Have had issues playing back certain movies/shows especially with subtitles on. I have an i5 6500 which theoretically should transcode anything fine but I’ve heard that most formats will only transcode with 1 core and 1 thread. The devices I use are my LG smart TV, pc, phone (android), and sometimes ps4. I’ve heard of handbrake and plan on using it to convert my content but I’d like to know what formats to use. Most of my content is 1080p (some 4k) and the bit rate is from 3 - 10 mbps. I don’t mind transcoding as long as it can utilize multiple cores of my cpu. The show I’m trying to watch rn that is having issues is an mkv, HEVC, and AAC for audio. Vobsub for subtitles.
That all depends on the player. Every player is different and supports a combination of different formats. From what I can tell I think the safest format is MP4/AAC.
I would start by understanding this:
How are Direct Play, Direct Stream, and Transcoding different?
DirectPlay is your friend 
You want to find a format (audio/video codecs) that are compatible with all your playback devices directly. This puts the least load on your server.
Subtitles are not so much your friend as depending on the media, they will cause transcoding.
If you are streaming over a WAN link (say remotely to your phone, etc.) then you will likely be transcoding for those use cases.
If you do have to transcode, you would benefit from getting a Plex Pass subscription which will enable HW transcoding support (enabling the embedded GPU in your i5 to do the heavy lifting).
Using HW Transcoding
Plex Pass Feature Overview
These are some good starting things to think about.
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Wow that was super helpful. I have a 1050 ti in my plex server pc and if I do get the plex pass will it transcode with that? Also if so can it fully utilize most of my gpu
Well… the answer is… it depends…
For a long time only Intel QSV (embedded GPU’s) were supported. Recently there has been support added for Nvidia cards as well, but the level of support varies based on the PMS Host OS (Win10 vs. Linux/etc.).
So your mileage will vary some. Also keep in mind that Nvidia has limited their consumer lines of GPU’s (1050/etc.) series to 2 simultaneous HW Transcodes at a time. They do not have that limit in their enterprise Quadro Cards (p2000, etc.).
There are a few threads on the board about the topic in various areas.
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Okay well I never have more than 1 stream so that should be fine. I’ll probably be getting the plex lifetime pass soon or whenever it goes on sale. Thanks for the help
Those VOBSUB subtitles will cause streams to your LG TV to transcode as it can’t overly bitmap subtitles. Using .srt subtitles instead will sort that out for you.
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