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Hi all, Redshirt explained something about the different video play methods in another thread, which explained a lot the me: Transcoding will occur on all the mobile clients if they don't support the codec/container of the source video, or they can't access the media directly. Transcoding is a necessary evil. Streamcopy is a form of transcoding, it means the device supports the stream, but not the container. It's just not as cpu intensive as a full transcode. Direct play and direct stream are two different things. Direct play means that the client can access the file directly. IE it can see the windows shares. Direct stream means the client couldnt' see the file directly so the server is streaming it without transcoding. However...I see a lot of movies on my Android device are transcoded and I wondered what decides which play method is choosen. Can someone explain me? - Is it the use of codecs on the server? - Is it determined by the client? - Is it determined by the video/audio file format? - ... somethinge else? help this noob!