount of issues and in all honesty the users don't really notice a quality difference at all (these are older folks mostly).
 
Last edited:

NetWise

Active Member
Jun 29, 2012
596
133
43
Edmonton, AB, Canada
By doing this, aren't you trading the 'on demand' conversion benefits for resourcing, for guaranteed disk space usage to store the secondary copy +plus+ the compute resources to do the bulk conversion in the first place?

While I realize this won't answer your question on how to do that, wouldn't it be significantly easier to just let it transcode on the fly?

In any event, wouldn't the:
Limit remote stream bitrate
Set the maximum bitrate of a remote stream from this server.​
Setting do the job? I have an option for 4mbps / 720p, which seems to be the setting you'd want?
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
By doing this, aren't you trading the 'on demand' conversion benefits for resourcing, for guaranteed disk space usage to store the secondary copy +plus+ the compute resources to do the bulk conversion in the first place?

While I realize this won't answer your question on how to do that, wouldn't it be significantly easier to just let it transcode on the fly?

In any event, wouldn't the:
Limit remote stream bitrate
Set the maximum bitrate of a remote stream from this server.​
Setting do the job? I have an option for 4mbps / 720p, which seems to be the setting you'd want?
Hard drive space is cheap, CPU power is not.

The goal was to limit the amount of CPU processing needed for live trsnscodes. Those options are new features that were only introduced in the past few months so they weren't an option when I made the OP. Furthermore, forcing my users to use a specific bit rate does not solve the original problem of cutting down on live transcoding.
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
Did you ever resolve this or come up with a solution?
I did not. I just increased the amount of New TV Shows and Movies (by date added) that automatically get OV's created for. So for TV shows it's the last 60 episodes (about 2 weeks worth) and for Movies it's the latest 50 movies added. That seems to have helped a good deal and the fact I upgraded one of my D-1537's to a D-1541 has helped as well.
 

vanfawx

Active Member
Jan 4, 2015
365
67
28
45
Vancouver, Canada
@IamSpartacus - I didn't see this suggested and I've done it myself to ensure everything is direct play. Use Kodi and install the Plex Plugin for Kodi. This uses Kodi for all the rendering and Plex for the library and UI. I've been running this stack for quite a few months now and it work really well. The only thing I don't let it direct play is h265 due to my nexus players not handling that format well.

If you have any questions let me know :)
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
@IamSpartacus - I didn't see this suggested and I've done it myself to ensure everything is direct play. Use Kodi and install the Plex Plugin for Kodi. This uses Kodi for all the rendering and Plex for the library and UI. I've been running this stack for quite a few months now and it work really well. The only thing I don't let it direct play is h265 due to my nexus players not handling that format well.

If you have any questions let me know :)
This works for shared Plex users? They are the ones driving my transcoding needs. For local playing my Nvidia shield can direct play just about everything.
 

vanfawx

Active Member
Jan 4, 2015
365
67
28
45
Vancouver, Canada
It does. However, you need a plex pass currently for the Plex Plugin for Kodi so this might not be as useful. Though it seems like they eventually move most of their new things to free.
 

Potatospud

New Member
Jan 30, 2017
17
2
3
39
I'd like to chime in on a minor point here, I believe you can have duplicate files next to each other. Plex will denote this with a number in one of the top corners of the poster for the file and then give the most correct one to the client for play based on the clients playback capabilities. So there's no need to create a separate transcoded folder.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
Does Kodi really use less resources than Plex for transcoding?
Both are different. Plex transcoding is done on the plex media server while the client just displays the stream.

Kodi is a client only. It does not trancode. It can play any supported file it can access either locally or over the network. It will require on a third party server like plex to trancode.

Intro FAQ - Official Kodi Wiki
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
I'd like to chime in on a minor point here, I believe you can have duplicate files next to each other. Plex will denote this with a number in one of the top corners of the poster for the file and then give the most correct one to the client for play based on the clients playback capabilities. So there's no need to create a separate transcoded folder.
For some movies where I have different versions (4k,3d,directors cut) etc, I name them as

Movie (2017).mkv
Movie (2017).3d.mkv

And plex recognizes them as different copies of the same movie.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
Both are different. Plex transcoding is done on the plex media server while the client just displays the stream.

Kodi is a client only. It does not trancode. It can play any supported file it can access either locally or over the network. It will require on a third party server like plex to trancode.

Intro FAQ - Official Kodi Wiki
Just realized that you are referring to the plex kodi official add on and not Kodi itself.

The add on behaves like any other plex client. It does not trancode.
 

CJRoss

Member
May 31, 2017
91
6
8
I'd like to chime in on a minor point here, I believe you can have duplicate files next to each other. Plex will denote this with a number in one of the top corners of the poster for the file and then give the most correct one to the client for play based on the clients playback capabilities. So there's no need to create a separate transcoded folder.
Plex will provide the different versions of the movie as options but it will not automatically select the best one.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
I have done exactly what you are looking to do. I will do a write up here shortly. Long and short is windows hpc server 2012 and ffmpeg with or without quick sync and nvenc.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

Any chance of a short write up for this? Running handbrake manually at the moment in batches and would like to go this route. Thanks in advance.
 

Potatospud

New Member
Jan 30, 2017
17
2
3
39
Half kidding here but might it just be cheaper and easier to get everybody a Chromecast 2, still only $35.... Mine direct plays most content.
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
Half kidding here but might it just be cheaper and easier to get everybody a Chromecast 2, still only $35.... Mine direct plays most content.
Not everyone has the upload bandwidth to support remote direct streaming. I have Gigabit fiber so that's not me but not everyone is that lucky ;).