So I’m looking for some tips on streaming 4K HDR to my TV from my Mac on the same network. Here’s sort of the bullet point list of where I’m at.
Players tested:
Xbox One X - The best but it will buffer and sometimes lower the quality after about 8 minutes of playing.
Samsung TV app - Plays the HDR depth raw with no conversion
Chromecast Ultra - Well I’d love to try this but the server won’t load on my iphone for some reason. Server appears offline
Ps4 Pro - Haven’t tried
Computer: 2018 Macbook Pro 15" - I had the file on an external but then tried putting it on the internal ssd… still buffers every 8 minutes ish.
My first question would be the speeds of your network. Are all of the tested devices connected wireless or wired? Have you been able to confirm those devices are getting the speeds required for 4k on the LAN? One way to test this would be to use a tool like iPerf to setup a server/client and test between them both wired and wireless. I think the standard 4k Mbps is somewhere around 25-40Mbps. Chances are you are able to easily meet those speed requirements but it can’t hurt to check.
No transcoding. Make sure all your clients can direct play 4K media. If the cannot, then do not play 4K media with them. Plex transcodes 4K HEVC to 1080p H264. HDR info is also lost during the transcode.
Watch out for subtitles. Some clients do not support direct playing image based subtitles (PGS & VOBSUB). Enabling them will force a video transcode. SRT subtitles can also cause problems if the audio is transcoding. On some clients, SRT subtitles + audio transcoding forces a video transcode.
You can monitor playback via Plex Web. Manage → Status → Dashboard. It will show you if the media is direct playing or transcoding. It will also show how much bandwidth Plex is using.
Note that 4K HDR rips run 40 Mbps to 80 Mbps.
The Mac must be on a wired connection.
It is preferable to have the clients on a wired connection.
If clients are on wifi, they must have a strong signal. Also, 802.11n minimum and 802.11AC preferred. A 10 year old Linksys WRT54G, while solid as a rock, won’t cut it with 4K media.
