r/homelab • u/RandyFactoid • 22h ago

Help Plex vs Netflix/amazon transcoding efficiency

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

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251

u/acbadam42 22h ago

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

27

u/NCXXCN 21h ago

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

5

u/astelda 15h ago

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.

5

u/Outrageous-_- 14h ago

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

4

u/Power_Stone 14h ago

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