Are there hardcoded limits for the auto quality setting?

[Luke 42077]

8 minutes ago, yocker said:

How precisely does it work? Does it work like it does now or is there some detection involved?
Because here in Denmark connections are in general very good and 12 mpbs is nothing.

Not a complaint, i really am happy that we are getting work done on this and please keep up the good work!
Would love for the default to be able to be set from the server, that shouldn't be impossible to do.
Client gets a number from server that it sets as default, people can still set their own quality setting in the client to override it.

It detects using browser api's, although not all browsers have this. And the ones that do, usually require a secure context in order to use it, so that means you'll need https.

Native apps will use system api's though.

[Jdiesel 1431]

Emby for Android app already has the update, Web app hasn't yet from what I can see.

[embylad892746 32]

To be honest, I don’t know why admin users can’t set this ourselves on emby server.

[Happy2Play 9780]

I would say we would get even more posts about playback issues due to an Admin applying a value that just does not work no matter what then server upload/download value is.

I will also guess we could potentially get more posts even with what devs have changed it to now.

Edited December 15, 2024 by Happy2Play

[yocker 1247]

8 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

I would say we would get even more posts about playback issues due to an Admin applying a value that just does not work no matter what then server upload/download value is.

I will also guess we could potentially get more posts even with what devs have changed it to now.

Sounds like Emby user friendliness problem to me and not one that should limit what features we get.
Fear of more posts asking for help shouldn't limit the features Emby gets, instead it should make the developers think about if the user experience is easy enough to understand for all/most.
A good example here is the settings menu, it is so hidden that only one of my users actually found it on their own. I've made a whole "how to" library with videos explaining how to operate Emby by now.

Having the server admin be able to choose what the default is would be the optimal thing to do, it would solve most things related to this topic IMO.
Another tool in the arsenal to making sure that watching videos on the server is a great experience.
 

[seanbuff 1315]

On 14/12/2024 at 04:46, Luke said:

On supported devices the remote quality setting is now split into two values - remote and remote (cellular). The remote connection default has been bumped up to 12 mbps. The remote (cellular) default is 1 mbps.

@Lukenow that Play Store updates are flowing again, I did some tests on this while on cellular and every single time it chose 1 mbps (which is far too conservative imho)

I imagine this is going to cause more headaches for admins with more reports of unnecessary transcoding, etc.

Are there any plans to have the "defaults" configurable server side rather than have to adjust every remote device to anything other than "Auto" ?

[JohnnyTai 5]

I'm also interested. My emby server got stuck at default 7mbps no matter what the real speed is (my server have gigabit connection). If I tell the one watching on end side to max out the quality setting then they can play Blu-ray just fine, otherwise transcode unnecessary clicked in.
Note: My server is running Unraid with N100 chip so transcoding video is not a good option.

Edited February 11, 2025 by JohnnyTai

[Neureka 16]

All of my remote users are forcing low bitrate transcodes despite having ample bandwidth to spare.

[Neureka 16]

On 12/13/2024 at 9:46 AM, Luke said:

On supported devices the remote quality setting is now split into two values - remote and remote (cellular). The remote connection default has been bumped up to 12 mbps. The remote (cellular) default is 1 mbps.

I’ve had Apple TV and Xbox users transcoding at 7 Mbps. May have been Roku too.

Edit: Remote Cellular at 1 Mbps is way too low. 5G is everywhere and 4G is fast too. It’s 2025. We shouldn’t be tuning defaults for extreme rural areas.

Edited May 14, 2025 by Neureka

[Happy2Play 9780]

1 hour ago, Neureka said:

Edit: Remote Cellular at 1 Mbps is way too low. 5G is everywhere and 4G is fast too. It’s 2025. We shouldn’t be tuning defaults for extreme rural areas

And depending on the time of day I see 5G saturation and limits under 1Mbps and speeds over 150Mbps but nothing ever consistent.

But as mentioned may times Auto is not what anyone thinks it is on a Remote connection as the majority of the time the connections test fails and will use hardcoded values the will work on almost everyone's connections.  

