Plex shows that its transcoding h.264 to h264. Any ideas why it needs to do that. Its 4k if that matters. See attached screenshots. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My computer cant handle 4k transcodes. 
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Not an expert, but I used MakeMKV to rip my 4k Aquaman. Then I used handbreak to create MKV files. The first try was huge using a large bit rate (like yours) and it did the same transcode trick. I then made another version using 4K (H.264 HDR) with the ACC codec reducing the bit rate by 70-80% and it plays fine. Keep the video pumped up, but back off the audio and you should see improvement. Gotta tweak it for your set up.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll give it a shot.
I know plex has to transcode h.265 but i dont understand what it means when it says its transcoding h.264 to h264.
My guess (and only a guess) is still based on the bit rate. PLEX knows the server hardware and player hardware and its limits. Your hardware combo can play H.264 but not at that bit rate, thus it is reducing the bit rate (by transocding) and properly noting H264 >> H.264
About as far as I want to speculate. I know when I reduced the bitrate I stopped having the error.
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that seems to have worked. Thanks.
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