When you say that the tone mapping is only partially supported in hardware on Windows, can you explain what is and what is not supported in more detail?
Probably not going to get much more details than at HDR to SDR Tone Mapping | Plex Support
I will remain hopeful for more detail.
Dear friend,
As the OP said if you need to transcode 4K content to a lower resolution you don’t gain anything by having the 4K content in the first place. Rip the content in the correct quality or have it correctly batch encoded from the source to the various qualities you clients may need.
Encoding to the correct resolution, when done correctly, will always beat on the fly transcoding in quality.
On the other hand, Plex still has to improve the support for the automatic selection of adequate source – resolution, bitrate, SDR, HDR, etc… – material to send to each client taking into account their nominal capabilities and real-time performance.
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Not all my TVs / tablet/phones at home supprt 4k or HDR, this comment would apply only if you had all your hardware was able to support it. Encoding on the fly is an essential aspect of plex to be able to watch our library on every devices without pre-encoding and taking much spaces on drives.
I’m also transcoding on the fly using a P2000 (around 300$ card) and can have multiple concurent streams at the same time. I intially had a p400 that was technically enough for my needs. The Original post is getting pretty old and dont take into aspect much that technology has been moving on at great lenght since then.
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The incremental disk storage necessary for a 1080p version in addition to 2160p is almost inconsequential. I don’t consider how many concurrent UHD transcodes being any measure of success especially if the client isn’t UHD. It’s measured by often they aren’t necessary.
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The original post states as much in the very first sentence. 
That said, 4k/transcoding is still not simple or easy for anyone that is just stumbling into it with no background info or awareness.
This guy gets it.
Transcoding 4k is like using a semi-truck to commute to work. Sure you can do it, but is it really the best way? no.
or as apple likes to say, “you’re holding it wrong”.
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My bad I saw the edit, I follow that thread for the past 2 years, I haven’t watched back the original one.
that being said…
I completely disagree with dduke’s statement, having everything in double and/or in different format is certainly not inconsequential . Huge storage arrays are costly to maintain and often problematic to upgrade. Maybe you don’t care adding new set of disk array but it’s cetainly not the case for everyone. With actual GPU power at our fingertips there is almost no reason of not using that at our advantage ESPECIALLY if you need lower resolutions only occasionally. Having both resolutions of every videos just in case you need it someday on a tablet or whatever other media player that requires it is an absurd amount of virtual space lost imo. One day, maybe we will be able to watch a 4k hdr movie through plex’s webapp. but until then, transcoding seem the better/only viable solution.
As for the apple reference, remember that they addmited that Anteannagate was their designs that was at fault after the class action lawsuit.
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40-60gig for a full 4k bluray remux + another 1-2gig for a decent 720 is inconsequential to overall storage issue.
there is also the fact, that not every single movie needs to be in full 4k/hdr.
your comment regarding storage even supports my point above.
personally I only reserve a full 4k remux for the great movies that I want to/do watch more than once.
everything else gets 720 or the odd 1080 sdr.
but hey, that’s just me.
again, with the right setup, background knowledge, etc, 4k transcoding can be done relatively painlessly these days.
That still doesn’t make it the best solution.
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There isn’t really a “best solution”. Everyone’s use case and setups are different. These types of arguments about transcoding are beyond pointless, considering most people transcode.
For anyone arguing against 4k transcoding. Do you have an encoded version for every resolution, bitrate and container? Doubt. So at some point you’re likely transcoding for some reason. Which is no different than someone with a 4k encode.
In a couple years when 4k is the mainstream resolution, you’ll have people in here going “I only store 4k movies, gosh who Transcodes 8k” 
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I was watching a 4k file transcoded to 1080p and the transcoding police kicked in my door and shot my dog and my server too. They made me show them my Plex Pass, and they ripped it up and pushed me down and my glasses and shoes came off.
It was working great until then, but I guess they were right… don’t transcode 4k.
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the point of not transcoding 4k, as has been explained 98327439874 times, is not because transcoding is evil, but because many many people have plex servers on old hardware.
old hardware that is incapable of acceptably transcoding 4k content.
and it is not specifically 4k content, more accurately it is HEVC/X265 content.
anything that is encoded in hevc/x265, will be much more difficult to decode, it takes a lot of cpu power, or gpu/hw to efficiently decode.
old x264 content, is very trivial to transcode and has been for a long time.
there is like a brick wall between x264 and x265 codecs.
you can either avoid the brick wall, or bring the appropriate hardware and knock through it.