In the end one will need to look at a value that will work for their clients.

[Neureka 16]

17 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

And depending on the time of day I see 5G saturation and limits under 1Mbps and speeds over 150Mbps but nothing ever consistent.

Most people aren't going to see speeds under 1 Mbps unless they're being heavily deprioritized or in an area with massive congestion- in which case you probably wouldn't be streaming anyways because 1) it's going to look like crap and 2) it's going to perform like crap. Look up the data on the average LTE speeds in recent years.

Edit: https://www.speedtest.net/global-index
We should be setting a value based on the median speeds for the US / EU.

Edited May 14, 2025 by Neureka

[Happy2Play 9780]

But you can't really just go off of an average as then Users will say why is it not working just like they are now.  So it is impossible to give a value everyone will like.  So one should set it to a value that works for you.

I tell everyone to set to max then throttle them per user settings.

[yocker 1247]

I've said it before but.

1) The quality settings are simply too well hidden for the vast majority of users to ever see so they never change them.
2) IMO. quality should per default be set to max and then a warning or something displayed to users that lowering the quality might be needed.
3) Admins needs a way to set what default quality should be, this might not be possible as apps them self seems to have hardcoded values.

Most of my family now uses max quality but it has been a f..... pain to make them understand how to and why.

[Neureka 16]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

But you can't really just go off of an average as then Users will say why is it not working just like they are now.  So it is impossible to give a value everyone will like.  So one should set it to a value that works for you.

Some people live in parts of the world where they have internet so slow that even 1 Mbps streams buffer. Should we reduce home internet defaults to 1 Mbps too?

The problem with defaulting for the lowest denominator is it makes the experience terrible for the vast majority of people, which is why I suggest basing it off an average.

Have you ever seen a 1 Mbps stream? It's awful. Now try getting less technical people to change this value.

Can we talk about electricity costs for transcoding? Maybe we should configure everything to prevent wasted energy. Isn't that important too?

[Lessaj 467]

1 hour ago, yocker said:

1) The quality settings are simply too well hidden for the vast majority of users to ever see so they never change them.

Where would you put it to make it more visible? I don't think it's hidden at all - there's the playback section within the app settings, and it's within the cog wheel of the video player, both perfectly logical places to put it and that's the two places I would go to look for a quality/bitrate setting, especially if there's buffering issues during playback.

[Neureka 16]

1 minute ago, Lessaj said:

Where would you put it to make it more visible? I don't think it's hidden at all - there's the playback section within the app settings, and it's within the cog wheel of the video player, both perfectly logical places to put it and that's the two places I would go to look for a quality/bitrate setting, especially if there's buffering issues during playback.

It should start at max quality, and if it starts buffering a lot have a pop-up that prompts the user to try a lower quality. Similar to how Plex handles it now, but in reverse instead of bumping up from a lower quality. Bonus points if that starting point can be set by the server admin as they know both their network and clients network better than anyone here.

[Lessaj 467]

1 minute ago, Neureka said:

It should start at max quality, and if it starts buffering a lot have a pop-up that prompts the user to try a lower quality. Similar to how Plex handles it now, but in reverse instead of bumping up from a lower quality. Bonus points if that starting point can be set by the server admin as they know both their network and clients network better than anyone here.

I do agree that it should start at the highest to try to direct play media - it's only really an issue for remote connections so you could fake it by making all remote networks look local, that's what I did.

[yocker 1247]

13 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

Where would you put it to make it more visible? I don't think it's hidden at all - there's the playback section within the app settings, and it's within the cog wheel of the video player, both perfectly logical places to put it and that's the two places I would go to look for a quality/bitrate setting, especially if there's buffering issues during playback.

I'm most likely the wrong person to ask for the same reason it would be wrong to have me design a mobile phone for elderly people.
My logic would be way different than them because i have the knowledge of how such devices usually work.

But.. If i absolutely had to pick a place, i would probably put a quality selector next to the play button before a video is started and make it the same size as the play button and in a more "warning" kind of color like yellow..
Like where the trailer button is.

