Select transcoding resolution

[Shyne]

Hello

I want to set the client transcoding RESOLUTION (NOT BITRATE) since my phone can't play 4K video for obvious reasons...

and no i won't do a weird hack using the bitrate to lower the resolution, this should be a basic feature for a streaming server.

[tmsrxzar]

apple or android?

[Shyne]

Either web, Windows or android, since both my phone and laptop can't play 4k

[use7]

Can say that for android, Jellyfin app -> sidebar/settings menu, under User: Settings -> Client Settings (under the profile listing) -> Playback -> Vido quality you can do lan (home), wan (internet), max allowed res and set them to whatever you want. It is a similar setup for the web client (Side bar Settings (under User) -> Playback -> Video Quality). Don't know about Apple/JMP, but as most of the mobile appss are very close to (or skins of) the web interface I would expect them to be in the same/similar location.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Jellyfin only transcodes for two reasons:

1. The video isn't compatible with the client
   
2. The video's bitrate is higher than what the user selected within the video player
   

It's a bit confusing to see that you can select different resolutions, but those resolutions only apply when the video's bitrate exceeds the listed bitrate for that setting.

Is there something that physically prevents your devices from playing 4K content? It doesn't matter that your devices don't have 4K screens. Jellyfin's current approach is concerned with the bitrate.
Having a 4K video play on a 1080p screen (as an example) shouldn't really make things look worse.
If your connection to your server is fast, increase the bitrate allowed. Your connection is slower, lower the bitrate.

It's entirely possible to have a 720p video have a higher bitrate than a 1080p video for example. Just because the resolution is smaller on one video doesn't mean it's easier to play over a network.
Therefore, Jellyfin focuses on the bitrate when force transcoding.

Though like @use7 stated, you can mess around a bit with those settings to see if you can get it to where you want it.

[Shyne]

Yes my devices can't playback 4K smoothly and all my films are stored as 4K HEVC. Like you said having a 720p vid with higher bitrate than a 1080p one is 100% and is precisly the reason why having bitrate as the regulation method is bad. Jellyfin should try to aim for the resolution the user is asking for, and if the network is too slow, lower the bitrate/resolution if necessary. Even youtube does it that way.

[TheDreadPirate]

Yes my devices can't playback 4K smoothly and all my films are stored as 4K HEVC. Like you said having a 720p vid with higher bitrate than a 1080p one is 100% and is precisly the reason why having bitrate as the regulation method is bad. Jellyfin should try to aim for the resolution the user is asking for, and if the network is too slow, lower the bitrate/resolution if necessary. Even youtube does it that way.

Google pulls in $300B a year.  I'd hope they can do things better than us.

On our web based clients (includes JMP, JF Android, JF Mobile) click on your user icon in the top right, click on Playback.  There is a setting in there called "Maximum Allowed Transcoding Resolution".

Transcoding for any reason will reduce the resolution to that setting or lower.

   

   

I don't recall seeing a similar setting in my CCwGTV 4K or Roku Ultra.

[tmsrxzar]

I don't recall seeing a similar setting in my CCwGTV 4K or Roku Ultra.

afaik the android tv app doesn't support this, at best you need this PR to disable 4k https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/3110
but that PR is not merged and still only disables 4K, doesn't allow configuration of resolution

[Efficient_Good_5784]

I'm not part of the developers that worked on the code for transcoding, so I'm not sure why it works the way it does. I just know that transcoding is based off of bitrate.

Like you said having a 720p vid with higher bitrate than a 1080p one is 100% and is precisly the reason why having bitrate as the regulation method is bad.

Lets say you have a really low-bitrate 1080p video. If you transcode it to 720p, it might end up with a higher bitrate than the original despite being smaller in resolution.

Therefore, Jellyfin is programmed to figure out how to lower the bitrate. It uses a lower resolution in combination with other settings to lower the bitrate of the transcode.

Now, I'm not against your desire of wanting Jellyfin to change the resolution. In fact, I'm also in agreement with you in that it would be nice to force change the resolution without caring about the final bitrate. I could imagine having two options in the web player. One to force a resolution, and another separate option to limit the max bitrate. They could work in conjunction to achieve what you want.

[Shyne]

Well google might pull 300B a year but you still managed to achieve bitrate limitation, so using resolution instead doesn't seem very hard.
The setting you told me about doesn't exist on my version apparently: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/com...3779cb4076

Disabling 4K alltogether is pretty sketchy especially since i already have other patches to enable hardware transcoding on my host.

Having a maximum resolution set by the user seems like a must have feature for me, and i find it hard to belive no one ever had a similar problem as me (not being able to play their movies on their devices).