Another Plex 4k Q


Jackal24

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Currently running Plex as a docker. Just got a 4k tv with a Nvidia shield. 4k plays fine on it, but if i use my other tv (non 4k) with a roku, the server bogs down. I tried using multiple versions of the file, but my wife uses subtitles a lot and when Plex is forced to transcode, it appears to transcode the 4k file (which it can't really handle), not the 1080p one (which it can). So, my questions:

 

1. Is there any way to get Plex to transcode the 1080p file by default? This would also help with the colors when the4k version is hdr.

 

2. If not, I have an rx480 that I could throw in my server. Would this work for hardware transcoding? (My cpus do not support igpu). If I do this, I would have to transition to using a VM, I guess. What type of VM? Windows or Linux?

 

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Greetings,

The way I handle this is by having a separate 4K Movie Library. You could try optimized versions but I find that (like you mentioned) HDR content looks awful after converting to 1080p. I only have one 4K tv in my house and after numerous hours of banging my head on a wall trying to figure out how to transcode everything I just created a separate library.

 

As far as I am aware unRAID doesn't handle GPU transcoding well. If you have an Intel CPU with QuickSync and a compatible motherboard you could use that which works great. 

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HI Jackal,

 

Questions like these are probably better posed in the Plex forums, not here.  I'll leave your post up here for now as ucliker already has given you some feedback, but generally speaking you are more likely to get more and better responses posting about Plex-specific issues in Plex-specific forums.

 

All the best,

 

JonP

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13 hours ago, Jackal24 said:

1. Is there any way to get Plex to transcode the 1080p file by default? This would also help with the colors when the4k version is hdr.

Haven´t tried it myself, but according to the documentation, Plex should be able to handle multiple versions of a movie and use the one that fits best to the client => https://support.plex.tv/articles/200381043-multi-version-movies/

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On 9/17/2018 at 1:51 PM, ucliker said:

Greetings,

The way I handle this is by having a separate 4K Movie Library. You could try optimized versions but I find that (like you mentioned) HDR content looks awful after converting to 1080p. I only have one 4K tv in my house and after numerous hours of banging my head on a wall trying to figure out how to transcode everything I just created a separate library.

 

As far as I am aware unRAID doesn't handle GPU transcoding well. If you have an Intel CPU with QuickSync and a compatible motherboard you could use that which works great. 

I think this is the route I am going to go with.

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On 9/17/2018 at 8:24 PM, jonp said:

HI Jackal,

 

Questions like these are probably better posed in the Plex forums, not here.  I'll leave your post up here for now as ucliker already has given you some feedback, but generally speaking you are more likely to get more and better responses posting about Plex-specific issues in Plex-specific forums.

 

All the best,

 

JonP

I thought about that, but decided due to the use of unraid and Dockers v. VMs and potentially using hardware gpu transcoding, I should ask here.

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23 hours ago, hocky said:

Haven´t tried it myself, but according to the documentation, Plex should be able to handle multiple versions of a movie and use the one that fits best to the client => https://support.plex.tv/articles/200381043-multi-version-movies/

That works great until you need to transcode due to subtitles or another reason. At that point, it transcode the highest quality file, which makes sense, however even my dual Xeon server can't keep up with a 4k transcode.

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On 9/18/2018 at 1:30 AM, hocky said:

Haven´t tried it myself, but according to the documentation, Plex should be able to handle multiple versions of a movie and use the one that fits best to the client => https://support.plex.tv/articles/200381043-multi-version-movies/

Jackal24,

your best bet is to add another library as I said. 4k transcoding is hard on any system unless you have thousands invested. I had the same exact issue as you when it came to subtitles and I didn't want to burn-in the subs. 

Like JonP mentioned, you should ask in the Plex sub.

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8 hours ago, ucliker said:

Jackal24,

your best bet is to add another library as I said. 4k transcoding is hard on any system unless you have thousands invested. I had the same exact issue as you when it came to subtitles and I didn't want to burn-in the subs. 

Like JonP mentioned, you should ask in the Plex sub.

