I believe Infuse can be the best direct-play client and support server-side transcoding. The two are not mutually exclusive IMO.
I understand your comments. It’s beyond the scope of what Infuse does today, thus the purpose of this thread. It would require work from Firecore to support the various methods Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin do transcoding but it’s not impossible.
Similar to the feature added in 7.8 where you can select different versions of the same movie to direct-play, transcoding would take it one step further and present you with different quality levels the server could stream to the client. Better yet, Infuse could test the speed of your connection to the server and automatically select the best quality version your connection could support (eg. if I have a 2mbit connection, request a 720p transcoded stream instead of trying to direct play 4K).
This feature would be particularly useful for those that travel and try to watch content from their hotel room on not-so-great wifi connections (me last week).
You do not understand what we are saying. Plex, emby and jellyfin already have transcoding functionality and also an api for it, so the client just have to tell the api to transcode the video and send it. A pretty simple feature to add programatically on the client
No, no, no. The media server wouldn’t “dictate” how a stream is re-encoded. Infuse would request how a stream is re-encoded, via the media player’s API, based on user preference or (potentially) available bandwidth.
This argument that it’s outside the scope of Infuse is really silly. Infuse is an excellent player that can handle a wide variety of media streams. All we are asking for is additional stream options from servers that can support it. If anything it makes Infuse more attractive to potential buyers by breaking it out of it’s current LAN-centric view. (Most people don’t have symmetrical 1G fiber)
If the first-party players were as good as Infuse at playback, we wouldn’t even be talking.
Perhaps Infuse is so good at playback because it is a direct stream player which does all stream decoding and content presentation utilizing its own proprietary methods.
Likely this would no longer be the case if the third-party media server and it’s third-party client API instead handle the streaming (by applying their own proprietary compression methods, which unless I’m mistaken, often re-encode original audio and video streams into different, lesser quality formats when that is necessary to reduce the bandwidth requirements).
I don’t see where this leaves room for Infuse to improve on the process and present the content any more reliably than the third-party API. If the API can’t successfully acquire and maintain the stream, there is nothing Infuse itself could do about it. If the API can maintain the stream, then what need is there for Infuse?
You have to read more about how transcoding works and how it is sent between server and client.
Yes, you are mistaken.
Proprietary compression methods. Do you really think the server converts to something so unique that a media player engine cannot handle it?
What would change here? I think you are confused. Direct streams can already be in a wide variety of formats – which infuse is great at handling. So what would be the difference between a media server direct streaming a 10Mbps 1080p h.264 file vs streaming a 10Mbps 1080p h.264 transcode of a 4k HEVC file? Infuse would still be decoding and presenting a h.264 stream.
You seem to think these media servers choose the transcoding options and make use of proprietary formats that would create problems/work for Infuse. Take a look at the stream API for Jellyfin previously posted: Jellyfin - ReDoc
If anything Infuse could hand pick the container, codecs, etc that it best supports and use those leaving only options for resolution / bitrate.
There are lots of factors to a good video player beyond acquiring and maintaining a stream – decoding performance, handling HDR/DV, UI controls, etc. Not to mention the convenience of using the same player both at home and remote.
The real question is why shouldn’t Infuse support transcoded streams in formats it already supports? Sure it would take some additional coding and UI – as all features do. But it opens up use outside the LAN, which is a BIG feature for many people.
And could be a boost in paid users of Infuse. I know I’d suggest to other users to purchase Infuse rather then suggesting the native apps. Jellyfin/Swiftfin are way behind Infuse.
Maybe with the new Plex API announcement, we will see this feature.
This is the key issue for me. I want to use Infuse outside of my network, without having to download the files in advance. My home upload speed is the bottleneck - and being able to use Jellyfin’s built-in transcode option would make Infuse the perfect client for every one of my use cases.
Based on the the discussion above, it sounds as though this could be quite a simple implementation (and yes I am interested in how the sausage is made). But there’s currently no tag to indicate whether the developer has even looked at this thread
I would very much like to see transcoding supported, and ideally some automated option to transcode only when ‘needed’. For example 4k bluray is a bit overkill when streaming to your phone and really eats up your mobile data.
I have been hoping for this feature for a really long time and it does not look like it will ever be implemented. The main use case for me would be to be able to play 4K HDR video on older non 4K AppleTV’s through Infuse. They basically do not play at all or just get stuck. In Plex on the older AppleTV the video plays fine transcoded to 1080p. As others have said this would seem to be an easy add but does not seem to be on the radar at all. Even just a checkbox to allow Plex (or others) to control the stream resolution would be great. You could even have a “Use Direct Play” option to keep everything as it is currently for those who are happy with how it currently functions. If @james can chime in and just tell us that this will never happen or put it on the wishlist or roadmap that would be great. For now I will just continue to use Plex for AppleTV on my older devices and remote needs.
Hi, I made an account to basically say myself and a few others would buy Infuse Lifetime in a heartbeat if it could request transcoded streams from Jellyfin, I have bitrate limits set for streaming outside of LAN in Jellyfin, but Infuse so far can only direct play - so I can’t use it outside of home!
