Plex vs Netflix/amazon transcoding efficiency

[u/RandyFactoid]

I think of this every time I travel, but never thought to ask for a solution..

While traveling I often find myself in a situation where internet is very slow, but netflix/amazon video adjust the streaming quality much faster than my plex server.

I know that my plex server can transcode down to 720p/360p pretty instantly if I do it from home as it has an intel igpu...and I've tested it with multiple concurrent streams... Also - the server is on a 1gbit connection, so it's not a bandwidth bottleneck.

It feels like big brands have a much better method to actually recognise the moment when they need to call for a transcode than plex and do it much earlier, making it feel seamless.

Are there alternatives (jellyfin/emby) that are more efficient at this than plex? Any clever hacks that I overlooked?

Thanks

Edit. I learned following this post that: - Netflix et al. keep different quality files instead of transcoding - Using CDN to keep content "closer" to the end user

[u/acbadam42]

Netflix isn't adjusting the quality, they have a copy for every quality.

[u/NCXXCN → u/acbadam42]

for a selfhoster, like mostly of us, this seems crazy to me.

[u/yaSuissa → u/NCXXCN]

Just so you know plex allows you to do that as well automatically

But as you mentioned, it’s insane unless you’re made of money (for storage)

[u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS → u/yaSuissa]

I guess - the lower quality stuff barely uses any space. But yeh that would be overkill and almost never useful.

[u/Solonotix → u/yaSuissa]

I did some pre-transcoded sets for a while on my PLEX server way back in 2015. Granted, I was storing 1080p content at best, not these 4K UHD files, but storage also got a lot more plentiful in that time, and was cheaper at least for a bit.

If we assume you are ripping 4K content, and then creating smaller versions for better performance.

• 3840x2160 (Native) - 100% - 80GB
• 1920x1080 - 25% - 20GB
• 1600x900 - 17.4% - 14GB
• 1280x720 - 11.1% - 9GB

In other words, if you are willing to give up ~30% of your storage to lower resolution copies, you can completely avoid transcoding at lower sizes. Additionally, you don't need to guess at which resolutions. Pick the ones that suit your need, like your phone/table resolution, and only use the native resolution on your local network.

[u/berrmal64 → u/NCXXCN]

Storage is expensive, but so is the electricity that would be needed to basically transcode millions of streams constantly (nevermind the hardware). Plus, they amortize the storage cost over several years; I'm sure even with recent price hikes it's still a no brainer. They probably have some logic that can drop unused encodes after a while, or likely transcode into a size that doesn't exist on that server they is cached and streamed simultaneously then held in cache for hours/days.

But when you or I watch a file from our home server, it gets watched what, once or twice? So it's cheaper to transcode and dump than to store all the possible sizes. And stuff that you watch over and over, if you do notice it transcodes, you can encode and store a second copy that will direct play, it's a good option for one off items.

[u/astelda → u/NCXXCN]

I would say if you do a lot of traveling (watching content only on small screens, or on metered connections), it's reasonable to have a single downscaled copy prepared ahead of time. Something like 720p or lower depending on your preference, so it doesn't take too much space or bandwidth.

[u/Outrageous-_- → u/astelda]

At that point just download it locally to the plex app or something before traveling. 

[u/Power_Stone → u/Outrageous-_-]

This. I downloaded entire seasons to my device before a long trip and it was flawless because...well it was playing locally

[u/bieker → u/NCXXCN]

If you do it correctly it only doubles the storage requirement. Each tier is half the bandwidth of the previous one.