How to force Direct Play from remote ?

[AngusAranda 1]

So I have 10 gigabit upload on my server and my remote connection has 1 gigabit download.

I'm using VLC media player to access Emby.

How do I just grab the raw file without any conversation/encoding/transcoding?

All I want is essentially a file server, with media interface lol 

Is that too much to ask for?

Edited February 23, 2025 by AngusAranda

[Luke 42078]

16 hours ago, AngusAranda said:

So I have 10 gigabit upload on my server and my remote connection has 1 gigabit download.

I'm using VLC media player to access Emby.

How do I just grab the raw file without any conversation/encoding/transcoding?

All I want is essentially a file server, with media interface lol 

Is that too much to ask for?

@AngusArandawell are you seeing transcoding now? Did you check your server dashboard to learn what the transcoding reason was?

[AngusAranda 1]

6 minutes ago, Luke said:

@AngusArandawell are you seeing transcoding now? Did you check your server dashboard to learn what the transcoding reason was?

Where in my server dash do I check for transcoding reasons?

Edited February 24, 2025 by AngusAranda

[Luke 42078]

5 minutes ago, AngusAranda said:

Where in my server dash do I check for transcoding reasons?

Right on the main screen during playback.

[AngusAranda 1]

I found the Stats for Nerds, once you click on the settings gear icon.

It was saying that it was converting to a compatible resolution. Then that provoked me to think: wait, do I have those 3 check boxes marked in my user profile?

Allow audio transcoding, if necessary, during media playback
Allow video transcoding, if necessary, during media playback
Allow changing of container formats, if necessary, during media playback

So I unchecked all 3 of them and now it says direct play, while I'm remote (using cellular data actually), hitting 44mbps on a 55.3 GB file.

----------

Sometimes it says no compatible streams. I will monitor which files exactly that comes up for.

How do I resolve that? Handbrake?

Edited February 24, 2025 by AngusAranda

[Luke 42078]

Quote

So I unchecked all 3 of them and now it says direct play, while I'm remote (using cellular data actually), hitting 44mbps on a 55.3 GB file.

Alternatively you could have just raised the quality setting of the app that you're playing from.

[AngusAranda 1]

14 minutes ago, Luke said:

Alternatively you could have just raised the quality setting of the app that you're playing from.

It's already on 200mbps for all options and I was still having a subpar streaming experience.

Edited February 24, 2025 by AngusAranda

[Luke 42078]

2 minutes ago, AngusAranda said:

It's already on 200mbps for all options and I was still experiencing issues.

There could still be another valid reason for transcoding besides bitrate. This isn't an "issue". At least if you raise the quality setting you won't be transcoding for that reason. 

[AngusAranda 1]

Just now, Luke said:

There could still be another valid reason for transcoding besides bitrate. This isn't an "issue". At least if you raise the quality setting you won't be transcoding for that reason. 

Yeah the particular video I was watching was 4k but I was watching on my phone, so the resolution wasn't the same and that was causing transcoding.

P.S: I updated the wording of my previous comment to align with what is actually going on. I also am someone who prefers proper terms when discussing technical matters. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I appreciate all the work that you do. Thank you so much for Emby.