There are mobile devices or older media-playing devices, that may require content to be streamed at 720p or less, and can't direct play movies that have video content that is 1080p and higher. This causes Plex to convert the video/audio codec to something the streaming device can play. The reason that transcoding happens is that many devices that can stream content from Plex, the devices may not be able to play the movie because it doesn't support the video/audio codec. While you can try to have your Plex Media Server and clients direct play as much content as possible, there may be times when that isn't possible, and transcoding happens.

The goal of managing a Plex server is to transcode as little as possible. Transcoding, however, can use up to 100% of the CPU, depending on what is being transcoded. The next best option is Direct stream because it uses little system resources but more than direct play. There are three methods that Plex Media Server will use to stream content to a device: direct play, direct stream, and transcoding, and out of the three methods, transcoding is used if Plex can't find a compatible movie file to stream to a device.ĭirect play is the preferred method, as it uses the least amount of resources on the server. Learning how to avoid transcoding movie files from your Plex server is a common question, as it can cause issues if multiple movies are being transcoded at the same time.

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