I have some 4k movies, but my smart tv won’t play them directly (shame on you, Samsung), and the server is not powerful enough to transcode 4k in real time (which brings question #2)…
so I want to optimize those movies, and my question is, if I choose ‘optimize for tv’, or for mobile, does PLEX downscale it to 1080p, or what should I do to keep it at 4k?
and question #2, my server has a E3 cpu, and can handle 4-5 1080p–>480p transcoding in real world, in theory 4k should be 4x of 1080p in pixel counts, so my server should be able to handle 1 4k transcoding stream right? however I tried to stop every service but PLEX but still it can’t handle ANY 4k transcoding.
ok guys. after reading your posts I suspect there’s something wrong with the file, so I dig into it and realize that it’s a HEVC (I assume it’s x265) file.
anyone knows how to transcode it into x264 on a Synology? is there any script/package that does it?
@trumpy81 im pretty happy with my set up now, it’s a 12 bay Synology 3615xs with cpu upgrade, handles everything (but this 4k HEVC obviously). and if possible, I really hope not to use a shield TV as server. it doesnt support plug in, and it’s a dedicate machine, which means another point of failure (plus I can’t manage the shield TV remotely, in case it has any problem outside PLEX app)
Yea. HEVC is great for reducing the size of the video file. Not so much for transocding. The best option would be to convert it to H.264 with something like Handbrake. If you can i would go back to the source material and convert from there. Converting the HVEC file could lead to a fair amound of artifacts since it would be converted twice.
HVEC good if you can avoid transcoding though and just direct stream. You are liketly to use allot more space with the older codecs.
You can have PMS perform an “Optimize” transcode in background which will take quite a while on most home PCs (2-4 times the playing time of the movie). But once it’s, done you’ve got a ready-to-use version for those devices that need it.
My own limited testing shows a Passmark of about 10,000 is necessary to do an on-the-fly transcode of 4K HEVC to 1080p.
Why encode a 4K movie just to have it transcode to 1080p??
What I do is make a 4K version and a 1080p version.
Put them in different libraries. IE: 4K movies.
Then by user login… restrict the 4K libraries from users that will not be able to play the 4K version without transcoding.
For example it is unrealistic to expect a remote user to be able to play 4K… So do not let that user have access to the 4K library.
This is what works for me just fine.
My PC has a passmark of 9000 or so and it cannot transcode 4K to 1080p with any watchability…
Most folks have only 1 or 2 4K TVs so limit 4K library access to those only. Be sure to encode your 4K media in such a way it will direct play to your 4K devices…
@dduke2104 said:
You can have PMS perform an “Optimize” transcode in background which will take quite a while on most home PCs (2-4 times the playing time of the movie). But once it’s, done you’ve got a ready-to-use version for those devices that need it.
My own limited testing shows a Passmark of about 10,000 is necessary to do an on-the-fly transcode of 4K HEVC to 1080p.
well, my E3-1240v3 has a 9700+ passmark, and apparently it’s nowhere near handling it on-the-fly
I did try ‘optimize’, not only it took 3-4 hours (for <2hr movie), but also it downgraded it to 1080p. do you know what should I do to optimize but keep it at 4k?
@jjrjr1 said:
Why encode a 4K movie just to have it transcode to 1080p??
What I do is make a 4K version and a 1080p version.
Put them in different libraries. IE: 4K movies.
Then by user login… restrict the 4K libraries from users that will not be able to play the 4K version without transcoding.
For example it is unrealistic to expect a remote user to be able to play 4K… So do not let that user have access to the 4K library.
This is what works for me just fine.
My PC has a passmark of 9000 or so and it cannot transcode 4K to 1080p with any watchability…
Most folks have only 1 or 2 4K TVs so limit 4K library access to those only. Be sure to encode your 4K media in such a way it will direct play to your 4K devices…
well, first we don’t need to have a completely different library, we can just create a playlist of 4k movies, and PLEX will automate the selection.
plus, 4k isn’t really that bandwidth demanding, it take less than 100mbps, a lot of times even less than 50mbps, so sometimes even a LTE connection can handle that. in fact, when I bring my laptop with me on travel, I stream 4k all the time.
at last, the problem is not 4k, it’s 4k + HEVC. like I mentioned in the post above, I have a ~9700 passmark CPU, yet I can’t transcode it on the fly.
Fast question. Where do you find 4K movies? From What i have read there is Nothing that can play 4K blu rays, only read them.
4K is the format of the video data on the bluray (data is data) Any BluRay burner can rip with ease
There are plenty of bluray 4K players out there (They READ the data and mux the stream per the playlist (mpls) into HDMI). Here’s one example “Samsung UBD-K8500 4K Wi-Fi Blu-ray Disc Player”
Fast question. Where do you find 4K movies? From What i have read there is Nothing that can play 4K blu rays, only read them.
4K is the format of the video data on the bluray (data is data) Any BluRay burner can rip with ease
There are plenty of bluray 4K players out there (They READ the data and mux the stream per the playlist (mpls) into HDMI). Here’s one example “Samsung UBD-K8500 4K Wi-Fi Blu-ray Disc Player”
i might have miss understood you, i thought you ripped the movie on to your NAS, and played it from there?
“Attached is a link for a 2 minute demo using Direct Play from a little DS1813+”. Or is it possible to buy 4k blu rays and rip them to your computer and just use plex? i thought they had encryption?
I ripped the movie using the computer and my BluRay burner. I then transferred the file to the NAS, gave it proper naming, and was done.
The 2 minute phone capture is one of my 4K ripped videos being played on the DS1813+ using WiFi. I did that to show you can do UHD over WiFi when done properly. That specific wifi (Linksys) has the bandwidth capacity of 2 more streams. That works out very nicely with the DS1813+ which also has 2 more streams worth of CPU power to shovel the data.
i might have miss understood you, i thought you ripped the movie on to your NAS, and played it from there?
