Option to automatically select version (Plex multi-version)

I love that Infuse supports multiple versions and that it remembers your last choice. To simplify things even further, I think it would be nice have an option to always choose the highest resolution version. I have many movies in my library with both 1080p and 4K versions, and it would be nice to just choose the 4K versions automatically. There doesn’t really seem to be much reason to choose the lower resolution one anyway.

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Last I recall Infuse does not support multiple version merged into the same title, unless using Plex as a source. The ticket specifically to address this is still open: Multiple versions of a movie

Are you using Plex?

Yes I’m using Plex. Via Plex it supports the multiple resolutions some of my videos have.

I love the Version selection menu of Infuse when using Plex Media Server. Especially when downloading media for on the go.

But watching TV Shows locally (for instance on an Apple TV) can be annoying if you have multiple versions of every episode (i.e. Blu Ray rips for local streaming, smaller compressed versions for remote streaming).

Every new episode will get you the Version selection menu before it starts playing. Like Netflix asking you if you’re still there… every single episode!

Not certain about a solid solution.
Maybe remember a selection for the whole serie (per device)
Or a general setting for local streaming and remote streaming in the form of max Mbps and based on that auto select the best Version when pressing the play button.

Can we get the option to auto play the best version if there’s more than 1? Instead of it always popping up which version to play? I have my 4K library and standard HD combined. So most files have at least 2. Plex auto plays the best version. Would be great if we could do that with infuse also.

I moved your post to a currently running thread in the suggestions forum requesting that feature.

Don’t forget that you need to click the like button on the first post in this thread to show your support for this suggestion! :wink:

I’m not sure when this happened, but it looks like this feature was added! Thanks!

Actually yes!

With Smart Groups in 7.5, multiple versions will be grouped together and Infuse will automatically select the version which is the best fit for the device you are using.

You can also use the ‘Select Version’ option found in Settings > Collections & Groups to adjust which version is selected.

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Actually it seems like I spoke to soon. Now it’s asking me which version to pick again.

This is because you for example have two versions in 4K. Apocalypse Now being the classic one (even three: Theatrical, Redux and Final Cut).

Sometimes, especially older movies, looks better in 1280p, so I am keeping those.

Kind regards.

Jens, Copenhagen

Is there a way to auto select quality? In plex I have my 4k and HD files combined. With plex it just auto plays the best quality (4k) if it can. With infuse it always asks which version to play. It would be nice to just skip that and start playing the file. Would this be possible?

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Current behavior:
Currently when a library has two options for a media file, such as a 4K version and a 1080p version, Infuse will present the Select Version option every time such a file is selected for viewing.

Suggested behavior:
Have Infuse automatically pick the version with the highest resolution first, or the highest bitrate second if the resolutions are the same. Have a long-press on Play present the Select Version options for manual selection.

Scenario:
I recently moved over to a new Plex server capable of hardware transcoding h265 HDR 4K files. As part of the migration, I consolidated my libraries - instead of separate 1080 and 4K libraries, I combined them. This works well for Plex and my external users, as Plex automatically picks the 1080 copy for remote playback and/or transcoding, but the user can choose the 4K version if they want and my server has the horsepower and bandwidth to deliver it.

However, this has had an unintended effect in Infuse.

Currently, when a movie is selected to play that has two copies available, Infuse will ask you to select which version - every single time. This gets rather annoying, quickly. Having Infuse auto-select the best version for playback, especially since I would suspect that 99% of Infuse’s user base playback is local content (and infuse doesn’t support transcoding anyways), while leaving an option to select a specific version if desired, would be ideal. :ok_hand:

(The reason I suggest auto-selecting by resolution first, and bitrate second, is that in my use case I simply have a duplicate copy of ALL of my libraries - the primary library is “up-to” 4K while the secondary is “up-to” 1080. This was the easiest way for me to manage keeping two versions of media, and I’ve got the storage space so why not. This means, however, that some media has two 1080 copies. I can go into deeper details of my setup and logics if requested.)

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The multiple version selection is annoying. This is especially the case when “auto play next episode” is switched on. It will still stop playback to ask you which version to play.

Unless people are using this feature to have completely different versions of a movie/tv show then, as you suggest the default option will nearly always be the first (highest rate) version.

Personally I use the feature the store high quality and low quality versions of shows. This is so when I am out an about, I don’t have to wait for a high quality version to stream.

I would suggest a setting along the lines of:

Multiple Version Selection:
Auto Select Highest Quality
Auto Select Highest Quality On Wifi Only
Always Ask Which Version

2 Likes

I’d suggest “on local lan only” but otherwise :ok_hand:

2 Likes

Hey!

It would be awesome if there was a setting where per device you could select a preferred video quality in case there are multiple versions of a file available. For Example, if i have both the 4k version, the 1080p version and 720p version of a Movie (or TV-Show) it would be cool if I could set my iPhone to always choose the 720p version on cellular data and the 1080p version on wifi, whilst having my Apple TV use the 4k version by default.

An advanced version would also be if you could set an order of priority for each device / network connection. So that for iPhone cellular it would first choose 720p if available, then 1080p or if nothing else is available 4k.

The advanced version would be really nice to have but already the basic version would be great! :slight_smile:

Thanks for building / maintaining an amazing app! Infuse Team :tada:

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TBH I don’t care what version is picks as long as it picks one. But an intelligent option would be nice. The plex player handles this without any problem.
Shuffle or continuous play are useless while infuse stops after every episode to ask which version.

I see now that you are using Plex.

I’ve updated the thread title to better reflect this, and merged in posts from a similar thread.

A post was split to a new topic: Re-Select version to play