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I agree with that. I just see a lot of discouragement on going the path of hevc/h265 transcoding instead of information. That’s our future and like most any technology, the more people adopting it early on, the better experience the many will have once it’s mainstream. I do think setting realistic expectations for requirements and drawbacks is okay.
the discouragement is still valid, because the old cpus/systems that people are still using, are not going to improve even as hevc goes mainstream.
further, while hevc increases in popularity, new cpu power is not increasing at a rate that will make cpu hevc transcoding trivial, thus still requiring gpu/hw transcoding for the foreseeable future.
exasperating things are the continuous stream of new users, or even existing users who are jumping on the 4k bandwagon, without understanding the entirety of the situation, and expecting everything to ‘just work’ like it did with good old x264.
and then there is the client factor, of which there are only 2 viable clients for direct play of most all of the 4k content (ie shield/xbox), and all the new smart tvs that people buy are hamstrung by 100meg ethernet ports and incompatibility of HD audio, confusion over how much of a solution EARC is (ie not much), and then toss the mess of multiple different dolby vision profiles/levels of compatibility.
‘it works on netflix etc, but not plex’ /sigh
there is still a big stinking mess of 4k, with no end in sight.
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I disagree. We’ve already reached the “end”. Gig ethernet has been standard for MANY years with 2.5Gbe becoming more standard now with 10Gbe and up working into enthusiast builds giving local playback no issues as far as bandwidth.
As far as transcoding, a cheap gpu is very attainable and works flawlessly. For instance I have a 1660 that transcodes without issue. As well modern quicksync does very well I hear.
Sure people diving in without any knowledge are going to run into issues going for the best right away with old hardware, but that applies to any field, and we should be encouraging research and providing information, not discouraging everyone from doing it.
I transcode hevc/h265 daily without issues. Why? One might ask. Because on my shield I can direct play to my 4k projector and 7.1 atmos setup. But I also enjoy stuff on the go. I want the best at home and don’t care about on the go so long as it works. And it does flawlessly.
gig ethernet may be standard on PC and other devices, however there are no known TVS (including MOST streaming devices other than shield/xbox) that have gb ethernet. They all have 100meg ethernet and/or wifi.
Of course, if you read the first post, it is stated as such, that gpu transcoding has becoming easier, however that does not change the facts I present in the previous post about existing systems/new users/client compatibilities, etc.
I have a 1650 myself for gpu transcoding, which I need, for an old dual xeon with 24 cores.
Even though it is possible, and has become easier, does not change the fact that it is not simple, or plug and play, unless you already have/or get, the right hardware (and a plex pass).
I mean TV streaming on its own is just plain bad to begin with which is a whole other topic. But wifi speeds now are more than sufficient to stream high bitrate. My shield had its ethernet unplugged for a few months before I noticed the cable hanging and I saw no difference in direct playback 4k/atmos over wifi.
It is very simple and plug/play IMO. Slap the card in. Install drivers. Buy plex pass. Done.
Everything regarding plex is an investment. And as long as we provide information to people it helps them understand the requirements and costs of their decisions and people can make their own minds up.
But all the 4k transcode hate/discouragement is obnoxious and I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. It, for a long time made me hesitant to even mention I did it, Because all I saw was “omg you so dumb, haha silly 4k transcoder”
Hi, the original post makes a case about keeping 1080p/720p content along with 4k. But… how would I do that with a plex and sonarr/radarr setup? Anyone have experience doing that? Sonarr/Radarr won’t keep two video files in the plex folder.
If I setup two sonarr/radarr instances, one for 4k and one for 1080p, can that target one plex library, or do I need separate plex libraries two?
And if I have separate plex libraries, one for 4k movies, and one for non 4k movies, how does that look for a plex user? Does the UI show two copies of the movie side by side, or one with both 4k and 1080p?
Oh I just realized you can list multiple folders in a plex library. So in my Movies library I could have a /Movies folder and also a /Movies4K folder. So this answers my last question.
But is multiple instances of sonarr/radarr the way to go?
I was also looking at tdarr, but I’d rather not have my GPU do work if I can just download it.
sonarr/radarr q/a are not appropriate in this forum.
as far as separate 4k/other, you can do either, or both.
multiple versions of the same movie within the same library, will be ‘stacked’, and plex should normally play the most appropriate file for the client.
if you use separate libraries, then the videos will be separated by the library.
