Emby not transcoding high bitrate video despite very choppy playback

[hedgehog90 16]

I like to watch blu-ray quality films on my TV via Emby, for which I always want a Direct Play, never transcoding.

My LAN connection can handle is 1Gbps, so it can easily handle a 40-50Mbps blu-ray quality film, and my devie can handle any encodings... so in this scenario there is never any need to transcode.

 

However, with this in mind, if I try to watch the same high quality film on my phone, for some reason it doesn't transcode to a more manageable bitrate when I'd expect it to. It tries to stream the high bitrate film over a 10-20Mbps wifi connection, which leads to much stuttering and buffering.

 

I assumed the Emby Client and Server would be intelligent enough to detect the network connection limits without any manual settings and transcode for it accordingly, as I recall reading somewhere on this forum earlier.

 

Am I expected to set the User's 'Internet streaming bitrate limit (Mbps)' in order to prompt a transcode?

Given that internet connections on phones and other wifi devices can variate considerably, this setting doesn't seem appropriate.

Theres a quality setting when I play the video in the Emby Adnroid app, which I can set to different bitrates, but again, I'd expect 'Auto' to transcode it to  a lower quality if the network can't handle it.

Rather, I'd like my Emby Server - like most streaming services - to deliver the highest quality possible for my phone automatically, without stuttering.

Edited October 3, 2019 by hedgehog90

[Luke 37189]

Hi there, yes we are always looking at improving our automatic quality features. In the event it does not select an appropriate value, you can always use the in-app quality settings to select a more suitable one. Thanks.