Just to add my experience. Xeon 1245v5 (quad core 3.5GHz) transcoding H.265 HDR 4k is barely enough for realtime 1 stream (e.g. Planet Earth flock of birds scene immediately lags). That's how hard it is on the CPU.

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32 minutes ago, testdasi said:

Just to add my experience. Xeon 1245v5 (quad core 3.5GHz) transcoding H.265 HDR 4k is barely enough for realtime 1 stream (e.g. Planet Earth flock of birds scene immediately lags). That's how hard it is on the CPU.

I know what you mean. I'm running dual Xeon E5 2670s (16 cores total/ 32 with hyperthreading) and while it can keep up witha 4k HEVC transcode, the seek times on FF/REW are too long to be acceptable for the family.

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On 9/19/2018 at 7:51 AM, Jackal24 said:

That works great until you need to transcode due to subtitles or another reason. At that point, it transcode the highest quality file, which makes sense, however even my dual Xeon server can't keep up with a 4k transcode.

Hm, i can´t confirm this.

I´ve got a movie folder with a 4K and a 1080p-version of a movie. It´s currently transcoding the 1080p-file for playing at my smartphone and transcoding the 4K-file for playback at my laptop. And in parallel, it does a direct play of the 1080p-file for my Fire-TV. All with subtitles showing.

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5 hours ago, hocky said:

Hm, i can´t confirm this.

I´ve got a movie folder with a 4K and a 1080p-version of a movie. It´s currently transcoding the 1080p-file for playing at my smartphone and transcoding the 4K-file for playback at my laptop. And in parallel, it does a direct play of the 1080p-file for my Fire-TV. All with subtitles showing.

Hocky,

I have a similar experience with some files and others I run into the issue that the OP has. Now I convert all movies automatically using handbrake which helps since my Roku can direct play HEVC 4k HDR etc.

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You can just set the max bandwidth (on each non-4k device) to 20Mbps 1080 (or below).  I found out earlier today that it sadly does try to enforce the resolution limit and not just the stream bitrate. 

 

As for creating a new library, I feel like that's overkill since you can create a custom search filter for 4K content and then create an auto-optimize profile from that search (which also creates an auto-managed playlist it looks like).  I swear there used to be an option to prefer optimized content for remote devices but I can't find it now.  To get around that you either set the limit on each client like I mentioned above, or take it a step further and set a remote streaming limit to something like 12Mbps, with the auto-optimize profile encoding at 10Mbps.  Optionally, you could even specify the IPs of the 4K devices as LAN devices and just have every other device default to the capped bandwidth.

 

image.thumb.png.f124c818d3f1ffa3ed2066e73663f18d.png

 

IMO, if a 4K device can't direct play the 4K content (video that is, transcoding audio is fine), just get a device that does support H.265 / HEVC like a Chromecast Ultra or Fire TV.  Everything from an old i5-based server to a dual-xeon build will be running at 100% CPU trying to transcode 4K content on the fly.  My TV with built-in Fire OS plays 4K HEVC content from Amazon just fine, but the Plex app doesn't advertise itself as supporting it so I'm forced to use my Chromecast Ultra ATM which is pretty annoying.

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On 9/20/2018 at 7:21 PM, ucliker said:

Now I convert all movies automatically using handbrake which helps since my Roku can direct play HEVC 4k HDR etc.

Anyone tried the "optimize" feature from Plex. As far as i understand that feature it should do some sort of converting as well.

On 9/21/2018 at 7:58 AM, LesterCovax said:

Everything from an old i5-based server to a dual-xeon build will be running at 100% CPU trying to transcode 4K content on the fly. 

Well, my 8700-server transcodes 4K just fine. But it´s true, for the cost of the update you could get a new Fire-TV. But replacing gets more expensive when it comes to mobile devices.

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13 hours ago, hocky said:

Well, my 8700-server transcodes 4K just fine. But it´s true, for the cost of the update you could get a new Fire-TV. But replacing gets more expensive when it comes to mobile devices.

Then if replacing is not an option, use my 'smart list' optimization trick to automatically convert 4k content to a more playable format for other devices.  No point to put such heavy load on your server for transcoding when you could just store a 1080p file alongside the 4k one, and have Plex create those automatically.

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