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How to get smoother playback on Plex with a simple solution

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With Plex, your media is stored on a server, and depending on how you're going to stream your content, Plex will automatically transcode it and serve it in the format available to your device, regardless of your server speeds.

With Plex Optimizer, you can prepare your files in advance so no matter where you're watching, you get the best possible quality.

For this to happen, you'll need to selectively optimize each video, so if there's something you know you want to watch, make sure you do it ahead of time.

Step by step instructions

Launch Plex in your browser and go to the folder where the video is stored, or use the search function to find it. If you hover over the poster image for that file, you'll see three dots to access the menu. Click on that and choose Optimize.

How to get smoother playback on Plex with a simple solution

This will bring up a dialog that has a few different options for how you can optimize the file. You can optimize for viewing on your smartphone, your TV, keep the original quality, or choose custom settings.

How to get smoother playback on Plex with a simple solution

Custom settings let you drill down for more specificity:Android, iOS, Windows Phone, XBox One, and more. You can also choose the speed and frame rate yourself.

How to get smoother playback on Plex with a simple solution

To see a more detailed explanation of how this all works and to see the optimization process in action, watch the video below:

Do you have any tips or tricks to get the most out of Plex? Let us know in the comments.