Am I missing something here?
Even on an Apple TV Plex will only mux the container from .mkv to .mp4 at pretty much zero server resource usage.
There is no transcoding of the file itself so there is zero quality loss.
Generally though as already mentioned for anyone with a HD audio capable receiver there isn’t even a discussion to be had on which format has most compatibility. In fact, never mind a discussion, there isn’t even a choice.
I am curious though about which Plex client doesn’t happily direct play an mkv file nowadays. (The above mentioned muxing of the container aside with Apple products.)
@JDs_HomeCinema.
Please don’t start running all your files through handbrake until you have purchased the Apple TV and at least tried your files in their existing mkv container.
I have zero issues with even HDR 4K HEVC files on my Apple TV 4K, nor am I aware of anyone else on these forums that has recently.
(Takuya himself stated about his experience with mkv was a few years ago. A lot has changed in that time.)
I already have an Apple TV 4K and it does play .mkv files but not large .mkv files. If I play a file which is 1080p .mkv trough Apple TV 4K there is no problem.
Only if the file is 30 GB+ than I have to lower the quality on medium or low 1080p to be able to watch, the same for the 4K content. Maybe I wrote it wrong since I come from Austria and English is not my first language, sorry.
However, My server is located on my iMac connected via WIFI and Apple TV box is connected directly to the router, I tried connecting iMac to the router as well but there was no difference. That is why I decided to get NAS storage like Synology or Western Digital and install my Plex Server there and watch movies without using iMac. Maybe is my iMac just not powerful enough to send all the data to Apple TV, because my Internet connection is not the worst one. It’s 20 Mbs download and 5-6 Mbs upload.
I think that if I get Synology that everything will work, because I want to watch the content in the original quality that is somehow the point of having 4K TV and speakers and so on, right? Apple TV already plays all of my .mkv files just not the large one, or I have to lower the quality, And maybe Plex transcodes the files while sending it from my iMac to the Apple TV, that is something I do not know. Because when I play it directly on iMac with plex media player, zero problems
@JDs_HomeCinema your internet speed has no effect on local network streaming. I think you’ll have better experience using iMac instead of a NAS for your Plex server
30GB file… you’re probably looking at 30Mb/s video stream with 2Mb/s audio stream for the average movie length. Is your wifi up to snuff? Have you run any speed test to make sure you can get enough bandwidth over wifi? If you have a lot of other people around you using wifi (creates noise) it’ll cause lots of issues with speed.
It happens to all movie files which are bigger than aprox. 20GB not just 4K it’s also a 1080p file it’ a large file. I talk about 4K because majority of my content is 4K 5.1 or 7.1 Dolby Atmos. And these files sometimes have up tp 50 GB.
It is frustrating when you have the content all the devices which support 4K and everything but you can not watch it in it’s original quality.
I use Speedtest by Oakley to check the speed, I said it is aprox. 20 Mbs download. My speed is max 80 Mbs when connected directly to the router. When I run Speedtest on my Apple TV it says 80 Mbs download 6 Mbs upload, on iMac (connected via WIFI) max 40Mbs download and 5 Mbs upload
and yeah others are conncected but no to many devices, smartphone or iPad, but that is not much to take into consideration
Do you have enough hardware on the network to run a LAN speed test from the iMac, like this one: Totusoft | LAN Speed Test
Test the iMac’s upload speed. You’ll need a storage folder somewhere else that the iMac can upload to. And maybe test the drive speed, in case it is failing or something.
Normally a hard drive should be way faster than the UHD Blu-ray spec, but you never know.
Also, from another thread, you might try downloading some different bitrate HEVC-10bit files from http://jell.yfish.us/ to see if it is a bitrate issue or actually a maximum file size issue.
What Manufacturer/model number is this router?
Playing media in your home has nothing to do with your internet speeds.
Your IMac would barely have enough juice to play 4K files that aren’t in a compatible format. Guess you will be re-encoding all your media.
