1080P videos are expanded beyond the screen of my 4K TV

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Server Version#: Version 1.25.3.5409
Plex HTPC Player Version#: 1.18.0
Plex player version Version#: 3.0.0.32
I have a Denon receiver with pass-through to my 4K Samsung TV.
I have been using a desktop next version 3.0.0.32 which plays all video resolutions including 1080 P fine. I thought I would upgrade to the supported HTPC version now that one is available and did so.

I find that approximately 1/2 to 1/4 of a 1080P video is displayed on the screen, the rest is offscreen. His liked assumed in because the Plex text overlaid is also enlarged.
I checked the zoom setting and it is normal.
What are my next steps to get 1080 P videos to be displayed correctly on my 4K TV using Plex HTPC?

2

Nevermind – I unplugged and re-plugged the HDMI cable, shut down and restarted my PC and when it came back everything was fine.
Fingers crossed :grinning:

3

Nope. Must’ve ran my original Plex by mistake. The problem still exists.

4

This is an issue for me as well. Lower resolution videos are being expanded and only the 1st quadrant of the show is showing on a 4k display.

5

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tv/samsung-mu6120-55-quot-hd-4k-screen-issue/td-p/643718
Soft reset the TV

Seems too simple a fix to actually fix anything but it’s worth a shot.

6

I just started using Plex very recently and am having this same issue. Any video in 4K is fine but 1080p videos only show what I think it the upper left quadrant. The other three quadrants are off screen. It seems to only happen with full window under general, visibility.

The problem is only with Plex HTPC. When I watch the same movies on my Apple TV on the Plex app, the 1080p is displayed perfectly.

7

Since none actually specified, I’m going to assume that you are all running Windows and have the resolution switching setting enabled. Windows has no concept of a fullscreen window and so the workaround to make a fullscreen window gets resizing of a fullscreen window completely wrong across a resolution change in some circumstances. You are likely in one of these circumstances and so should try turning off this setting.

8

Yes, I am using Windows in fullscreen. Yes, when I changed Visibility to the other two options, the image was fine. But with “Maximized,” there was a Windows bar at the top of the screen. I am not sure if that can be removed.

What should the resolution be set to? I believe I have it at auto now.

Thanks for replying. I really want to get this issue solved so I can watch 1080p movies.

9

I’m talking about turning off: Settings -> Video -> Eanble Resolution Switching.

10

So if that setting is off, I can still use Fullscreen with 1080p movies? Thank you for the help.

11

I have this off - 1080 and 4K videos display as expected on my 4K Samsung (fullscreen enabled),

Win 11 Pro.

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12

So I turned off the Enable Resolution Switching and now it does work in Fullscreen. Can I ask, what is this setting doing when on? I don’t seem to understand it. Thanks for the help!

13

My understandfing is - do you want Plex to upscale or allow the display (TV) to do it.

Most modern TVs have great upscalers so generally not necessary to let Plex do it.

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So when Resolution Switching is on, Plex does the upscaling? As I am using a Lumagen Radiance Pro, I want it to do the upscaling! Glad it is now off.

15

The other way around. When the setting is off Plex HTPC will not change the output resolution of the PC and thus the upscaling will be done in the PC. When the setting is on, then it will change the PC’s resolution relying on devices downstream of the PC to do the scaling for the display.

I would say most modern high-end TVs and exclude those that are not high-end. It is uncommon for a hardware device or display to match the quality of the scalers available to you inside Plex HTPC and when they do it is a giant advertising point of the TV. Though this does depend on which quality presets you are using and your TV or other device’s capabilities.

  • The Low Quality preset is using bilinear which is a cheap and easy scaler and often what is found in a lot of streaming boxes and some displays.
  • The Normal and High Quality presets are using spline36 which is a decent quality scaler but very low computational speed.
  • The Maximum Quality preset is using ewa_lanczossharp which is a very good quality scaler and exceeds the quality of many non-PC devices
  • The Ultra Quality preset is using SSimSuperRes as a pre-scaler which should exceed the quality of ewa_lanczossharp used on its own
  • The Make My GPU Hurt preset is using a combination of FSRCNNX_x2_8-0-4-1, SSimDownscaler, and KrigBilateral. I don’t know how these fair in comparison to the best scalers in other devices out there but I would expect them to be on-par.

Again, which does the better job is going to depend on your quality preset and the abilities of devices down the line on the HDMI.

FWIW, I have not had issues with resolution changes resulting in the window not resizing to match. I know some have this issue out there but I have not been able to reproduce it myself and thus I don’t know what is causing it in those cases.

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16

I’m one and have turned that setting off.

Edit - in fact I don’t use many of Plex HTPC video switches. I’ve tried them on and off and they remain off. I also much prefer pass through for my audio.

I also dislike aliasing and ringing artifacts. Even sharpening seems messy at higher quality settings. All rather familiar from Kodi days.

Anyway, offtopic.

17

If I am understanding you, when Resolution Switching is set to on, the PC is supposed to pass the 1080p on to the next device in the chain (a Lumagen in my case). However, there is some flaw in Windows that seems to mishandle the 1080p and that is why some of us are getting only one quarter of the image. By turning Resolution Switching to off, Plex will upscale the 1080p to 4K, which Windows can pass on without problem. And if I have the quality set to “Make My GPU hurt,” the upscaling is high quality.

Thanks for your help!

18

Having used MadVR in the past, I am familiar with some of the upscaling methods you mentioned. However, I would be very interested in a link to any sources I can learn more. I am not sure about using upscaling in Plex (probably Make My GPU Hurt, as I am running a 3080Ti) versus upscaling in the Lumagen Radiance Pro.

Thanks for any sources I can review.

19

One of the more interesting pages is Mathematically Evaluating mpv's Upscaling Algorithms - A study of performance and quality. There are others which you can find through searching for FSRCNN and the other shaders. Of course the real test is to look at them for yourself and see how it appears.

A 3080 Ti is powerful enough to run the Make My GPU Hurt preset; I’ve run it on a 2060.

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Wow! That looks perfect. Will read it for sure!

Yeah, I got the 3080Ti after prices dropped a bit to run MadVR with VideoProcessor to render video from non-PC sources. However, I ended up going with a Lumagen instead but am glad the GPU will be useful with Plex.