Kodi Community Forum

I have the following setup:
Client: PleXBMC in raspberry Pi connected to TV
Server: Plex server installed on PC as media server

In the PlexBMC, and there is a setting called "Always transcode - turn it on or off. If selected ALL media is transcoded regardless.."
Im wondering what does this mean? Should I turn it on or off?(Im only use the PleXBMC as a client, my PC which has Plex server installe as a server)

Transcoding is where media is modified to make it smaller and therefore quicker to send over slow networks. It's mostly used when you want to send media over the internet, or to moblle devices where speed may be an issue. However, it is very hard on the server CPU during the operation.

If you are using on a home network, then you should not need to transcode, and I would leave the option turned off.

One exception though with the RPi - DTS. If you have a lot of media with DTS soundtracks, then the RPi is not quick enough to decode these. In this situation, you will need to switch transcoding on and I would suggest you do it with the largest setting (20Mbps) and with the audio set to either stereo or AC3. This should cause only the audio to be transcoded to work with the RPI, but the video stay at the same rate. It will take up only a few %age of the server CPU to do this work.