Edited May 14, 2025 by yocker

[Neureka 16]

2 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

so you could fake it by making all remote networks look local, that's what I did

That's an interesting solution. I'll take a look at this, thanks!

[Jdiesel 1431]

If you do choose to modify the LAN networks to 0.0.0.0/0 be aware that it will essentially force direct playback for all clients. If a user happens to connect via LTE it can immediately exhaust their data allocation. I assume most countries still have data caps for mobile, Canada does at least.

Maybe someone could write a plugin that logs IPs from connected TV clients and auto adds then to the LAN Networks.

Edited May 14, 2025 by Jdiesel

[Lessaj 467]

7 minutes ago, Jdiesel said:

If you do choose to modify the LAN networks to 0.0.0.0/0 be aware that it will essentially force direct playback for all clients. If a user happens to connect via LTE it can immediately exhaust their data allocation. I assume most countries still have data caps for mobile, Canada does at least.

Maybe someone could write a plugin that logs IPs from connected TV clients and auto adds then to the LAN Networks.

As far as I'm concerned it's their own responsibility to monitor their data usage just as it is mine to monitor my own. I'd have to try pretty hard to hit my mobile data limit but I'm at home most of the time or have access to some kind of wifi.

I currently scrape the IPs based on specific requests that I know are for requesting playback. I'm only focused on the first octet so I add them with /8 but would be simple enough to be more granular with /16 or /24 as well.

[Neureka 16]

15 minutes ago, Jdiesel said:

If you do choose to modify the LAN networks to 0.0.0.0/0 be aware that it will essentially force direct playback for all clients. If a user happens to connect via LTE it can immediately exhaust their data allocation. I assume most countries still have data caps for mobile, Canada does at least.

Yeah, gotta be careful with this one. Unlimited isn't actually unlimited with mobile data in the US. Thanks for mentioning that.

  

2 minutes ago, Lessaj said:

As far as I'm concerned it's their own responsibility to monitor their data usage just as it is mine to monitor my own.

I would agree, but nobody in their right mind would expect a single lord of the rings movie to be 150 GB. I plan to put a remote stream bitrate cap in place.

Edited May 14, 2025 by Neureka

[Lessaj 467]

3 minutes ago, Neureka said:

I would agree, but nobody in their right mind would expect a single lord of the rings movie to be 150 GB. I plan to put a remote stream bitrate cap in place.

I would but that's because I know that's how big those movies can be.  Can certainly still use the per stream limit cap for each user to offset it otherwise being wide open, they'll just never be able to direct play something like that.

[embylad892746 32]

lol not this again.

- Yes, emby sucks at detecting internet speed

- no, admins cannot set default qualities for users

- yes, playback settings really are burried where non-tech users will never see them

- yes, it really is that confusing when you realise that playback settings are per device not per user

- no, i don't see it getting fixed anytime soon since its been complained about foe years

 

we should honestly just create a public emby landing page at this point. One that the community helps maintain and it tells new users how “it is” with clear instructions and screenshots so you don't need to give “the talk” to all new users

 

132943-please-can-we-fix-internet-speed-detection-once-and-for-all/

Edited May 14, 2025 by embylad892746
typo

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

29 minutes ago, embylad892746 said:

we should honestly just create a public emby landing page at this point. One that the community helps maintain and it tells new users how “it is” with clear instructions and screenshots so you don't need to give “the talk” to all new users

Is that not 100% covered in the tutorials? I do not ever remember anyone asking a basic question that is not covered in the tutorials. 

I see zero reason to duplicate efforts just to cover people that are too lazy or too stupid to read and follow the basics as presented in the tutorials. I know I had no real problems but Emby has become more complex since I set up my server but it is still simple enough for my neighbor, who is 82 and has less than a HS education, to set up and run her own server and she even share her server with her granddaughter across town. 
Setting up and running Emby is very very simple but becomes complex when the person setting it up does not bother to read the instructions.

It is not Emby's fault that many, particularly new, customers seem to have near zero ability to follow the simple instructions. There is also no reason to believe that duplicating the instructions will have any positive impact on users that don't get it from what is presented already.